Wentworth Smith

Wentworth Smith
Born	Baptised 9 March 1571 (birth date unknown) London, England
Died	DOD unknown
Occupation	Playwright, scrivener
Literary movement	English Renaissance theatre
Spouse	Agnes Gymber Mary Poteman
Children	Katherine Smith Wentworth Smith

Wentworth Smith (1571 – in or after 1614), was a minor English dramatist of the Elizabethan period who may have been responsible for some of the plays in the Shakespeare Apocrypha, though no work known to be his is extant.

Wentworth Smith, the son of one William Smith, was born in early March 1571 and baptized on 9 March 1571 at St James Garlickhythe, a parish church in the City of London. He married Agnes Gymber on 29 September 1594 in St Thomas the Apostle, another parish church in the city. At this time he was employed as a scrivener, an occupation with which he continued to be identified as late as the death of his son in 1614.

Smith's first wife died in 1602 and he married Mary Poteman in Whitechapel on 16 May 1607. His children Katherine and Wentworth were baptized in 1607 and 1610, respectively; the younger Wentworth died in 1614, but it is not known when Smith himself died, or even if he was still living at the time of his son's death.

That Wentworth Smith is known as a writer is due entirely to the presence of his name in the account book of Philip Henslowe. Between April 1601 and March 1603, Smith produced fifteen plays acted by the playing companies of Admiral's Men and Worcester's Men at Henslowe's Rose Theater, some singly but most in partnership with other playwrights who also wrote for Henslowe. None of the works in which he had a hand is extant.

The last certain notice linking Smith to his dramatic profession is from 6 June 1605, when with one Elizabeth Lewes he witnessed the will of his dramatic collaborator William Haughton. He may have continued writing plays, though as Henslowe ceased recording the names of his writers after 1603 this cannot be confirmed.

In addition to the works in which his hand is certain, Smith may have been responsible in whole or part for three plays of the period published under the initials "W. S." These were Locrine (1595), Thomas Lord Cromwell (1602) and The Puritan (1607). It is thought more probable that the initials are spurious, added to the published plays in an attempt by the publishers to suggest and capitalize on a connection with William Shakespeare, to whom indeed they were later misattributed. A like motivation might have held even if the initials were genuine, and have lain behind the abbreviation of the author's name.

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