Author: Knowles, James Sheridan
Biography:
KNOWLES, James Sheridan (1784-1862: ODNB)
He was the eldest surviving child of James Knowles, a lexicographer and schoolmaster, and Jane (Peace) Knowles, and was born at Cork. His second name is derived from Richard Brinsley Sheridan, a cousin of his father. He was initially educated at his father’s school but in 1793 the family moved to London. There, his early attempts at writing earned him the attention of William Hazlitt, a family acquaintance, who introduced him to Coleridge and Charles Lamb. In 1800, after his mother’s death and his father’s remarriage, he left home and briefly spent time in the military. Although he later earned his MD at the University of Aberdeen, in 1808 he abandoned medicine for the theatre; thereafter he both acted (never very successfully) and wrote plays. In 1809 he married Maria Charteris of Edinburgh and, to support their family, he supplemented his income from the theatre by teaching in Belfast and Glasgow, writing for the Glasgow Free Press, and lecturing on oratory and drama. His tragedy, Caius Gracchus, was first performed in Belfast in 1815 and marked a turning point in his career as a playwright. Over the next two decades he came to be recognised as a leading dramatist of the day. In 1842, a year after the death of his first wife, he married Emma Marian Maria Elphinstone. At about the same time, he unexpectedly took up a new career as a Baptist preacher—something he continued almost until his death. He served on the committee charged with arranging the purchase of Shakespeare’s birthplace in 1848. He died at Torquay and was buried in the Glasgow necropolis. (ODNB 25 Sept 2019)