According to the Internet source given below, Ellen "Nellie" Farren was an English actress and singer born in Lancashire to a theatrical family.
She is chiefly remembered for her roles as the "principal boy" in musical burlesques at the Gaiety Theatre. She began acting as a child making her professional adult debut in 1864 by joining the company at London's Olympic Theatre. There she performed in Shakespearean dramas, contemporary comedies,and musical burlesques. She performed at the Gaiety Theatre from 1868 to 1892 in male and principal boy roles in musical burlesque
Farren created the roles for Gilbert and Sullivan, Dion Boucicault, Anthony Trollope and Charles Dickens among others. In the 1880s, she created roles in Gaiety burlesques with musical scores by Meyer Lutz, often written by Fred Leslie. Some of her most famous of these later roles were the title characters in Little Jack Sheppard and Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué.
An attack of rheumatic fever in 1891 forced to retire from the stage in 1892. A widely attended benefit gala for her at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1898. raised the astonishing sum of £7,000 (equivalent to £786,000 in 2019) for her retirement.
She died in London

Websites:
	Nellie Farren	Biography by wikipedia.org.