Henry Fielding's satirical tragedy Tom Thumb was first produced at London's Haymarket Theatre on 14th April 1730. The play focuses on Tom Thumb, a character who is small in both size and status and who arrives at King Arthur's court showing off giants that he defeated. As a reward, Arthur grants Tom the hand of princess Huncamunca, which upsets both his wife, Dollalolla, and a member of the court, Grizzle.

Miss Rose, or Rose de Franchetti (?b.1764) made her debut at the Haymarket Theatre in June 1769 and first played the title role of Fielding's Tom Thumb there on 7th August 1769, receiving good reviews an a certain amount of celebrity and going on to play the Duke of York in Richard lll on 14th August. She regularly spoke prologue and epilogues, and was engaged again at the Haymarket the following year when she played Tom Thumb on the 19th December 1770 and on the 4th March 1771. At her Benefit on 4th August 1771 she was described on the playbill as: 'near 6 years old', although the age of so-called 'child prodigies' was often reduced to make their precocious acting ability appear all the more miraculous. She disappears from the theatre after her 1771 Benefit. Her departure is shrouded in persistent accusations by her mother, Elizabeth de Franchetti, that she was being blackballed by the powerful theatre managers David Garrick and Samuel Foote, who for some reason refused to employ her despite her talent. After lingering a few years on the London entertainment scene of concerts, she drops out of historical view altogether before she is nine years old.