Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan (30 October 17517 July 1816) was an Anglo-Irish playwright, writer and Whig politician who sat in the British House of Commons from 1780 to 1812, representing the constituencies of Stafford, Westminster and Ilchester. The owner of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in London, he wrote several prominent plays such as The Rivals (1775), The Duenna (1775), The School for Scandal (1777) and A Trip to Scarborough (1777). He served as Treasurer of the Navy from 1806 to 1807. Sheridan died in 1816 and was buried at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. His plays remain a central part of the Western canon and are frequently performed around the world.
Early life
Sheridan was born in 1751 in Dublin, Ireland, where his family had a house on the then fashionable Dorset Street. His mother, Frances Sheridan, was an Anglo-Irish playwright and novelist. She had two plays produced in London in the early 1760s, though she is best known for her novel The Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph (1761). His Irish father, Thomas Sheridan, was for a while an actor-manager at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin, but following his move to England in 1758, he gave up acting and wrote several books on the subject of education, especially the standardisation of the English language in education. His elder brother was Charles Francis Sheridan. His paternal grandfather was The Rev. Thomas Sheridan from County Cavan, who was a close friend of Jonathan Swift.Dictionary of Irish Biography (D.I.B.): Sheridan, Thomas. https://www.dib.ie/biography/sheridan-thomas-a8046
While his family was in Dublin, Richard attended the English Grammar School in Grafton Street. In 1758, when he was seven years old, the Sheridans moved permanently to England.Thomas Sheridan Biography at James Boswell Info; retrieved 30 June 2013. He was a pupil at Harrow School from 1762 to 1768. At the end of his 1768 school year, his father employed a private tutor, Lewis Ker, to direct his studies in his father's house in London, while Domenico Angelo instructed him in fencing and horsemanship.
In 1772, aged 20, Sheridan fought two duels with Captain Thomas Mathews, who had written a newspaper article defaming the character of Elizabeth Ann Linley, whom Sheridan intended to marry. In the first duel, they agreed to fight in Hyde Park, but finding it too crowded they went first to the Hercules Pillars tavern (on the site where Apsley House now stands at Hyde Park Corner) and then on to the Castle Tavern in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. Far from its romantic image, the duel was short and bloodless. Mathews lost his sword and, according to Sheridan, was forced to 'beg for his life' and sign a retraction of the article. The apology was made public and Mathews, infuriated by the publicity the duel had received, refused to accept his defeat as final and challenged Sheridan to another duel. Sheridan was not obliged to accept this challenge but could have become a social pariah if he had not. The second duel, fought in July 1772 at Kingsdown near Bath, was a much more ferocious affair. This time both men broke their swords but carried on fighting in a 'desperate struggle for life and honour'. Both were wounded, Sheridan dangerously, and he had to be 'borne from the field with a portion of his antagonist's weapon sticking through an ear, his breast-bone touched, his whole body covered with wounds and blood, and his face nearly beaten to jelly with the hilt of Mathews' sword'.Fintan O'Toole: A Traitor's Kiss Mathews escaped in a post chaise. Eight days after the bloody affair the Bath Chronicle was able to announce that Sheridan was out of danger.
Later that year, Elizabeth and the 21-year-old Richard eloped and set up house in London on a lavish scale. Sheridan had little money and no immediate prospects of any, other than his wife's dowry. The young couple entered the fashionable world and apparently held up their end in entertaining. Sheridan was a patron of Margaret Cuyler and she was his presumed mistress. As his protégée she appeared at Drury Lane in January 1777, despite being a poor actress.
Literary career
In 1775 Sheridan's first play, The Rivals, was produced at London's Covent Garden Theatre. It was a failure on its first night, and John Lee's performance as Sir Lucius O'Trigger was criticised for rendering the character "ridiculous and disgusting". Sheridan rewrote the play and presented it again a few days later, with Laurence Clinch replacing Lee in the role.James Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs Siddons, H. C. Carey, I. Lea and E. Littell, Philadelphia, 1827, Vol. 1, p. 122. In its reworked form it was a huge success, immediately establishing the young playwright's reputation and the favour of fashionable London. It went on to become a standard of English literature.
Shortly after the success of The Rivals, Sheridan and his father-in-law Thomas Linley the Elder, a successful composer, produced the opera The Duenna. This piece, warmly received, played for seventy-five performances.
His most famous play, The School for Scandal, premiered at Drury Lane on 8 May 1777. It is considered one of the greatest comedies of manners in English. It was followed by The Critic (1779), an updating of the satirical Restoration play The Rehearsal.
Having quickly made his name and fortune, in 1776 Sheridan bought David Garrick's share in the Drury Lane patent, and in 1778 the remaining share; his later plays were all produced there.The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, edited by Phyllis Hartnoll, OUP (1951) In 1778 Sheridan wrote The Camp, which commented on the ongoing threat of a French invasion of Britain. The same year Sheridan's brother-in-law Thomas Linley, a young composer who worked with him at Drury Lane Theatre, died in a boating accident. Sheridan had a rivalry with his fellow playwright Richard Cumberland and included a parody of Cumberland in his play The Critic. On 24 February 1809 (despite the much vaunted fire safety precautions of 1794) the theatre burned down. On being encountered drinking a glass of wine in the street while watching the fire, Sheridan was famously reported to have said, "A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside."The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999) OUP Sheridan was the manager of the theatre for many years, and later became sole owner with no managerial role.
