Sarah Baker (18th-century Actress)
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Sarah Baker (18th-century Actress)
Sarah Baker (1736/1737 – 20 February 1816) was an English actress and theatre manager of the late Georgian era whose career in Kent lasted more than 50 years. Despite her being illiterate and facing fierce opposition from male rivals, her business acumen led her to becoming one of the most successful self-made women of her time. Early career Baker was born Sarah Wakelin in about 1736/1737, in Milton, Kent to Ann Wakelin née Clark (d. 1787), an acrobatic dancer and troupe manager. Ann's business, "Mrs. Wakelin's Company", performed at the Sadler's Wells Theatre; Baker's father, James Wakelin (1716–1779), was an actor of minor parts at the Theatre Royal Haymarket who later opened a bookshop in Shoe Lane from where he sold religious books and tracts. With her sister Mary, Baker performed as a dancer in her mother's company at Sadler's Wells and then went on tour to Norwich, Great Yarmouth and Bristol. Baker also performed as a puppeteer, and her mother's company was regularly fi ...
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Actor-manager
An actor-manager is a leading actor who sets up their own permanent theatrical company and manages the business, sometimes taking over a theatre to perform select plays in which they usually star. It is a method of theatrical production used consistently since the 16th century, particularly common in 19th-century Britain and the United States. History The first actor-managers, such as Robert Browne, appeared in the late 16th century, to be followed by another Robert Browne (no relation) and George Jolly in the 17th century. In the 18th century, actor-managers such as Colley Cibber and David Garrick gained prominence. The system of actor-management generally produced high standards of performance, as demonstrated by such 19th-century actors as William Macready, Charles Wyndham, Henry Irving, Frank Benson and Herbert Beerbohm Tree, by husband-wife teams such as Squire Bancroft and Effie Bancroft, Frank Wyatt and Violet Melnotte, William Hunter Kendal and Madge Robertson Ken ...
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Faversham
Faversham is a market town in Kent, England, from London and from Canterbury, next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary. It is close to the A2, which follows an ancient British trackway which was used by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons, and known as Watling Street. The name is of Old English origin, meaning "the metal-worker's village". There has been a settlement at Faversham since pre-Roman times, next to the ancient sea port on Faversham Creek. It was inhabited by the Saxons and mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as ''Favreshant''. The town was favoured by King Stephen who established Faversham Abbey, which survived until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538. Subsequently, the town became an important seaport and established itself as a centre for brewing, and the Shepherd Neame Brewery, founded in 1698, remains a significant major employer. The town was also the centre of the explosives industry ...
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William Dowton
William Dowton (1764–1851) was a British actor. Early life Dowton, the son of an innkeeper and grocer at Exeter, was born in that city on 25 April 1764. At an early age he worked with a marble cutter, but in 1780 was articled to an architect. During his apprenticeship he occasionally performed at a private theatre in Exeter, when the applause he obtained prompted him to run away from home and join a company of strolling players at Ashburton, where, in 1781, he made his appearance in a barn as Carlos in ''Revenge''. Career After enduring many hardships he was engaged by Hughes, manager of the Weymouth theatre, and thence returned to Exeter, where he played Macbeth and Romeo; he then (September 1791) joined Mrs. Baker's company in Kent. Here he changed his line of acting, and took the characters of La Gloire, Jemmy Jumps, Billy Bristle, Sir David Dunder, and Peeping Tom, in all of which he was well received by a Canterbury audience. He made his first appearance in Londo ...
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Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan (30 October 17517 July 1816) was an Irish satirist, a politician, a playwright, poet, and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He is known for his plays such as ''The Rivals'', ''The School for Scandal'', ''The Duenna'' and ''A Trip to Scarborough''. He was also a Whig MP for 32 years in the British House of Commons for Stafford (1780–1806), Westminster (1806–1807), and Ilchester (1807–1812). He is buried at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. His plays remain a central part of the canon and are regularly performed worldwide. Early life Sheridan was born in 1751 in Dublin, Ireland, where his family had a house on then fashionable Dorset Street. His mother, Frances Sheridan, was a playwright and novelist. She had two plays produced in London in the early 1760s, though she is best known for her novel ''The Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph'' (1761). His father, Thomas Sheridan, was for a while an actor-manager at ...
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William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an ...
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Sarah Baker Theatre Paybox
Sarah (born Sarai) is a Patriarchs (Bible)#Matriarchs, biblical matriarch and Prophet, prophetess, a major figure in Abrahamic religions. While different Abrahamic faiths portray her differently, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all depict her character similarly, as that of a Piety, pious woman, renowned for her hospitality and beauty, the wife and half-sister of Abraham, and the mother of Isaac. Sarah has her Calendar of saints, feast day on 1 September in the Catholic Church, 19 August in the Coptic Orthodox Church, 20 January in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, LCMS, and 12 and 20 December in the Eastern Orthodox Church. In the Hebrew Bible Family According to Book of Genesis 20:12, in conversation with the Philistines, Philistine king Abimelech, Abimelech of Gerar, Abraham reveals Sarah to be both his wife and his half-sister, stating that the two share a father but not a mother. Such unions were later explicitly banned in the Book of Leviticus (). This would make S ...
