Thomas William Robertson

Thomas William Robertson (9 January 1829 – 3 February 1871), usually known professionally as T. W. Robertson, was an English dramatist and innovative stage director best known for a series of realistic or naturalistic plays produced in London in the 1860s that broke new ground and inspired playwrights such as W.S. Gilbert and George Bernard Shaw.

Born in Newark-upon-Trent, Nottinghamshire, England, Robertson was the oldest son of William Robertson, a provincial actor and manager. His family was famous for producing actors. The actress Margaret (Madge) Robertson was his youngest sister. As a child, Robertson acted in juvenile parts in Rob Roy, Pizarro, The Stranger, "French" parts and eccentric comedy on the Lincoln Circuit and at the Marylebone in London. He also visited Paris as the stage manager and interpreter for an English company. Never a successful actor himself, he wrote numerous plays, mostly comedies, many of which achieved popularity. Robertson died at the age of 42 and is buried, as is his wife Elizabeth, at Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington.

As a dramatist, Robertson began with adaptations of Dickens novels and wrote music hall songs for comedians. He produced a farcical comedy, A Night's Adventure at London's Olympic Theatre in 1851, but this did not catch on, and he remained for several more years in the provinces, acting and continuing with play writing and writing for newspapers. In 1860, he moved to London and worked as an editor, also writing a novel, later dramatised under the title Shadow Tree Shaft. He also wrote a farce entitled A Cantab, which was played at the Royal Strand Theatre in 1861. This brought him a reputation among a Bohemian clique of writers, the Fun magazine gang (including W. S. Gilbert, Tom Hood, Clement Scott, and F. C. Burnand), but so little profit that he thought of abandoning the profession to become a tobacconist. Finally, in 1864, he had his first notable playwriting success, David Garrick, produced at the Haymarket Theatre with Edward Sothern in the title role. Robertson also wrote the libretto to the 1865 comic opera Constance, with music by Frederic Clay.

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