[[File:David-Osbaldiston-as-Virginius.png|thumb|upright|Osbaldiston as Virginius, 1832|alt=clean-shaven white male in ancient Roman costume]] '''David Webster Osbaldiston''' (February 1794 – 29 December 1850) was an English actor of the first half of the nineteenth century. After playing as an amateur he turned professional and appeared in provincial companies in Truro, Plymouth, Bristol and Norwich before becoming a leading player in London theatres. As an actor-manager he ran five theatres during his career: the Surrey, Covent Garden, Sadler's Wells, the City of London in Bishopsgate and the Royal Victoria (now known as the Old Vic).
In addition to acting and managing theatres, Osbaldiston was the author of plays including ''{{lang|fr|Vive la liberté}}, or, The French Revolution of 1830'' – an enthusiastic response to the July Revolution in Paris – which he revived eighteen years later to celebrate the French Revolution of 1848. Although he made much of his money from popular melodramas, he also raised funds for the Chartists and staged politically radical plays such as ''The Factory Lad'' (1832), which antedates by several years the major Victorian novels about industrial conditions.
He died at his London home aged 56, estranged from his wife, leaving most of his estate to his long-term partner, the actress Eliza Vincent.
==Life and career== ===Early years=== David Webster Osbaldiston was born in Manchester, Lancashire, in February 1794, the son of William Osbaldiston – a local merchant – and Elizabeth, née Webster.<ref name=odnb>Ridgwell, Stephen. [https://doi.org/10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.56378 "Osbaldiston, David Webster (1794–1850)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2026 {{ODNBsub}}</ref> Osbaldiston may have been intended for Oxford University and ordination in the Church of England, but he turned away from this career and in 1817 made his stage début as an amateur in a comedy by George Colman staged to raise money for local charities.<ref>Review (untitled), ''The Manchester Mercury'', 25 February 1817, p. 4</ref> He was first engaged professionally by a company in Derby, and towards the end of the decade he performed on the Plymouth circuit. In April 1819 he married the actress Harriet Elizabeth Coles Dawson in Exeter; they had four children.<ref name=odnb/>
In Truro in 1821, Osbaldiston and his wife appeared in the same stage company, under his management.<ref>"Theatre, Truro", ''West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser'', 19 January 1821, p. 3</ref> and then moved to Bristol, where Osbaldiston's performance as Joseph Surface in ''The School for Scandal'' attracted praise: ''The Stage and Literary Cabinet'' commented: {{blockindent|This gentleman possesses many – indeed ''most'' of the requisites necessary to form a great actor; his figure is rather above the common size, and well proportioned; he has an open expressive countenance, and the best voice I remember to have heard—clear, distinct, energetic, and capable of the greatest modulation. His performance of the hypocritical villain obtained for him, what be justly deserved, repeated bursts of applause.<ref>"Amusements", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 29 December 1821, p. 3</ref>}}
In 1822 Osbaldiston moved with his wife to the Theatre Royal, Norwich. There, his roles included Jacques in ''As You Like It'' and the title role in ''Richard III''.<ref>"The Theatre", ''Norfolk Chronicle'', 15 February 1823, p. 2; and "The Theatre", ''Norfolk Chronicle'' 5 April 1823, p. 2</ref> According to Stephen Ridgwell in the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Osbaldiston earned a reputation as "an impressive actor, particularly gifted at portraying freedom-loving heroes" – examples were Rolla in Sheridan's ''Pizarro'' and the title character in James Sheridan Knowles's tragedy ''Virginius''.<ref name=odnb/>
