Author: Siddons, Henry
Biography:
SIDDONS, Henry (1774-1815: ODNB)
His career was pre-ordained, for he was born into the great theatrical dynasty of the Kembles and Siddonses. He was the eldest child of the actors Sarah (Kemble) and William Siddons, born on 22 Oct. 1774 in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire (now West Midlands), and baptised on 1 Mar. 1775 at St. Margaret’s, Leicester, Leicestershire. He was educated at an academy in London followed by five years at Charterhouse, but his mother also took him on stage with her in various roles from the age of ten. His first piece of writing to be performed was an interlude, Modern Breakfast, acted for the benefit of his aunt Elizabeth Kemble in London in 1790. Thereafter he combined performance and theatre management with writing in various genres for a living: prose fiction (e.g. William Wallace 1791, Reginald di Torby 1803, Virtuous Poverty 1804, The Maid, Wife, and Widow 1806, The Son of the Storm 1809); stage pieces such as comedies, interludes, dramatic romances, and operas (The Sicilian Romance 1794, A Tale of Terror 1803); and a kind of professional textbook adapted from a German work, Practical Illustrations of Rhetorical Gesture and Action (1807). On 22 June 1802 he married a fellow actor, Harriet Murray, at Hampstead; the couple had four children whose later lives are outlined in Highfill. They continued to perform together. After leaving the London stage in 1809, Henry moved to Edinburgh to take over the patent for the Theatre Royal. He moved the premises to a New Theatre Royal on Leith Walk and for a time did well there, but costs gradually outran revenue. Henry Siddons died of tuberculosis at Edinburgh on 12 Apr. 1815. Harriet and her brother William Henry Wood Murray (1790-1852) carried on as managers and revived the fortunes of the theatre chiefly through popular adaptations of the novels of their friend Walter Scott, q.v. She had her farewell benefit there in 1830, died in Edinburgh on 2 Nov. 1844, and was buried in Greyfriars churchyard like her husband before her. Her brother took over the lease of the theatre until his retirement in 1851 to St. Andrews, where he died on 5 May 1852. (ODNB 23 Oct. 2024; Highfill; ancestry.com 23 Oct. 2024; findmypast.com 23 Oct. 2024) HJ