B. C. Stephenson

Benjamin Charles Stephenson or B. C. Stephenson (1839 – 22 January 1906) was an English dramatist, lyricist and librettist. After beginning a career in the civil service, he started to write for the theatre, using the pen name "Bolton Rowe". He was author or co-author of several long-running shows of the Victorian theatre. His biggest hit was the comic opera Dorothy, which set records for the length of its original run.

His writing collaborators included Clement Scott and Brandon Thomas, and composers with whom he worked included Frederic Clay, Alfred Cellier and Sir Arthur Sullivan with whom he wrote The Zoo, which continues to be revived today.

Stephenson, the son of Sir William Henry Stephenson, came from a family with a history of public service, both civil and military. His grandfather, also named Benjamin Charles Stephenson, was a major-general and later one of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Stephenson's father became a civil servant, rising to become chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue. The young Stephenson was commissioned into the Middlesex Militia and later entered the civil service.

While working as a civil servant, Stephenson began writing theatrical pieces. His grandfather, General B. C. Stephenson, had lived and died at a house in Bolton Row, Mayfair, and the young Stephenson adopted "Bolton Rowe" as his pen name. Stephenson's first works were collaborations with the composer Frederic Clay in three pieces played by amateurs, The Pirate's Isle, Out of Sight and The Bold Recruit (1868). The last of these was repeated at a benefit, produced by Thomas German Reed, at the Gallery of Illustration in 1870 as a companion piece to Clay and W.S. Gilbert's Ages Ago. Stephenson's first professional success came at the same venue, two years later, with a short operetta, written with the composer Alfred Cellier, Charity Begins at Home. The piece was in the company's repertory for most of 1872, and was played more than 200 times.

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