Life

He was born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and educated at Rugby

Rugby School

Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...

.
It was his intention to go up to Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

, but in 1809 the embarrassed affairs of his father, the lessee of several provincial theatres, called him to share the responsibilities of theatrical management. On 7 June 1810 he made a successful first appearance as Romeo

Romeo Montague

Romeo is one of the fictional protagonists in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Romeo is the son of old Montague and his wife, who secretly loves and marries Juliet, a member of the rival House of Capulet...

 at Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

. Other Shakespearian

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, 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"...

 parts followed, but a serious rupture between father and son resulted in the young man's departure for Bath in 1814. Here he remained for two years, with occasional professional visits to other provincial towns.

On 16 September 1816, Macready made his first London appearance at Covent Garden

Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

 as Orestes in The Distressed Mother, a translation of Racine

Jean Racine

Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...

's Andromaque by Ambrose Philips

Ambrose Philips

-Life:He was born in Shropshire of a Leicestershire family. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and St John's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow in 1699. He seems to have lived chiefly at Cambridge until he resigned his fellowship in 1708, and his pastorals were probably written in...

. Macready's choice of characters was at first confined chiefly to the romantic drama. In 1818 he won a permanent success in Isaac Pocock

Isaac Pocock

Isaac Pocock was an English dramatist and painter of portraits and historical subjects . He wrote melodramas, farces and light operatic comedies, many of his works being adapted for stage from existing novels...

's (1782–1835) adaptation of Scott

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

's Rob Roy. He showed his capacity for the highest tragedy when he played Richard III

Richard III (play)

Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England. The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified...

at Covent Garden on 25 October 1819.

Transferring his services to Drury Lane

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...

, he gradually rose in public favor, his most conspicuous success being in the title-role of Sheridan Knowles

James Sheridan Knowles

James Sheridan Knowles , Irish dramatist and actor, was born in Cork.-Biography:His father was the lexicographer James Knowles , cousin 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...

's William Tell

William Tell

William Tell is a folk hero of Switzerland. His legend is recorded in a late 15th century Swiss chronicle....

(11 May 1825). In 1826 he completed a successful engagement in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and in 1828 his performances met with a very flattering reception in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. In 1829 he appeared as Othello

Othello

The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...

 in Warwick. On 15 December 1830 he appeared at Drury Lane as Werner, one of his most powerful impersonations. In 1833 he played in Antony and Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. It was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony...

, in Byron's Sardanapalus, and in King Lear

King Lear

King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...

. He was responsible, in 1834, and more fully in 1838, for returning the text of King Lear to the Shakespeare's text (although in a shortened version), after it had been replaced for more than a hundred and fifty years by Tate's happy-ending adaptation, The History of King Lear

The History of King Lear

The History of King Lear is an adaptation by Nahum Tate of William Shakespeare's King Lear. It first appeared in 1681, some seventy-five years after Shakespeare's version, and is believed to have replaced Shakespeare's version on the English stage in whole or in part until 1838.Unlike Shakespeare's...

.

Already Macready had done something to encourage the creation of a modern English drama, and after entering on the management of Covent Garden in 1837 he introduced Robert Brownings Strafford, and in the following year Bulwer's Lady of Lyons and Richelieu, the principal characters in which were among his most effective parts. On June 10, 1838 he gave a memorable performance of Henry V

Henry V (play)

Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to be written in approximately 1599. Its full titles are The Cronicle History of Henry the Fifth and The Life of Henry the Fifth...

, for which Stanfield

William Clarkson Stanfield

Clarkson Frederick Stanfield was a prominent English marine painter; he is often though inaccurately called William Clarkson Stanfield.-Early life:...

 prepared sketches, and the mounting was superintended by Bulwer, Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

, Forster, Maclise

Daniel Maclise

Daniel Maclise was an Irish history, literary and portrait painter, and illustrator, who worked for most of his life in London, England.-Early life:...

, WJ Fox and other friends.

The first production of Bulwer's Money took place under the artistic direction of Count d'Orsay on 8 December 1840, Macready winning unmistakable success in the character of Alfred Evelyn. Both in his management of Covent Garden, which he resigned in 1839, and of Drury Lane, which he held from 1841 to 1843, he found his designs for the elevation of the stage frustrated by the absence of adequate public support. In 1843 he staged Cymbeline

Cymbeline

Cymbeline , also known as Cymbeline, King of Britain or The Tragedy of Cymbeline, is a play by William Shakespeare, based on legends concerning the early Celtic British King Cunobelinus. Although listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify Cymbeline as a romance...

