A Biography of Edmund Kean

By Donald Brook

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Sep 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473358324

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Kean

Edmund Kean

THE STORY of Edmund Kean forms one of the most interesting chapters in the history of the English theatre, for few actors could have had a worse start in life and a more chequered career. Many of our greatest actors and actresses were of humble origin but this great tragedian came almost, if not quite, from the gutter. His mother, Ann Carey (commonly called Nance), was the daughter of an indifferent actor¹ who dabbled in many things but succeeded in nothing. She joined a company of strolling players at the age of fifteen but discovered that it took more than good looks and an alluring figure to make an actress; then instead of finding a steady husband as most sensible girls would have done, she took up hawking and prostitution as remunerative sidelines and became entangled with a surveyor’s clerk named Edmund Kean, a handsome and moderately dextrous young man, but one who had a notion that a smattering of culture and a gift of the gab might enable him to make a living without doing anything so tiresome as work. He could have succeeded as an architect or surveyor, he might easily have become an actor, and in many ways he was suitable for a political career, but his unwillingness to make a sustained effort precluded him from the first three of those professions, and he could scarcely have entered the fourth because in those days political parties were rarely willing, as at the present time, to provide openings for young men with neither money, outstanding intellect nor self-control. So the loquacious clerk became embittered and sought consolation in two directions: in the taverns, where he consumed far more than was good for him, and in the company of this promiscuous actress who evidently regarded him as one of those precious youths who must on no account be repressed. The first diversion got him the sack; the second an illegitimate child. Such troubles as these have a way of coming in pairs, but they were too much for the young clerk: he eventually lost his reason and threw himself from the roof of his lodgings into the street. That was the end of him.

But for the kindness of Miss Tidswell, a minor actress at Drury Lane who had befriended Miss Carey, the child would have been born in the utmost squalor, for Ann lived in the dingiest room of a dreary lodging house and had made not the slightest preparation for the infant’s arrival. Miss Tidswell persuaded the girl’s father to give her a more suitable room in his own apartments and a Mrs. Byrne, an Irish gossip who would not miss the excitement of a confinement for anything in the world, persuaded the neighbours to provide the little stranger with a layette. Thus Edmund Kean was born on a wintry morning in March, 1789.¹

Ann’s father was at that time in a state of extreme poverty, and did not hesitate in letting his daughter know what he thought of this additional responsibility. But the most casual stranger could not have been more indifferent towards the child than its own mother: she nursed it in an off-hand way for three months and then, when she had a chance of joining another company of strolling players, merely abandoned it. Her father was certainly not prepared to be left literally holding the baby, so the infant was placed in the care of a so-called nurse of doubtful reputation.

All available reports concerning the infant’s welfare during the next year or two agree that he was shamefully neglected, but the details of these sources of information are anything but uniform. One writer¹ even states that the baby was dumped upon the doorstep of a house in Frith Street, Soho, and later picked up by a couple who gave it shelter for several years. But according to B. W. Proctor the baby was in the care of the nurse for about four years, and this woman neglected it to such an extent that for one reason or another its legs became deformed and had to be straightened by the use of irons.²

It appears that Miss Tidswell discovered the child’s plight and immediately concerned herself with his welfare. Because he was such a bright and lovable little boy she began taking him to Drury Lane whenever she was acting there, and it was of course a great thrill to him to be allowed to stand in the wings and watch the performance. Everything he saw and heard fired his imagination: the tragedians, especially, made a deep impression upon him and much to everybody’s amusement he would strut about behind the scenes imitating their gestures and repeating—not always very accurately—some of their lines. He probably made a nuisance of himself many a time, but nobody had the heart to reprove him.

The old biographers tell us that he was occasionally allowed to play little juvenile rôles, as one of the apparitions in Macbeth, for instance, on which occasion he slipped, and in falling knocked over the other two apparitions: an unfortunate little incident that caused some amusement in the audience and greatly irritated John Philip Kemble, who was playing the title rôle.

But the earliest piece of authentic evidence we possess concerning his youthful appearances at Drury Lane is a playbill in the Enthoven Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum which announces that on Wednesday, June 8th, 1796 . . . Their Majesties Servants will Revive (by particular desire) Shakespeare’s Comedy of The Merry Wives of Windsor. The part of Robin, we find, is to be played by Master Kean.

It was chiefly in pantomime that his services were used, and although his earnings must have been trifling, Ann Carey was eager to exploit him and probably did not thank Miss Tidswell for her interference when the good lady insisted that the boy should be sent to school. Nor did Edmund himself welcome the suggestion, for the discipline of the schoolroom was not likely to be