James Harvey D'Egville (ca. 1770 – ca. 1836) was an English dancer and choreographer. James' father Pierre D'Egville was ballet master at

Drury Lane Drury Lane is a street on the boundary between the Covent Garden and Holborn areas of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of London Borough of Camden, Camden and the southern part in the City o ...

and

Sadler's Wells Sadler's Wells Theatre is a London performing arts venue, located in Rosebery Avenue, Islington. The present-day theatre is the sixth on the site. Sadler's Wells grew out of a late 17th-century pleasure garden and was opened as a theatre buil ...

Theatres. His other son George D'Egville was also a dancer. James D'Egville performed at the Paris Opera from 1784 to 1785. Back in England, in June 1786, he danced in ''The Nosegay'' at the

Haymarket Theatre The Theatre Royal Haymarket (also known as Haymarket Theatre or the Little Theatre) is a West End theatre in Haymarket, London, Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in ...

with

Maria Theresa Kemble Maria Theresa Kemble (1774–1838), née Marie Thérèse Du Camp, was an Archduchy of Austria-born English actress, singer, dancer and comic playwright on the stage. She was the wife of actor Charles Kemble and mother of Fanny Kemble, part of t ...

in the presence of the

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. On 7 July he appeared in a ballet entitled ''Jamie's Return'' with Kemble and his brother George. It was well received which inspired an artist named Miller to do a painting depicting the three of them.P.H. Highfill et al. (1982) ''A Biographical Dictionary of Actors'', Southern Illinois University Press Between 1799 and 1809 he was choreographer at the King's Theatre, now

Her Majesty's Theatre His Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre situated in the Haymarket, London, Haymarket in the City of Westminster, London. The building, designed by Charles J. Phipps, was constructed in 1897 for the actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who ...

where he had danced as a child in 1783.''Oxford Dictionary of Dance'' One of his pupils was Mary Ann Dyke who became tragedienne Mary Ann Duff,Joseph Norton Ireland (1882) ''Mrs. Duff'', James R. Osgood and Co., Boston while another was Arabella Menage. In 1827, the ''

London Magazine ''The London Magazine'' is the title of six different publications that have appeared in succession since 1732. All six have focused on the arts, literature and poetry. A number of Nobel Laureates, including Annie Ernaux, Albert Camus, Doris L ...

'' published an article decrying the fact that D'Egville had won a libel suit against '' The Spirit of the Age'' newspaper for writing about his alleged association with the assassin of Princess Lambelle while he was in France in 1792. It annoyed the magazine immensely that simply writing that someone had said something libellous was grounds to win damages against a periodical. The magazine also had snide things to say about D'Egville's ballets. They wrote of him, "the gentleman who deserves the thanks of all the saints on earth, for having cured the young men of the present day of the sinful taste for ballets."''The London Magazine'' (July 1827)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:D'egville, James Harvey 1770s births 1836 deaths 18th-century English ballet dancers English male ballet dancers British ballet choreographers English choreographers 19th-century British ballet dancers

See also

References