. In 1843-1844 he made a prosperous tour in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, but his last visit to that country, in 1849, was marred by a riot

Astor Place Riot

The Astor Place Riot occurred on May 10, 1849 at the now-demolished Astor Opera House  in Manhattan, New York City and left at least 25 dead and more than 120 injured...

 at the Astor Place Theatre

Astor Place Theatre

The Astor Place Theatre is an off-Broadway house located at 434 Lafayette Street in the NoHo section of Manhattan. The theater is located in the historic Colonnade Row, originally constructed in 1831 as a series of nine connected buildings, of which only four remain...

, New York, arising from the jealousy of the actor Edwin Forrest

Edwin Forrest

Edwin Forrest was an American actor.-Early life:Forrest was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of Scottish and German descent. His father died and he was brought up by his mother, a German woman of humble origins. He was educated at the common schools in Philadelphia, and early evinced a taste...

, and resulting in the death of twenty-three persons and the further injuring of one hundred, who were shot by the militia called out to quell the disturbance; Judge Charles Patrick Daly

Charles Patrick Daly

Charles Patrick Daly was a member of the New York State Assembly, Chief Justice of the New York Court of Common Pleas, president of the American Geographical Society, and an author of several books.-Early years:...

 later presided at the trial. Macready was playing Macbeth at the time of the riot, a fact which added to the ominous reputation of that play.

Macready took leave of the stage in a farewell performance of Macbeth

Macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...

 at Drury Lane on 26 February 1851. The remainder of his life was spent in happy retirement, and he died at Cheltenham

Cheltenham

Cheltenham , also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a large spa town and borough in Gloucestershire, on the edge of the Cotswolds in the South-West region of England. It is the home of the flagship race of British steeplechase horse racing, the Gold Cup, the main event of the Cheltenham Festival held...

 on 27 April 1873. He had married, in 1823, Catherine Frances Atkins (d. 1852). Of a numerous family of children only one son and one daughter survived. In 1860 he married Cecile Louise Frederica Spencer (1827–1908), by whom he had a son.

Evaluation

Macready's performances always displayed fine artistic perceptions developed to a high degree of perfection by very comprehensive culture, and even his least successful personal turns had the interest resulting from thorough intellectual study. He belonged to the school of Kean

Edmund Kean

Edmund Kean was an English actor, regarded in his time as the greatest ever.-Early life:Kean was born in London. His father was probably Edmund Kean, an architect’s clerk, and his mother was an actress, Anne Carey, daughter of the 18th century composer and playwright Henry Carey...

 rather than of Kemble

John Philip Kemble

John Philip Kemble was an English actor. He was born into a theatrical family as the eldest son of Roger Kemble, actor-manager of a touring troupe. His elder sister Sarah Siddons achieved fame with him on the stage of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane...

; but, if his tastes were better disciplined and in some respects more refined than those of Kean, his natural temperament did not permit him to give proper effect to the great tragic parts of Shakespeare, King Lear perhaps excepted, which afforded scope for his pathos and tenderness, the qualities in which he specially excelled. With the exception of a voice of good compass and capable of very varied expression, Macready had no especial physical gifts for acting, but the defects of his face and figure cannot be said to have materially affected his success.

When Macready retired, Alfred Tennyson dedicated to him the following verse:
|“Farewell, Macready, since to-night we part:
  Full-handed thunders often have contest
  Thy power well used to move the public breast.
We thank thee with one voice, and from the heart.
Farewell, Macready, since this night we part.
  Go take thine honours home; rank with the best;
  Garrick, and statelier Kemble, and the rest,
Who made a nation purer through their art.
Thine is it that the drama did not die.
  Nor nicker down to brainless pantomime.
  And those gilt gauds men-children swarm to see.
Farewell, Macready, moral, grave, sublime,
Our Shakespeare's bland and universal eye
  Dwells pleased, thro' twice a hundred years on thee.”>

Relatives

Macready's son was General Sir Nevil Macready

Nevil Macready

General Sir Cecil Frederick Nevil Macready, 1st Baronet, GCMG, KCB, PC , known as Sir Nevil Macready and affectionately as Make-Ready , was a British Army officer...

, a distinguished British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 officer. The American actor of stage, film, and television George Macready

George Macready

George Peabody Macready, Jr. , was an American stage, film, and television actor often cast in roles as polished villains.-Background:...

 claimed to be a descendant.

External links

• Bristol theatre archives at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection, University of Bristol
  University of Bristol
  The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...
  
  
• Building History: The former theatre in Warwick where Macready played in 1829