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Columbina
Columbina (in Italian Colombina, meaning "little dove"; in French and English Colombine) is a stock character in the ''commedia dell'arte''. She is Harlequin's mistress, a comic servant playing the tricky slave type, and wife of Pierrot. Rudlin and Crick use the Italian spelling Colombina in ''Commedia dell'arte: A Handbook for Troupes''. History The role of the female servant was originally that of an entr'acte dancer. Women were not allowed to be part of the story that was being played out on stage, but they were allowed to have a dance in-between the action. Eventually these women became the busom and gossipy servants of characters that were already allowed on stage, and then, later, the counterparts to the Zanni characters. She was very down to earth and could always see the situation for what it actually was. She was also sometimes portrayed as a prostitute. She was very infrequently without something to say to or about someone. She is dressed in a very short ragged and ...
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Charles Dibdin
Charles Dibdin (before 4 March 1745 – 25 July 1814) was an English composer, musician, dramatist, novelist, singer and actor. With over 600 songs to his name, for many of which he wrote both the lyrics and the music and performed them himself, he was in his time the most prolific English singer-songwriter. He is best known as the composer of "Tom Bowling", one of his many sea songs, which often features at the Last Night of the Proms. He also wrote about 30 dramatic pieces, including the operas ''The Waterman'' (1774) and ''The Quaker'' (1775), and several novels, memoirs and histories. His works were admired by Haydn and Beethoven. Life and career Early life and early successes The son of a silversmith, Dibdin was privately baptised on 4 March 1745 in Southampton and is often described as the youngest child of eighteen born to a 50-year-old mother. His parents, intending him for the clergy, sent Dibdin to Winchester College, but his love of music soon diverted his though ...
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Bartholomew Fair
The Bartholomew Fair was one of London's pre-eminent summer charter fairs. A charter for the fair was granted to Rahere by Henry I to fund the Priory of St Bartholomew; and from 1133 to 1855 it took place each year on 24 August within the precincts of the Priory at West Smithfield, outside Aldersgate of the City of London. The fair continued, after the Dissolution within the liberty of the parish of St Bartholomew-the-Great. Description The site of Bartholomew Fair was the south-east side of Smithfield roundabout and was originally a cloth fair. Originally chartered as a three-day event, it would last a full two weeks in the 17th century; but in 1691, it was shortened to only four days. With a change in the calendar, the fair commenced on 3 September from 1753. A trading event for cloth and other goods as well as a pleasure fair, the event drew crowds from all classes of English society. It was customary for the Lord Mayor of London to open the fair on St Bartholomew's Eve. T ...
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Sittingbourne
Sittingbourne is an industrial town in Kent, south-east England, from Canterbury and from London, beside the Roman Watling Street, an ancient British trackway used by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons and next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey. The town became prominent after the death of Thomas Becket in 1170, since it provided a convenient resting point on the road from London to Canterbury and Dover. Chatham Main Line links to London Victoria and HS1 to St Pancras International, the journey taking about an hour from Sittingbourne railway station. History Sittingbourne owes its name to a modernised version of an observation on its location. The town's name came from the fact that there is a small stream or "bourne" running underground in part of the town. Hasted writing in the 1790s in his ''History of Kent'' states that: The Kent Hundred Rolls of 1274–5, preserved in the National Archives, record Sittingbourne as Sydingeburn ...
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Lewes
Lewes () is the county town of East Sussex, England. It is the police and judicial centre for all of Sussex and is home to Sussex Police, East Sussex Fire & Rescue Service, Lewes Crown Court and HMP Lewes. The civil parish is the centre of the Lewes local government district and the seat of East Sussex County Council at East Sussex County Hall. A traditional market town and centre of communications, in 1264 it was the site of the Battle of Lewes. The town's landmarks include Lewes Castle, Lewes Priory, Bull House (the former home of Thomas Paine), Southover Grange and public gardens, and a 16th-century timber-framed Wealden hall house known as Anne of Cleves House. Other notable features of the area include the Glyndebourne festival, the Lewes Bonfire celebrations and the Lewes Pound. Etymology The place-name 'Lewes' is first attested in an Anglo-Saxon charter circa 961 AD, where it appears as ''Læwe''. It appears as ''Lewes'' in the Domesday Book of 1086. The additio ...
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Sandwich, Kent
Sandwich is a town and civil parish in the Dover District of Kent, south-east England. It lies on the River Stour and has a population of 4,985. Sandwich was one of the Cinque Ports and still has many original medieval buildings, including several listed public houses and gates in the old town walls, churches, almshouses and the White Mill. While once a major port, it is now two miles from the sea due to the disappearance of the Wantsum Channel. Its historic centre has been preserved. Sandwich Bay is home to nature reserves and two world-class golf courses, Royal St George's and Prince's. The town is also home to many educational and cultural events. Sandwich also gave its name to the food by way of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, and the word ''sandwich'' is now found in several languages. Etymology The place-name 'Sandwich' is first attested in the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', where it appears as ' in 851 and ' in 993. In the ''Domesday Book'' of 1086 it appears as '. T ...
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