# Benjamin Plim Bellamy

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**Benjamin Plim Bellamy** (1782–1847) was an English actor.

## Early life

He was baptised at St. Mary Magdalene, [Bridgnorth](/source/Bridgnorth), [Shropshire](/source/Shropshire) on 27 September 1782, son of William and Ann Bellamy. He married Elizabeth Walker at [Scarborough, North Yorkshire](/source/Scarborough,_North_Yorkshire) on 12 October 1806.

## Acting career

For some 30 years was a favourite actor on the [Norwich Theatre Circuit](/source/Norwich_Theatre_Circuit).

## Controversy in Ipswich

In 1810 the *[Suffolk Chronicle](/source/Suffolk_Chronicle)* hired a corrosive new [critic](/source/Theatre_critic), up to which time the Norwich Company had been used to receiving a favourable press. For the summer season 1810 the 'Ipswich Theatre' was showing *[She Stoops to Conquer](/source/She_Stoops_to_Conquer)* and the *Chronicle* reported 'The performance possessed all the worst defects of a provincial exhibition' and actor [Frederick Vining](/source/Frederick_Vining) was rapped for his 'schoolboy recitation' with the managers accused of having dredged up a miserable [orchestra](/source/Orchestra). Worse followed when the Chronicle sent the reporter to every following show and the reviews became more critical. After an uneasy truce Bellamy, who was playing [Polonius](/source/Polonius) in *[Hamlet](/source/Hamlet)* in 1813, when the *Chronicle* reported 'We never saw a viler Polonius than Bellamy's' to which he replied with a pamphlet *A Plain Letter to the Dramatic Censor of The Suffolk Chronicle* (Ipswich 1814). By this time relations between the company and the newspaper had further deteriorated. The critic was identified as Thomas Harral and after an uproar at the play *The Maid of the Mill*, Harral, on leaving the theatre, was attacked in Tankard [Tacket] Street, [Ipswich](/source/Ipswich) by Vining and his friends, when his coat was ripped from his back and he narrowly escaped a ducking. His critical spleen unsettled some of the actors and in May 1815 Vining left for [Covent Garden](/source/Covent_Garden) and Bellamy followed shortly afterwards but returned as manager of the Norwich circuit three years later.

## Later activity

In 1819 Bellamy took over the editorship of the *Bury Herald* but in 1823 he resumed his original career at [Bath](/source/Bath,_Somerset) where in 1827 he became manager of the Theatre but he resigned soon afterwards on becoming lessee of the [Bath Assembly Rooms](/source/Bath_Assembly_Rooms).[1] He lived on Beacon Hill, [Walcot](/source/Walcot,_Bath). He died at Bath on 30 September 1847, aged 65. He is buried in [Bath Abbey Cemetery](/source/Bath_Abbey_Cemetery), where the monument to him has Grade II listed status.[2] The epitaph describes him as "Distinguished for tenderness of heart variety of talents extensive attainments and perfect probity as a companion he was generally welcome while his firmness of character rendered him inestimable as a friend".[2]

## References

1. ["1847 Norfolk Chronicle newspaper Selections"](http://www.foxearth.org.uk/1847NorfolkChronicle.html). The Foxearth and District Local History Society. Retrieved 11 August 2022.

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