Author: Raymond, James Grant
Biography:
RAYMOND, James Grant (1768? d 1817: Highfill)
According to Gilliland, who provided the earliest account, the dramatist was born 29 Mar. 1771 at Strathspey near Culloden Moor, in the Scottish Highlands. Later sources however give, variously, 1768 or 1769, and his burial record states aged 49 in 1817. It is known for certain that he was one of the five children of a British army office killed in 1776 in action in South Carolina during the American war for independence. Upon his father’s death, he moved with his family to Inverkeithing, Banff, where he was educated at a classical seminary. When he was “almost in infancy” and orphaned, he appears to have received the support of the Earl of Moira, his father’s friend when both men were soldiers in America. Following a single year at King’s College, Aberdeen, he enlisted as a midshipman aboard a vessel bound for the East indies. He then followed his new patron, MP Edward Tighe, to Ireland. By 1799, he was a popular actor in the Drury Lane Theatre troupe. In the last years of his life, he was more manager than actor. In 1792 he married Frances Hannah Carmichael of Dublin, by whom he had two boys and four girls. He died at his residence, 3 Chester Street, Grosvenor Place, on 24 Oct. 1817, and was buried in the St Paul’s churchyard, Covent Garden, 26 Oct. 1817. At probate, his estate was valued above £12,000. His most notable publications are his two-volume life of the Irish poet Thomas Dermody (q.v.) and his two-volume edition of Dermody’s poetry. (ancestry.com 26 Dec. 2023; RLF file 746; T. Gilliland, Dramatic Mirror [1808], 2:947-60; Annual Biography and Obituary for the Year 1818 [1819]; European Magazine [Nov. 1817], 433-35; GM [Dec. 1817), 564-65; Highfill 12:270-73) JC