Charles Wyndham (actor)

Sir Charles Wyndham (23 March 1837 – 12 January 1919) was an English actor-manager, born as Charles Culverwell in Liverpool, the only son of a doctor, Robert James Culverwell, M.R.C.S. He was educated abroad, at King's College London and at the College of Surgeons and the Peter Street Anatomical School, Dublin. He took the degree of M.R.C.S. in 1857 and that of L.M. in 1858.

His taste for the stage - he had taken part in amateur drama - was too strong for him to take up either the clerical or the medical career suggested for him. His first appearances on stage were for Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair's private theatre at St Andrews.

Early in 1862 he made his first professional appearance in London, performing with Ellen Terry. Later in the year he went to America and since further stage work was not forthcoming, he returned to medicine. There was a shortage of surgeons in the United States, which was in the throes of the Civil War, and he volunteered to become brigade surgeon in the Union army. He served at the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.

On 17 November 1864 he resigned his contract with the Army to return to the stage. He starred, in 1867, in W. S. Gilbert's La Vivandière. In later years he was to appear in America: between 1870 and 1872 in his own Wyndham Comedy Company; and in later tours between 1882 and 1909. On one occasion he appeared in New York City with John Wilkes Booth.

Returning to England, his career blossomed. Although he was occasionally to play Shakespeare, his work mostly consisted of the popular melodramas and comedies of the time. He played at Manchester and Dublin in Her Ladyship's Guardian, his own adaptation of Edward B. Hamley's novel Lady Lee's Widowhood. He reappeared in London in 1866 as Sir Arthur Lascelles in Morion's All that Glitters is not Gold, but his great success at that time was in F. C. Burnand's burlesque of Black-eyed Susan, as Hatchett, "with dance." This brought him to the erstwhile St James's Theatre, where he played with Henry Irving in Idalia; then with Ellen Terry in Charles Reade's Double Marriage, and Tom Taylor's Still Waters Run Deep.

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