Author: Colman, George, the elder
Biography:
COLMAN, George, the elder (1732-94: ODNB)
Colman was born in Florence, Italy, to Francis Colman, the British envoy to the Court of Tuscany, and his wife Mary Gumley, and was baptised on 18 Apr. 1732. His parents had married in London on 29 July 1720. Mary Colman was the sister-in-law of William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath, and he later oversaw George Colman’s education. After Francis Colman’s death in 1733, the family returned to England and moved to a house in St. James’s Park, London. Colman was admitted to Westminster School in Oct. 1741. He became a King’s Scholar in 1746 and matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, on 5 June 1751 (BA 1755, MA 1758). Admitted to Lincoln’s Inn on 14 Jan. 1752, he was called to the bar on 24 Jan. 1757. Colman had begun writing for periodicals while at Oxford and in Jan. 1754 the inaugural number of a weekly, The Connoisseur, managed by Colman and Bonnell Thornton, appeared; it ran until 1756. The two also collaborated on Poems by Eminent Ladies (1755). His friendship with David Garrick led to involvement with the theatre. His Polly Honeycombe was staged at Drury Lane in 1760, followed by The Jealous Wife in 1761. He abandoned his legal practice and embraced writing plays and musical entertainments for the theatre. His The Fairy Prince, listed here, was first performed on 12 Nov. 1771 with music by Thomas Augustine Arne. Colman was also a successful manager successively of Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and—most notably—the Haymarket. Colman began living with Sarah Ford and her daughter Harriet in about 1761; their son, George Colman the younger (q.v.), was born in 1762. Colman married Sarah in St. John’s, Horsleydown, Bermondsey, on 12 July 1768. She died in 1771 and later he lived with Sophia Croker or Croaker; Colman may have transferred to her the ownership of his house in Gower Street, London, as early as 1785 when she is named on the tax records for the property. Colman also built a villa, Bath House, in Richmond, Surrey. He suffered from declining health and in June 1789 he had a fit which caused him to be declared a lunatic. His son arranged for him to be well cared for and he died on 14 Aug. 1794 in Paddington. He was buried at St. Mary Abbot’s, Kensington. (ODNB 22 Apr. 2024; ancestry.co.uk 22 Apr. 2024; National Archives, UK, PROB-11-1252-193; Westminster School Archives) SR
Other Names:
- George Colman