LADY ANNE BARNARD (LADY ANNE LINDSAY)
During the last years of her life, Lady Anne Barnard lived at No. 21 (stated in Boyle (1795) as No. 26), next door to Cibber's house. She was the daughter of the Earl of Balcarres – and, as Lady Anne Lindsay, is remembered as the authoress of the song "Auld Robin Gray," published in 1772.
On one occasion she amusingly referred to the great popularity of that ballad as being exemplified by an exhibition of the ballet of Auld Robin Gray performed under her window in Berkeley Square by dancing dogs!
She was hugely delighted by Sir Walter Scott's reference to her song in The Pirate, and writing from Berkeley Square to Sir Walter, she asked him to "convey to the author of Waverley, with whom I am informed you are personally acquainted, how gratefully I feel the kindness with which he has so eminently noticed, and by his powerful authority assigned, the long contested ballad to its real author."