Author: Planché, James Robinson
Biography:
PLANCHÉ, James Robinson (1796-1880: ODNB)
The son of a watchmaker, he was born at Old Burlington St., Piccadilly, London, on 27 Feb. 1796 and baptised on 24 Mar. His parents Catherine Emily (Planché) and Jacques or James Planché were first cousins, both descended from Huguenot refugees, and the language spoken at home was French. He was apprenticed to a bookseller in 1810 after an early education that included a boarding-school at Chelsea, training in perspective under a landscape painter, and amateur theatricals. His first play was staged at Drury Lane in 1818 and he thus embarked on a tireless career as a writer for the London stage with a lifetime total of 180 works—farces, burlesques, comedies, historical dramas, spectacles, musical entertainments, and operas. Many of them were adaptations of earlier or foreign-language works. Planché came to be known for his attention to historical detail in design and production. He was elected F.S.A. in 1829, was called in for ceremonial state occasions, and was appointed Rouge Croix pursuivant at the College of Arms (1854) and Somerset Herald (1866). On 26 Apr. 1821 he married Elizabeth St. George (1796-1846) at St. George’s, Hanover Square; she also wrote occasionally for the stage. They had two daughters. After her death, the household included Planché’s unmarried sister-in-law Frances and later his widowed daughter Matilda with her children. Financial difficulties were partly eased by a civil-list pension of £100 p.a. in 1871, but when he died at home at 10 St. Leonard’s Terrace, Chelsea, on 30 May 1880 he left an estate of under £1000. He was buried in the Brompton Cemetery on 4 Jun. (ODNB 25 Oct. 2023; findmypast.com 25 Oct. 2023)
Other Names:
- J. R. Planche
- James R. Planche
- James Robinson Planche