Thomas King (actor)

Thomas King (1730–1805) was an English actor, known also as a theatre manager and dramatist.

Born 20 August 1730, in the parish of St George's, Hanover Square, London, where his father was a tradesman, he was educated at a grammar school in Yorkshire,and then at Westminster School. Articled to a London solicitor, he was taken to a dramatic school, and in 1747, with Edward Shuter, he ran away, and joined a travelling company at Tunbridge. He then had a period acting in barns, in the course of which (June 1748) he played in a booth at Windsor, directed by Richard Yates.

King was seen by David Garrick, who, on the recommendation of Yates, engaged him for Drury Lane. His first part was the Herald in King Lear. On 19 October 1748, when Philip Massinger's New Way to Pay Old Debts was given for the first time at Drury Lane, he played Allworth. He was in the same season the original Murza in Samuel Johnson's Irene, and played a part in The Hen-Peck'd Captain, a farce said to be based on The Campaigners by Thomas d'Urfey.

During the summer King played opposite Hannah Pritchard at Jacob's Well Theatre in Bristol. There he impressed William Whitehead. On his return to Drury Lane King found himself announced for George Barnwell in The London Merchant, one of his Bristol roles. At the end of this season he went with Miss Cole to Dublin.

King's first appearance under Thomas Sheridan at the Smock Alley Theatre took place in September 1750, as Ranger in the Suspicious Husband. King remained there for eight years, making his reputation in comedy, with one season, beginning in September 1755, when he was the manager and principal actor at the Bath Theatre. On 23 October 1758 he appeared at the Crow Street Theatre as Trappanti in She would and she would not.

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