A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & title: Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660- 1800. Vol. 1, Abaco to Belfille Highfill, Philip H.; Burnim, Kalman A.; author: Langhans, Edward A. publisher: Southern Illinois University Press isbn10 | asin: 0809305178 print isbn13: 9780809305179 ebook isbn13: 9780585030319 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: 1973 lcc: PN2597.H54 1973eb 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 ii Frances Abington as Thalia, the Comic Muse by Reynolds The National Trust, Waddesdon Manor Page iii A Biographical Dictionary Of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel In London, 1660-1800 Volume 1: Abaco to Belfille by Philip H. Highfill, Jr. Kalman A. Burnim and Edward A. Langhans SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS CARBONDALE AND EDWARDSVILLE Page iv Copyright © 1973 by Southern Illinois University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Designed by Andor Braun and George Lenox International Standard Book Number 0809305186 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 71157068 Page v FOR MOLLY VERNA FRANCES Page vii Preface The purpose of these volumes is to provide brief biographical notices of all persons who were members of theatrical companies or occasional performers or were patentees or servants of the patent theatres, opera houses, amphitheatres, pleasure gardens, theatrical taverns, music rooms, fair booths, and other places of public entertainment in London and its immediate environs from the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 until the end of the season 17991800. The authors recognize the impossibility of achieving this end. No one knows precisely how many people were engaged in entertaining the London public during these 140 years. We have found at least some information on probably more than 8,500 individuals. We hope that this information will be augmented when our entries are seen by specialists in eighteenth-century theatre and drama; but it is not likely that the number of persons now known surely or conjectured fairly to have been connected with theatrical enterprises in this period will ever be increased considerably. We have included actors and actresses, dancers, singers, instrumental musicians, scene painters, machinists, management officials, prompters, acrobats, contortionists, pyrotechnists, magicians, dwarfs, freaks, animal trainers, strong men, public orators, mimics, dressers, callers, concessionaires, and also members of certain trades operating on salary and within the physical confines of the theatressuch employees as tailors, carpenters, and barbers. Our definition excludes the hordes of amateur actors stricken with the cacoethes ludendi, declaiming in the "spouting clubs" and posturing in private theatricals (though we record the involvement of professionals in these entertainments). Neither have we admitted the many dramatic authors who, for pelf and publicity, acted in their own plays, unless they were at some time bona fide actors in addition to being playwrights. (Non-acting authors as a theatrical class have been denied admission for reasons obvious to anyone who will consider the bibliographical and critical implications of their inclusion.) Finally, we have excluded a few amateurs who were allowed to play prominent roles at benefits given them in compassion to some distressbeing widowed, orphaned, or threatened with debtors' gaol, rendered destitute by acts of God, or being physically disabled. It will suffice to give one rather striking example, that of "Dr. Clancy, who is Blind," as the playbill announced, and who played Tiresias, the blind prophet in Oedipus, King of Thebes at Drury Lane on 2 April 1744: This Gentleman being deprived of the Advantages of following his profession, and as the writing he had produced for the stage could not be brought out this season, the Master of the Playhouse has been so kind as to favour him with a Benefit Night: It is therefore hoped, that as this will be the first instance of any person laboring under so heavy a deprivation, performing on the stage, the Novelty, as well as the Unhappyness of his case, will engage the favour and protection of a BRITISH AUDIENCE. There were also professionals among the dancers and musicians who were very closely related to the life of the theatres but Page viii who are not represented because they never performed. Principally these were teachers. A good example would be "Mr. Cavellier {Caverley}, Master of the Boarding-School in Queen Square" when he died in October 1745 at age 104. He had taught generations of stage dancers, including Kellom Tomlinson, but he never was on stage. We have provided information about several hundred Restoration Court musicians, most of whom are not recorded in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians.1 There is ample proof that some of these people also performed, usually with (but occasionally without) royal permission, at public concerts and theatres; but for many we find no certain evidence of performances away from the Court. Rather than consign these partially documented musicians to oblivion, we have included them, hoping that future research will bear out our conjecture that most Court employees, because their wages were so often in arrears, sought supplementary employment. Though we have recorded equestrians at the amphitheatres, sporting figures such as pugilists and swordsmen are not listed unless they appeared onstage in some regular dramatic performance or as a subsidiary part of a bill which was predominantly dramatic or musical in nature. We have allowed entry to a few animals which performed, like the monkey General Jackoo, Moustache the Marvelous Poodle, and Nippotate the Tame Hedgehog. But we have excluded anonymous fauna like Costello's dogs. We have excluded "sleeping partners"people who provided financial backing but were neuters so far as the active direction of production was concerned (like Congreve at the Queen's Theatre)as well as financial partners who briefly attempted more active management of affairs but who were prevented from interfering by their professional partners (Rutherford, Dagge, Leake, and Mrs Powell, for example, in the early troubled years of Colman's management at Covent Garden). Selection of matter for inclusion in each entry has been difficult, and we have followed no rules more invariable than those imposed by the general principles of accuracy, usefulness, and interest. There are hundreds of people about whom we know very little. For some of these almost every fact that we have found has been set down in the hope that later identification may be assisted. From these virtual anonyms on up to the celebrities about whom far more is known than is convenient to include in a compendium, each of our individuals required a different treatment. The ideal entry should perhaps contain: date and place of births, christening, marriages, death, and burial, and inclusive dates and places of residences and of careers; information about spouses and children; first and last appearance; involvement in notable occurrences onstage; habitual "lines" of character; assessments of professional worth from respectable contemporary reviews; salaries; pseudonyms; theatrical offices; associations and liaisons; clubs; honors; other occupations; and creative contributions, including writing, painting, choreography, and musical composition. For very few of our subjects, of course, can information in even a majority of the applicable categories be provided. An effort has been made to follow many British performers to foreign engagements and into the nineteenth century, but we do not claim exhaustive treatment for foreign performers or for those whose careers were principally outside our terminal dates. We hope that we have been restrained in our employment of anecdotes, which are abundant and, often, apocryphal. It has sometimes been necessary to report a good but fictitious story of widespread currency in order to impeach it. Separating an actor from his legends is, after all, a delicate and painful operation not only because some excellent stories may be true but because most are at least illustrative of traits of character and thus possess some inner