===London=== Osbaldiston made little impression in his first London appearance, in July 1826: ''The Times'' commented, "there is no offence about him, but at the same time he shows no qualifications which are likely to give him celebrity in London".<ref>"Haymarket Theatre", ''The Times'', 15 July 1926, p. 3</ref> In February 1828 he returned to London to join the Brunswick Theatre in Whitechapel. Three days after the opening of the theatre, its roof collapsed during a rehearsal, killing the proprietor, cast members and workmen.<ref>"Dreadful Catastophe", ''The Times'', 29 February 1828, p. 3</ref> Osbaldiston escaped, having not yet arrived at the theatre. He was quickly engaged by an influential actor-manager, Robert Elliston, as a leading member of the company at the Surrey Theatre in Southwark.<ref name=odnb/> He made his début there in the title role of a dramatisation of Walter Scott's novel ''Rob Roy'',<ref>"Theatre", ''Morning Advertiser'', 28 April 1828, p. 2</ref> and followed this with the title role in a free adaptation of Schiller's ''William Tell''. ''The New Times'' reported that he "fully established the fame he had acquired on his first appearance. He is decidedly an acquisition to the theatre".<ref>"Surrey Theatre", ''The New Times'', 3 May 1828, p. 4</ref>
In addition to his leading roles, Osbaldiston wrote dramas, including ''Baron Trenck, or The Fortress of Magdebourg'' (1830) – which marked his final appearance at the Surrey under Elliston's management.<ref>"Surrey Theatre", ''Morning Advertiser'', 11 October 1830, p. 2</ref> – and {{lang|fr|Vive la liberté}}, or ''The French Revolution of 1830'', an approving response to the July Revolution in Paris, "Embracing an historical outline of the memorable events of the Three Days".<ref>"Surrey Theatre", ''Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser'', 23 August 1830, p. 2</ref>
Elliston died in 1831 and Osbaldiston raised 3,000 guineas to buy the lease of the Surrey,<ref name=odnb/> in partnership with Elliston's son. The two fell out and there was a long-running legal action between the two.<ref>"Vice-Chancellor's Court, Jan. 22", ''The Times'', 23 January 1836, p. 6</ref> As a trustee of the Surrey, Osbaldiston campaigned for an end to the patent house monopoly – a system dating from 1660 that granted three theatres – Drury Lane, Covent Garden and the Haymarket – the exclusive right to present spoken drama in London.<ref>Wells, Stanley. ["patent theatres"], ''An A-Z Guide to Shakespeare'', Oxford University Press, 2013 {{subscription}}</ref> In June 1832 he testified before a parliamentary committee on licensing and censorship reform.<ref name=odnb/> There was a majority in the House of Commons for a bill to abolish the monopoly, but the House of Lords rejected it. Osbaldiston defied the law and continued to present spoken drama; he was prosecuted, but the jury refused to convict him.<ref>Ledger, p. 21</ref> {{multiple image | caption_align=center | align = right | direction = horizontal |header=1830s productions by Osbaldiston | header_align = center | footer_align = left | image1 =The-Factory-Lad-1832.png | width1 =201 | alt1=Line drawing of dramatic scene with well-dressed man on the floor being menaced by ragged young men | caption1 =The Factory Lad, 1832 | image2=William Mulready - Othello - Walters 372629.jpg | width2=169 | alt2=Young, clean-shaven black man in Tudor costume | caption2=Ira Aldridge as Othello, }}
Osbaldiston again showed his radical character, presenting ''The Blight of Ambition, or, The Life of a Member of Parliament'',<ref>"Surrey Theatre", ''The Morning Post'', 27 March 1832, p. 3</ref> and John Walker's combative melodrama ''The Factory Lad'' (1832), which ''The Stage'' later described as "the first social problem play in this genre",<ref>"Mayday: The Factory Lad", ''The Stage'', 27 July 1974, p. 15</ref> and which antedates by several years the major Victorian novels about industrial conditions, including Frances Trollope's ''Michael Armstrong, the Factory Boy'' (1840), Benjamin Disraeli's ''Sybyl'' (1845), and Elizabeth Gaskell's ''Mary Barton'' (1848).<ref>Vernon, p. 124</ref>
Osbaldiston had a shrewd sense for the box office and presented the popular "African Roscius" (Ira Aldridge) as Othello in April 1833 and as Shylock the next month.<ref name=odnb/><ref>"Theatres", ''The Times'', 20 May 1833, p. 2</ref> In June of that year Osbaldiston staged and played the lead in Edward Fitzball's melodrama, ''Jonathan Bradford, or The Murder at the Roadside Inn''.<ref>"Surrey Theatre", ''The Morning Advertiser'', 10 June 1833, p. 2</ref> Also in the cast was the nineteen-year-old Eliza Vincent; the following year Vincent and Osbaldiston eloped. They had a daughter, Beatrice Eliza, and remained together for the rest of Osbaldiston's life.<ref name=odnb/>
