Author: Carey, George Saville
Biography:
CAREY, George Saville (1738-1807: ancestry.co.uk)
He was the son of Henry Carey, a poet, and his wife Sarah. (Henry Carey claimed to be the illegitimate son of George Savile, marquess of Halifax; he gave his sons “Saville” as a middle name.) Although the ODNB says he was born in 1743 shortly before his father’s suicide, public records indicate that he was born at Clerkenwell on 11 November 1738 and baptised in St. James’s church there on 3 Dec. 1738. He trained as a printer but took up acting and was a great success as a mimic and lecturer, travelling throughout the country to give performances. He wrote numerous plays, operas, and a popular description of watering-places in England which went to three editions. He was twice married: to Mary Ann Phipps in the church of St. Dunstan in the West, City of London, on 5 July 1760 (their daughter was the mother of the celebrated actor Edmund Kean), and to Sarah Gillo in Salisbury on 10 July 1789. He was twice awarded five guineas by the RLF, in Nov. 1801 and May 1804. The RLF file does not contain the usual application form but it includes one letter of sponsorship from John Wheble which refers to Carey’s ill-health and straightened circumstances. Carey was giving a series of entertainments in London when he died suddenly of a stroke on 14 July 1807; his financial affairs were such that his funeral at St. George’s, Bloomsbury, on 21 July was at his friends’ expense. (ODNB 10 May 2019; ancestry.co.uk 10 May 2019, 13 Nov. 2022; British Press 17 July 1807; RLF file 114) SR
Other Names:
- G. S. Carey