Early Players (19th Century)
- Gustaus V. Brooke
- Maria Theresa de Camp
- William Henry Don
- Hariet Pye Esten
- Harriet Elizabeth Faucit
- Helena Saville Faucit
- Louisa Fontanelle
- Henry Erskine Johnston
- Charles John Kean
- Edmund Kean
- Charles Kemble
- Fanny Kemble
- George Stephen Kemble
- John Philip Kemble
- Horatio Lloyd
- Charles Mackay
- William Charles Macready
- James Morris
- Mortimer Murdock
- Charles Murray
- William Henry Murray
- Frank Seymour
- Harriet Murray Siddons
- Eva Marie Veigel
- Henry Siddons
- Sarah Siddons
- Daniel Terry
Horatio Lloyd
Links with Ayrshire:
It is known that Lloyd appeared in Ayr and Kilmarnock on a number of occasions during his long stage career. Although born in England, he worked in Glasgow and Edinburgh for much of his life.
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Frances (Fanny) Kemble
1809 - 1893
Fanny Kemble
1834
by Thomas Sully 
Fanny Kemble
Fanny Kemble (Frances Anne Kemble), was the eldest daughter of Charles Kemble and his actress wife Maria Theresa De Camp, and the niece of noted tragedienne Sarah Siddons. Fanny was born in London, and educated chiefly at Bath and in France.
She made her debut as Juliet in 1829 under her father's management at Covent Garden. Her success was immediate, and her stature as an actress grew in both comedy and tragedy. She was the original Julia in The Hunchback, written for her by Sheridan Knowles.
Kemble scored a great success when she made a two-year tour of the United States with her father. In 1834 she married Pierce Butler, a wealthy Philadelphian who inherited rice and cotton plantations in Georgia, where she lived for a time and where she formed a lasting antipathy to slavery.
During the American Civil War she was in England, writing against slavery for the London Times. Her Journal of America (1835), Journal of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation in 1838-1839 (1863, ed. by John A. Scott, 1961), and Records of a Later Life (1882) are much-used sources on the era.
Kemble died in London on Jan. 15, 1893.
Links with Ayrshire:
There is no evidence that Fanny Kemble appeared in Ayrshire. It is known that Fanny Kemble appeared in Edinburgh and Glasgow in the summer of 1830, prior to appearances in Dublin and Cork. It is also known that Fanny Kemble appeared in Greenock.
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Charles
Kean
Charles John Kean was born at Waterford, Ireland, the son of the actor
Edmund Kean and the actress Mary Chambers.
Charles Kean was educated at Worplesdon, Greenford and Eton College, where
he remained three years. In 1827, he was offered a cadetship in the East
India Company's service, which he was prepared to accept if his father
would settle an income of £400 on his estranged mother. The elder Kean
refused to do this, so young Kean declined the cadetship in favour of the
stage.
Charles Kean made his first appearance
at Drury Lane on 1 October 1827 as Norval in Home's Douglas.
In 1828, after failing to achieve popularity in London, he left
for for the provinces. At Glasgow, in October that year, father
and son acted together in Arnold Payne's Brutus, the elder Kean in the
title-part and his son as Titus.
After a successful visit to the United States in 1830, he appeared in 1833
at Covent Garden as Sir Edmund
Mortime in
Colman's The Iron Chest. In March that year, he
was playing Iago to his father's Othello when the older Kean collapsed on
stage.
Initially, Kean had limited success in London and soon returned
to the provinces.
However, in January 1838, he was at Drury Lane, playing
Hamlet with a success which gave him a place among the principal tragedians
of his time. He married the actress Ellen Tree (1805-1880) on
25 January 1842, and paid a second visit to America with her from 1845
to 1847.
Following his final 'tour
round the world', Kean
returned to Britain in 1866, his health broken. He died in London
on 22 January 1868 at the age of 57. He is buried at Horndean, Hampshire.
Based on material in the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition,
a publication now in the public domain.
Links with Ayrshire:
No links with Ayrshire have been identified (at this time).
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Helen
Saville Faucit
1817 - 1898
Helena Saville Faucit (1817-1898)
Helena
Saville Faucit
The daughter of John Saville Faucit and Harriet Elizabeth Saville, both actors, Faucit was born in London. With her elder sister Harriet, she was trained for the stage by her step-uncle, Percy Farren, appearing as Juliet at a small theatre in Richmond in 1833. Her performance was praised by critics of The Athenaeum, but Farren delayed her professional debut to give her further training.
In January 1836, Faucit's first professional appearance was as Julia in James Sheridan Knowles's The Hunchback at Covent Garden. She was hailed as one of the leading actresses in London, helping to fill the void left by the retirement of Fanny Kemble in 1834. In the same season she played Belvidera in Otway's Venice Preserv'd, and Margaret in Joanna Baillie's The Separation. A firm favourite with playgoers, she was given a three-year contract at Covent Garden.
In 1837, Faucit played numerous Shakespearean roles, among them Juliet, Imogen (Cymbeline), Hermione (The Winter's Tale), and Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing), alongside both Macready, who had joined the company in 1836, and Charles Kemble. Her non-Shakespearean roles during the three years at Covent Garden included the female leads in Lytton's Duchess de la Vallikre, Lady of Lyons, Richelieu, The Sea Captain, and Money, in Robert Browning's Strafford, and in Knowles's Woman's Wit.
Faucit followed Macready to the Haymarket Theatre in 1840 but her performances were blighted by an attack of a recurrent lung ailment. After her recovery, she returned to the Haymarket to perform in Zouch Troughton's Nina Sforza and Lytton's Money. After a visit to Paris and a short season at the Haymarket, she joined the Drury Lane company under Macready in 1842. There she played Lady Macbeth, Constance in King John, Desdemona, and Imogen, and took part in the first production of John Westland Marston's Patrician's Daughter (1842) and Browning's Blot on the Scutcheon (1843).
Although Macready considered her beyond all compare' the best English actress of the period, her Lady Macbeth of the 1843 season was a failure; Macready found her conception deficient in 'heart', and she was physically unable to achieve the commanding presence that Sarah Siddons had brought to the role.
Links with Ayrshire:
Morris records that Faucit was a regular performer at the Theatre Royal in Ayr.
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