===Covent Garden and later=== In September 1835 Osbaldiston became the manager at Covent Garden. Sparking outrage among the theatrical establishment, he reduced ticket prices drastically and introduced a mixed programme of straight dramas combined with populist entertainment, contributed by Fitzball. Charles Dickens derided him as a tawdry peddler of inferior plays, but Ridgwell comments that Osbaldiston played a key role in salvaging the career of Dickens's idol, William Macready, and in overseeing Charles Kemble's final and triumphant season of Shakespeare. He launched Helena Faucit's West End career, in Sheridan Knowles's ''The Hunchback'' and produced Edward Bulwer-Lytton's first staged play, the romantic tragedy ''The Duchess de la Vallière'' (1836).<ref name=odnb/> In 1836 Osbaldiston took over the management of Sadler's Wells Theatre in Islington, remaining simultaneously in charge at Covent Garden until March the following year.<ref>"Sadler's Wells", ''The Morning Post'', 5 April 1836, p. 3; and "Saturday Night", ''The Examiner'', 12 March 1837, p. 11</ref>
Two years later Osbaldiston and Vincent moved to the new City of London Theatre in Bishopsgate, where they remained for three years. He made it one of the most successful small theatres in London. Ridgwell writes that although Osbaldiston continued to appear in his own productions – "mostly in heavyweight dramas" such as Colman's ''The Iron Chest'' and Thomas Otway's ''Venice Preserv'd'' – Vincent was increasingly the focus of a series of melodramas by George Dibdin Pitt.<ref name=odnb/>
Osbaldiston's last theatre, from Easter Monday 1841, was the Royal Victoria in Southwark (latterly better known as the Old Vic), which though potentially profitable was in need of revitalisation. He and Vincent had an early success with ''Simon Lee, or The Murder at the Five Fields Copse'', in which a loving wife poisons herself in the cell where her husband awaits execution and a reprieve arrives just as she is at the point of death.<ref>Thomas, Leslie. "Behind the greatness – a woman's touch", ''The Evening News'', 14 June 1963, p. 12</ref> They had a still greater success with Dibdin Pitt's ''Susan Hopley, or, The Vicissitudes of a Servant Girl'', which according to Ridgwell "reportedly had audiences offering help to the beleaguered heroine".<ref name=odnb/> But although sentimental melodramas were profitable, Osbaldiston's "People's Theatre" also had a more radical side. As well as Chartist fund-raising evenings the theatre hosted plays with a strong political element, including ''Richard Plantagenet, or The Rebellion of Wat Tyler'' by J. T. Haines and ''The Soldier's Progress, or The Horrors of War'' by John Courtney. In response to the revolutionary wave of 1848, Osbaldiston revived {{lang|fr|Vive la liberté}} and concluded it with the "Marseillaise".<ref name=odnb/>
Osbaldiston died of jaundice and dropsy at his home in Brixton on 29 December 1850, aged 56. His estranged wife strongly contested his will, but most of his estate, including the lease of the Victoria, went, as he wished, to Vincent.<ref name=odnb/>
==References== {{reflist}}
==Sources== * {{cite book |editor-last=Ledger |editor-first=Edward | title=The Era Almanack and Annual | year= 1869 | location=London | publisher=The Era |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_era-almanack-and-annual-the-dramatic-and-musical_1869/page/20/mode/2up | oclc= 1049052455 }} *{{cite journal |last= Vernon|first= Sally| title = Trouble up at t'Mill: The Rise and Decline of the Factory Play in the 1830s and 1840s| journal = Victorian Studies| date = Winter 1977|volume=20|issue=2| pages = 117–139|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3826152}} {{subscription}}
Category:1794 births Category:1850 deaths Category:19th-century English male actors Category:English male Shakespearean actors Category:People from Manchester