John Baldwin Buckstone
John Baldwin Buckstone (14 September 1802 – 31 October 1879) was an English actor, playwright and comedian who wrote 150 plays, the first of which was produced in 1826.
He starred as a comic actor during much of his career for various periods at the
Biography
Buckstone was born in Hoxton, London, the son of John Buckstone, a retired shopkeeper, and his wife Elizabeth (née Baldwin).[1][2] He was educated at Walworth Grammar School and was briefly apprenticed on a naval ship at age 10 but returned to school. He studied law and was articled to a solicitor but turned to acting by age 19.[3]
Early career
Buckstone first joined a travelling troupe in 1821 as Gabriel in The Children in the Wood.[4] and toured for three years, mostly in the southeast of England. He found a mentor in Edmund Kean. He made his first London appearance, on 30 January 1823, at the Surrey Theatre, as Ramsay in The Fortunes of Nigel. In 1824 he joined that theatre and played Peter Smink in The Armistice with great success. He also began to write plays.[5]
His successes led to his engagement in 1827 at the Adelphi Theatre, where he remained as the leading low comedian until 1833. Buckstone's acting was described as "a union of shrewdness and drollery, with their interaction upon each other ... was irresistibly comic."[6] Buckstone wrote most of his plays in the first half of his career, and many of these were produced at the Adelphi. As his acting career reached the height of its success, his playwriting output declined.[7] At the Adelphi, he appeared as Bobby Trot in his first really successful play, the melodrama Luke the Labourer (1827), which he had written in 1826.[7] Other well known plays were Wreck Ashore (1830) and Forgery (1832)[3] Perhaps the most successful of these early plays was his 1833 play, The Bravo, based on James Fenimore Cooper's novel of the same name.[4]
Peak years
He first appeared at the
In 1839–40 he returned to the Adelphi to write and star in a number of plays, including his extraordinarily successful play
For the Haymarket, in 1848, he wrote and played in An Alarming Sacrifice, Leap Year and A Serious Family. During this period, he memorably played Moses in Stirling Coyne's adaptation of
Actor-manager of the Haymarket
Buckstone became lessee of the Haymarket from 1853 to 1877. For this theatre, he continued to write plays and
In the 1850s, Buckstone produced An Unequal Match and Taylor's The Overland Route, A Hero of Romance by Westland Marston, and Home by Robertson.
Personal life, death and ghost
Buckstone was first married in 1828 to Anne Maria Honeyman,[11] with whom he had at least five children[12] before she died in 1844.[13] Their son Frederick was an actor.[10] For many years, Buckstone was closely associated with the actress Fanny Copeland Fitzwilliam, who was widowed in 1852 and whom he was engaged to marry in 1854. She died of cholera a month before the wedding.[14] In 1857 Buckstone married Fanny's cousin Isabella Copeland, the great-niece of the theatre manager Robert Copeland, and they had 12 children between 1857 and 1876.[15] Their daughter Lucy Isabella Buckstone and their sons John Copeland Buckstone and Rowland Buckstone also took to the stage.[16]
After three years of ill health, Buckstone died at his home, Bell Green Lodge, in Lower
According to director Nigel Everett and stagehands at the Haymarket Theatre, Buckstone's ghost has often been seen at the theatre, particularly during comedies and "when he appreciates things" playing there.[18] In 2009, The Daily Telegraph reported that the actor Patrick Stewart saw the ghost standing in the wings during a performance of Waiting for Godot at the Haymarket.[18]
Notes
- ^ London and Surrey, England, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1597–1921 for Elizabeth Baldwin, Ancestry.com (pay to view)
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, January 2008, accessed 3 January 2015
- ^ a b c d e f g h i The Times, 1 November 1879, p. 5
- ^ a b c New York Times obituary, p. 2, 1 November 1879
- ^ Waddy, Frederick. Cartoon Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Men of the Day, Tinsley brothers: London (1873)
- ^ Marston, Westland. Our Recent Actors (Boston, 1888), vol. II, p. 90
- ^ a b Stedman, Jane W. "General Utility: Victorian Author-Actors from Knowles to Pinero", Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 24, No. 3, October 1972, pp. 289–301, The Johns Hopkins University Press
- ^ Box and Cox
- ^ The Times, 2 May 1871, p. 12
- ^ a b "Haymarket Theatre". London Evening Standard. 21 July 1868. p. 2.
- ^ Parish Register (marriages) of St John the Evangelist, Lambeth, 1828, p. 168, No.502; London Metropolitan Archives
- ^ Parish Registers (births) of: St John the Evangelist, Lambeth; St Mary, Lambeth; Holy Trinity, Brompton; Caterham Church (Bishop's Transcripts); London Metropolitan Archives
- ^ Register of Deaths Index, 1844 Q3, vol. 3, p. 89, General Register Office, London
- ^ Knight, Joseph. "Fitzwilliam, Fanny Elizabeth (1801–1854)", rev. J. Gilliland, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press (2004), accessed 3 January 2015
- ^ General Register Office, London, for the years from 1857 to 1876
- ^ Parker, John. "Buckstone, J. C.", Who's Who in the Theatre, 1916, p. 71. Retrieved 29 July 2013
- ^ "The late JR Buckstone". Dundee Evening Telegraph. 7 November 1879. p. 2.
- ^ a b Adams, Stephen. "Patrick Stewart saw ghost performing Waiting for Godot", The Daily Telegraph, 25 August 2009
References
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Buckstone, John Baldwin". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
External links
- Anonymous (1873). "J. B. Buckstone". Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day. Illustrated by Frederick Waddy. London: Tinsley Brothers. pp. 116–117.
- Works by John Baldwin Buckstone at Project Gutenberg
- Portraits of John Baldwin Buckstone at the National Portrait Gallery, London