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Author: Kemble, John Philip

Biography:

KEMBLE, John Philip (1757-1823: ODNB)

He was the second child and eldest son of Roger and Sarah (Ward) Kemble and was born at Prescot, Lancashire, into the world of provincial theatre where both parents were touring players (his mother also the daughter of a company manager). Since they were of different faiths, they agreed that their sons would be raised as Roman Catholics like their father and their daughters as Methodists like their mother. From 1771 to 1775, J. P. Kemble accordingly attended the English College at Douai, where he acquired fluent French along with a good classical education. On his return to England, he followed his sister Sarah Siddons onto the stage, first with touring companies based in the north of England--Liverpool and York--then with the Smock Alley company in Dublin (1781-3), and then at Drury Lane in London (1783-1802). In 1788 he married another actor, the widow Priscilla (Hopkins) Brereton; they had no children. Kemble became the most celebrated tragic actor of his generation, frequently performing together with his sister, and he served from 1788-96 as acting manager of the theatre with considerable success. But he was also often at odds with the manager and proprietor R. B. Sheridan (q.v.) and in 1802 he left Drury Lane to become a partner and performer at Covent Garden. With waning popularity and increasing ill health, however, he made his final performance there as Coriolanus on 23 June 1817 and retired to the Continent, settling first at Toulouse and then at Lausanne, where he died after a stroke in 1823. His early volume of poems was an experiment not repeated, his long list of later publications consisting mainly of adaptations of the work of other dramatists, especially Shakespeare; of a little original writing for the stage; and of some dramatic criticism. (ODNB 4 Apr. 2021; ancestry.com 5 Apr. 2021; WorldCat)

 

Other Names:

  • J. P. Kemble
 

Books written (1):

York: [no publisher: printed "For the Author" by W. Blanchard], 1780