Thomas Hallam (died 1735) was a British stage actor.

Biography

Hallam was the first in a dynasty of actors, including his sons

Lewis Hallam Lewis Hallam (circa 1714–1756) was an English-born actor and theatre director in the colonial United States. Career Hallam is thought to have been born in about 1714 and possibly in Dublin. His father Thomas Hallam was also an actor who was ...

and William Hallam who led a pioneering theatre company to the United States and his granddaughter

Isabella Mattocks Isabella Mattocks (1746 – June 25, 1826) was a British actress and singer. Early life Hallam (later Mattocks) was baptised in Whitechapel in 1746 by Lewis and Sarah Hallam Douglass. Her father and her uncle William were also actors.Jared Brown ...

. His family also included the brothers George, William and Lewis Hallam. After appearing at the

Smock Alley Theatre Since the 17th century, there have been numerous theatres in Dublin with the name Smock Alley. The current Smock Alley Theatre () is a 21st-century theatre in Dublin, converted from a 19th-century church building, incorporating structural mat ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

for many years, he joined the Drury Lane company in 1725. He remained there for the next decade, taking part in the

Actor Rebellion of 1733 The Actor Rebellion of 1733 was an event that took place at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London, England, when the actors who worked there, disapproving of the changes in the management, attempted to seize control. Before the rebellion, th ...

. An actor named Hallam appeared in several early

Henry Fielding Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel ''Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders ...

plays including ''

The Author's Farce ''The Author's Farce and the Pleasures of the Town'' is a play by the English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding, first performed on 30 March 1730 at the Little Theatre, Haymarket. Written in response to the Theatre Royal's rejection of h ...

'' and ''

Tom Thumb Tom Thumb is a character of English folklore. ''The History of Tom Thumb'' was published in 1621 and was the first fairy tale printed in English. Tom is no bigger than his father's thumb, and his adventures include being swallowed by a cow, tan ...

'' at the

Haymarket Haymarket may refer to: Places Australia * Haymarket, New South Wales, area of Sydney, Australia Germany * Heumarkt (KVB), transport interchange in Cologne on the site of the Heumarkt (literally: hay market) Russia * Sennaya Square (''Hay Squ ...

but this was likely to be

Adam Hallam Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...

, one of his sons. By 1731 Adam was also appearing on Drury Lane playbills along with his father. While Hallam was ambitious to play

leading role A leading actor, leading actress, or simply lead (), plays the role of the protagonist of a film, television show or play. The word ''lead'' may also refer to the largest role in the piece, and ''leading actor'' may refer to a person who typic ...

s, he was generally consigned to supporting parts. On 10 May 1735 during a performance of the farce '' Trick for Trick'' he got into a dispute with fellow actor

Charles Macklin Charles Macklin (26 September 1699 – 11 July 1797), (Gaelic: Cathal MacLochlainn, English: Charles McLaughlin), was an Irish actor and dramatist who performed extensively at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Macklin revolutionised theatre in ...

over a wig they used during the play. During the trial, Macklin narrated that, having been provoked, he pointed his cane towards Hallam but his face "turned about unluckily" so that the stick pierced his eye and brain. The wound proved fatal and Macklin was tried for murder, but after conducting his own defence had this reduced to a conviction of manslaughter. Accounts cited that Macklin was later freed, went back to the theater but suffered an unfavorable reputation among the public.

References

Bibliography

* Gilman, Todd. ''The Theatre Career of Thomas Arne''. Rowman & Littlefield, 2013. * Highfill, Philip H, Burnim, Kalman A. & Langhans, Edward A. ''A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800: Garrick to Gyngell''. SIU Press, 1978. * Kelly, Ian. ''Mr Foote's Other Leg: Comedy, tragedy and murder in Georgian London''. Pan Macmillan, 2012. * Straub, Kristina, G. Anderson, Misty and O'Quinn, Daniel . ''The Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama''. Taylor & Francis, 2017. 18th-century English people English male stage actors British male stage actors 18th-century English male actors 18th-century British male actors 1735 deaths {{England-stage-actor-stub