Author: Garrick, David
Biography:
GARRICK, David (1717-79: ODNB)
The preeminent actor of his generation, David Garrick was also a playwright and poet. He was the third of seven children born to Captain Peter Garrick (1685-1737) and his wife Arabella Clough (d 1740). Although the family lived in Lichfield, Staffordshire, Garrick was born in Hereford on 19 Feb. 1717 and baptised there on 28 Feb. He was educated at Lichfield grammar school and, from 1735, at Edial Hall, run by Samuel Johnson (q.v.). On 2 Mar. 1737 Garrick and Johnson moved to London where on 9 Mar. Garrick was registered as a law student at Lincoln’s Inn. Peter Garrick died at about this time (he was buried on 11 Mar. 1737 in Lichfield Cathedral) and, abandoning his law studies, Garrick and his elder brother, Peter, opened a wine business. His first play, Lethe, was written in 1740 for an actor friend, Henry Giffard, and in the same year Garrick made his stage debut at an unlicensed theatre operated by Giffard. Garrick went to Dublin in 1742 where he acted in the Smock Alley theatre and met Peg Woffington, an actor who moved to London with him. Garrick’s career as an actor took off with his engagement by Drury Lane theatre. Garrick moved into theatre management when he and James Lacy purchased the patent of Drury Lane on 9 Apr. 1747. On 22 June 1749 at St. Giles-in-the-Fields he married Eva Maria Veigel, an Austrian dancer known as Eva Maria Violette in England who had moved to London in 1746. They had no children. Garrick’s success made them wealthy and they owned a London home with an impressive library and collection of art, and other properties. Garrick continued to act and to write, including revised editions of Shakespeare’s plays. His fame spread: during a grand tour of Europe in 1763-65 Garrick was everywhere received as a celebrity. He retired from acting on 10 June 1776 and subsequently sold his share of the Drury Lane patent. In 1772 he and Eva had moved to Adelphi Terrace, London, and he died there on 20 Jan. 1779 from a kidney blockage. The funeral was on 1 Feb. with burial in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, beside Samuel Johnson. His wife was buried with him when she died in 1822. (ODNB 23 Aug. 2024; ancestry.co.uk 23 Aug. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 23 Aug. 2024; Records of the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn [1896]) SR
Other Names:
- D. Garrick