KNOWLES, JAMES SHERIDAN (1784-1862)

This article appears in Volume V15, Page 877 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: KHA-KRI

KNOWLES, JAMES SHERIDAN (1784-1862) , Irish dramatist and actor, was born in Cork, on the 12th of May 1784. His father was the lexicographer, James Knowles (1759-1840), cousingerman of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The family removed to London in 1793, and at the age of fourteen Knowles published a ballad entitled The Welsh Harper, which, set to music, was very popular. The boy's talents secured him the friendship of Hazlitt, who introduced him to Lamb and Coleridge. He served for some time in the Wiltshire and afterwards in the Tower Hamlets militia, leaving the service to become pupil of Dr Robert Willan (17571812). He obtained the degree of M.D., and was appointed vaccinator to the Jennerian Society. Although, however, Dr Willan generously offered him a share in his practice, he resolved to forsake medicine for the stage, making his first

appearance

APPEARANCE (from Lat. apparere, to appear)

probably at Bath, and playing Hamlet at the

Crow

CROW (Dutch, kraal, Ger. Krdhe, Fr. corbeau, Lat. corvus)

Theatre, Dublin. At Wexford he married, in October 1809, Maria Charteris, an actress from the Edinburgh Theatre. In 1810 he wrote Leo, in which Edmund

Kean

KEAN, EDMUND (1787–1833)

acted with

great

GREAT

success; another play, Brian Boroihme, written for the Belfast Theatre in the next year, also drew crowded houses, but his earnings were so small that he was obliged to become assistant to his father at the Belfast Academical Institution. In 1817 he removed from Belfast to Glasgow, where, besides conducting a flourishing school, he continued to write for the stage. His first important success was Caius Gracchus, produced at Belfast in 1815; and his Virginius, written for Edmund

Kean

KEAN, EDMUND (1787–1833)

, was first performed in 182o at Covent Garden. In William Tell (1825) Macready found one of his favourite parts. His best-known play, The Hunchback, was produced at Covent Garden in 1832; The Wife was brought out at the same theatre in 1833; and The
Love Chase in 1837. In his later years he forsook the stage for the pulpit, and as a Baptist preacher attracted large audiences at

Exeter

EXETER
EXETER, EARL, MARQUESS AND DUKE OF

Hall

and elsewhere. He published two polemical worksthe Rock of Rome and the Idol Demolished by its own Priestsin both of which he combated the

special

SPECIAL

doctrines of the Roman Cajolic Church. Knowles was for some years in the receipt of an annual pension of 200, bestowed by Sir Robert Peel. He died at Torquay on the 3oth of November 1862.
A full

list

LIST (O.E.
lisle
- LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685)
, a Teutonic word, cf. Dut. lust, Ger. Leiste, adapted in Ital. lista and Fr.
lisle
- LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685)
)
LIST, FRIEDRICH (1789-1846)

of the works of Knowles and of the various notices of him will be found in the Life (1872), privately printed by his son, Richard Brinsley Knowles (1820-1882), who was well known as a journalist.

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