A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 14, S. Siddons to Thynne: Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800 PDF
Preview A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 14, S. Siddons to Thynne: Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & title: Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660- 1800. Vol. 14, Siddons to Thyme Highfill, Philip H.; Burnim, Kalman A.; author: Langhans, Edward A. publisher: Southern Illinois University Press isbn10 | asin: 0809315262 print isbn13: 9780809315260 ebook isbn13: 9780585030043 language: English Performing arts--England--London-- Biography--Dictionaries, Actors--England-- London--Biography--Dictionaries, subject Theatrical managers--England--London-- Biography--Dictionaries, London (England)--Biography--Dictionaries. publication date: 1991 lcc: PN2597.H54 1991eb ddc: 790.2/092 Performing arts--England--London-- Biography--Dictionaries, Actors--England-- London--Biography--Dictionaries, subject: Theatrical managers--England--London-- Biography--Dictionaries, London (England)--Biography--Dictionaries. Page i National Gallery, London SARAH SIDDONS by Gainsborough Page ii A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 16601800 Volume 14: S. Siddons to Thynne by PHILIP H. HIGHFILL, JR., KALMAN A. BURNIM and EDWARD A. LANGHANS SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS CARBONDALE AND EDWARDSVILLE Page iii Copyright © 1991 by the board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Designed by Andor Braun and George Lenox Publication of this work was made possible in part through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data (Revised for Vol. 14) Highfill, Philip H. A biographical dictionary of actors, actresses, musicians, dancers, managers & other stage personnel in London, 16601800. Includes biographical references. 1. Performing artsEnglandLondonBiographyDictionaries. 2. Actors EnglandLondonBiographyDictionaries. 3. Theatrical managersEngland LondonBiographyDictionaries. 4. London (England)BiographyDictionaries. I. Burnim, Kalman A., joint author. II. Langhans, Edward A., joint author. III. Title. PN2597.H5 790.2'092'2 {B} 71157068 ISBN 0809315262 Page iv Volume 14 S. Siddons to Thynne Page 1 S Siddons, Mrs William, Sarah, née Kemble 17551831, actress, singer. Sarah Kemble was born at the Shoulder of Mutton Inn in Brecon, Wales, on 5 July 1755, the first of 12 children of the provincial manager Roger Kemble. Her mother Sarah Ward was an actress and the daughter of John and Sarah Ward, managers of a respected company of itinerant players. Sarah's brother John Philip Kemble became the premier actor and manager of his period. Her brothers Charles and Stephen and her sisters Frances (Mrs Francis Twiss), Elizabeth (Mrs Charles Whitlock), and Julia Ann (Mrs William Hatton) all performed in London and are noticed in this Dictionary. Her sister Jane (Mrs Henry Mason) was not on the London stage in the eighteenth century but she acted in the provinces in the 1790s. The surname Kemble, often interchangeable with Campbell, was common in Herefordshire and Wiltshire, where earlier members of the family, having remained loyalists, lost lands. The best-known ancestor was Father John Kemble (1599?1679), who was executed for complicity in the Titus Oates plot. Information on the family background is given in the notice of Roger Kemble in volume 8 of this Dictionary. Sarah's certificate of baptism, copied from the registry of St Mary's in Brecon and dated 14 July 1755, incorrectly listed her father's Christian name as George. Sarah's father Roger Kemble had been trained as a barrister, but in 1752, at the age of 30, he turned actor and was soon engaged in John Ward's company at Birmingham. At Cirencester on 6 June 1753 he married Sarah Ward, his manager's seventeen-year-old daughter. Her mother, also an actress, was the daughter of Mr and Mrs Stephen Butcher, provincial players. It was to her mother's line that Sarah Kemble owed her beauty and her aristocratic bearing. Though originally John Ward had objected to his daughter's marrying an actor, eventually Roger Kemble was accepted and with his wife toured in Ward's company for about eight years. It was at Brecon, while the company was touring Wales in 1755, that their first child was born. Sarah was baptized a Protestant, the persuasion of her mother, as were all the subsequent Kemble daughters. The sons were raised as Catholics, like their father. Sarah's education was received on the move, at day schools in Worcester, Wolverhampton, and other towns throughout England's western and northern circuits where the Kembles resided for short periods, as they played in inns, barns, and ill-equipped playhouses. In the spring of 1766 when John Ward retired to Leominster, Roger Kemble took over the management of the company. His family grew and his business prospered well enough, though Thomas Holcroft, a onetime member of the troupe, said it was "more respectable than many other companies of strolling players; but it was not in so flourishing a condition as to place the manager beyond the reach of immediate smiles or frowns of fortune." While at Mrs Harris's school for young ladies, called Thornlea House, in Worcester, young Sarah received some rebuffs because she was the child of a stroller, but she displayed talent and resourcefulness in school theatricals. Though Roger Kemble wished for none of his children to go upon the stage, each surviving one did, and all except Frances married performers. The well-known playbill of a performance of Charles the First at the King's Head, Worcester, on 12 February 1767 records five Kembles in the cast: Roger as Colonel Fairfax, Mrs Kemble as Lucy Fairfax, John Philip as the Duke of York, Frances as the Duke of Gloucester, and Sarah as Princess Elizabeth. But the children had been coming onto provincial stages before that time. The company had been at Coventry from August to December 1766, and the Coventry Mercury of 22 December 1766 records Sarah's first known role, Ariel in The Tempest, a part she did not recollect when telling her life-story to Thomas Campbell, her official biographer. After remaining in Coventry during part of January, Kemble's brood went to Worcester, where they settled from mid-January to July 1767. Performing Princess Elizabeth in Charles the First, at Worcester on 12 February 1767, Miss Kemble also sang during the musical program which legitimized the evening (the play was performed "gratis" between the parts of the concert). Also in Charles the First, playing the Duke of Richmond, was William Siddons, her future husband. At Worcester that season Sarah also performed Rosetta in Love in a Village. (That night admission was granted Page 2 Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery SARAH SIDDONS, as the TRAGIC MUSE by Reynolds
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