Author: Milner, H. M.
Biography:
MILNER, H. M. (d 1836; findmypast.com)
It is surprising to find so little personal information available about an extraordinarily prolific and successful writer for the London stage, but Milner was associated almost exclusively with popular theatres and with the minor genre of melodrama. His first name was almost certainly Henry but nothing is known of his origins or parentage. He published as “H. M. Milner” until about 1831 when newspaper notices begin to call him “H. Milner.” The first references to him coincide with the opening in 1818 of the new Royal Coburg Theatre on Waterloo Road (later the Old Vic), which was dedicated to melodrama. He could read modern languages, and many of his farces, melodramas, tragedies, and hippodramas were adapted from works in French, German, or Italian—as in the case of his prose tragedy The Philosopher (1819) and his “musical drama” Masaniello (1824). He also drew freely and openly on contemporary British writers such as Walter Scott, George Croly, Byron, and Mary Shelley (qq.v.). Two of his greatest successes were Frankenstein (1826) and Mazeppa (1823). He also sometimes drew on current events, as in the two-act Hertfordshire Tragedy (1824). For the most part his plays were in prose, but a few combined prose and verse and it is likely that his work is under-represented in this bibliography. The Royal Coburg commissioned dozens of works from him, and he undertook occasional work for other theatres as well. When the nearby Royal Amphitheatre (Astley’s) opened under new management in 1832, offering huge spectacles with gymnasts, dancers, acrobats, and “a whole stud” of horses, Milner was included as part of the core staff, as Treasurer and writer. He must have married and he certainly died in the early months of 1836, since a final newspaper announcement is concerned with his widow’s plans for a benefit. It is possible that his wife was Elizabeth Harper, who married Henry Milner on 12 Dec. 1816 at Shoreditch, London; they do not appear to have had children. No official record of his death or burial has been found. (findmypast.com 17 Feb. 2024; ancestry.com 17 Feb. 2024; Allardyce Nicoll, A History of English Drama 1660-1900 [2009], 599; Liverpool Albion 22 Oct. 1832; Age [London] 20 May 1836)