Political career
In 1780, Sheridan entered the House of Commons as the ally of Charles James Fox on the side of the American Colonials in the political debate of that year. He is said to have paid the burgesses of Stafford five guineas apiece to allow him to represent them. As a consequence, his first speech in Parliament was a defence against the charge of bribery.
In 1787 Sheridan demanded the impeachment of Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of India. His speechSheridan, Richard Brinsley. "At the Trial of Warren Hastings", The World’s Famous Orations, Ireland, 1906 in the House of Commons was described by Edmund Burke, Charles James Fox, and William Pitt as the greatest ever delivered in ancient or modern times.John O'Connor Power, 'Irish Wit and Humour', Time, 1890. p. 480. The Making of an Orator, 1906, pp. 187–194
In Commons, Sheridan was known as an engaging, and often entertaining orator. His speeches at the Hastings impeachment were later published as a 59-page booklet.The Celebrated Speech of Richard Brinsley Sheridan . . . On His Summing Up the Evidence of the Begum Charge Against Warren Hastings, Esq. (London: Porter, 1788) https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-celebrated-speech-of_sheridan-richard-brinsl_1788/page/n13/mode/2up?view=theaterLandfield, J. (1961). "The Triumph and Failure of Sheridan’s Speeches Against Hastings". Speech Monographs, 28(3), 143–156. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637756109375317 In 1793, during the debates on the Aliens Act designed to prevent French Revolutionary spies and saboteurs from flooding into the country, Edmund Burke made a speech in which he claimed there were thousands of French agents in Britain ready to use weapons against the authorities. To dramatically emphasise his point he threw down a knife onto the floor of the House of Commons. Sheridan shouted, "Where's the fork?", which led to much of the house collapsing in laughter.
In April 1798 he appeared at the trial in Maidstone of United Irishmen accused of treasonable conspiracy with the French. Along with Charles James Fox, Lord Moira and other radical Whig grandees, he testified on behalf of Arthur O'Connor. O'Connor was acquitted. His companion, Father James Coigly was hanged.
During the invasion scare of 1803 Sheridan penned an 'Address to the People':
THEY, by a strange Frenzy driven, fight for Power, for Plunder, and extended Rule—WE, for our Country, our Altars, and our Homes.—THEY follow an ADVENTURER, whom they fear—and obey a Power which they hate—WE serve a Monarch whom we love—a God whom we adore...They call on us to barter all of Good we have inherited and proved, for the desperate Chance of Something better which they promise.—Be our plain Answer this: The Throne WE honour is the PEOPLE'S CHOICE—the Laws we reverence are our brave Fathers' Legacy—the Faith we follow teaches us to live in bonds of Charity with all Mankind, and die with Hope of Bliss beyond the Grave. Tell your Invaders this; and tell them too, we seek no Change; and, least of all, such Change as they would bring us.Frank J. Klingberg and Sigurd B. Hustvedt (eds.), The Warning Drum. The British Home Front Faces Napoleon. Broadsides of 1803 (University of California Press, 1944), pp. 93–94.
He held the posts of Receiver-General of the Duchy of Cornwall (1804–1807) and Treasurer of the Navy (1806–1807). Sheridan was noted for his close political relationship with the Prince of Wales, leading a faction of his supporters in the Commons. By 1805 when the Prince was cooling on his previous support of Catholic Emancipation Sheridan, George Tierney and others announced their own opposition to it.David, Saul. Prince of Pleasure: The Prince of Wales and the Making of the Regency. Grove Press, 2000.
When, after 32 years in Parliament, he lost re-election in 1812, his creditors closed in on him and his last years were harassed by debt and disappointment. On hearing of his debts, the American Congress offered Sheridan £20,000 in recognition of his efforts to prevent the American War of Independence. He refused the offer.
Death and commemoration In December 1815 Sheridan became ill and was largely confined to bed. He died in poverty. However, dukes, earls, lords, viscounts, the Lord Mayor of London, and other notables attended his funeral, and he was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.
In 1825 the Irish writer Thomas Moore published a sympathetic two-volume biography, Memoirs of the Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, which became a major influence on subsequent perceptions. A Royal Society of Arts blue plaque was unveiled in 1881 to commemorate Sheridan at 14 Savile Row in Mayfair.Sheridan Plaque – Mayfair, London at English Heritage. Retrieved 30 June 2013 Another plaque is in Stafford.
Family life
He was twice married. He and his first wife Elizabeth had a son:
Thomas (Tom) Sheridan, who married Caroline Henrietta Callander, daughter of Col. Sir James Campbell of Craigforth, Stirling, and Ardkinglas Argyll, and was the father of Helen Blackwood, Baroness Dufferin and Claneboye, Caroline Norton and Georgiana Seymour, Duchess of Somerset