Robert Roxby (c. 1809 – 25 July 1866) was a British actor and

stage manager Stage management is a broad field that is generally defined as the practice of organization and coordination of an event or theatrical production. Stage management may encompass a variety of activities including the overseeing of the rehearsal p ...

Life

Roxby was a son of William Roxby Beverley, an actor-manager who was for a time manager of the theatre in Tottenham Street in London. The actor

Henry Roxby Beverley Henry Roxby Beverley (1790 – 1 February 1863) was an English actor and low comedian. Biography He was the son of an actor named Beverley, at one time of Covent Garden Theatre, and subsequently manager of the house in Tottenham Street, know ...

and the scene-painter

William Roxby Beverley William Roxby Beverly or Beverley (c.1810–1889) was an English theatrical scene painter, known also as an artist in oils and watercolour. William John Lawrence, writing in the '' Dictionary of National Biography'', considered him second only ...

were his brothers. After performing in provincial theatres, Roxby appeared in London in 1839 at the St James's, under the management of Hooper. In 1843, at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, he played many leading parts in comedy. He was for some years in London at the Lyceum or at

Drury Lane Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster. Notable landmarks ...

, and was during eleven years stage manager at Drury Lane. He acted much with Charles Mathews, and was with him and Madame Vestris at the Lyceum from 1847 to 1855. This was the best part of his career. In October 1855 he played, at Drury Lane, Rob Royland to the Mopus of Charles Mathews, in ''Married for Money'', an adaptation of John Poole's ''The Wealthy Widow''. In March 1858 he was the original Lord George Lavender in

Joseph Stirling Coyne Joseph Stirling Coyne (1803–1868) was a humorist and satirist in the tradition of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. One of the most prolific British playwrights of the mid-nineteenth century, he wrote more than sixty plays; his twenty-seven farc ...

's ''The Love Knot.'' He played, in March 1860, an original part in

Edward Fitzball Edward Fitzball (20 March 179327 October 1873) was a popular English playwright, who specialised in melodrama. His real surname was Ball, and he was born at Burwell, Cambridgeshire. Fitzball was educated in Newmarket, was apprenticed to a Nor ...

's ''Christmas Eve, or the Duel in the Snow'', and in November 1861 was the original Hardess Cregan in

H. J. Byron Henry James Byron (8 January 1835 – 11 April 1884) was a prolific English dramatist, as well as an editor, journalist, director, theatre manager, novelist and actor. After an abortive start at a medical career, Byron struggled as a provincial ...

burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.

''Miss Eily O'Connor''. At the Princess's Theatre, London as stage manager, on 23 January 1863, he was seriously burnt in extinguishing a fire on the stage, in which two girls in the pantomime lost their lives. On the first appearance in London of Walter Montgomery at the Princess's as

Othello ''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cypru ...

, in June 1863, Roxby was

Roderigo Roderigo is a fictional character in Shakespeare's ''Othello'' (c.1601-1604), where he serves as the secondary antagonist of the play. He is a dissolute Venetian lusting after Othello's wife Desdemona. Roderigo has opened his purse to Iago in ...

. At the close of the year he was again at Drury Lane, where, In April 1864, he played in ''An April Fool'' by William Brough and Andrew Halliday. On 25 July 1866, after a long illness, he died in London at the house of his brother William Roxby Beverley. Roxby was a capable stage manager and, in spite of some hardness of style and weakness of voice, a respectable actor in light-comedy parts. He is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, London.

References

Attribution * {{DEFAULTSORT:Roxby, Robert 1866 deaths 19th-century English male actors Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery English male stage actors Stage managers Year of birth uncertain