William Evans Burton

William Evans Burton
1858 illustration
Born	24 September 1804 (1804-09-24) London, United Kingdom
Died	10 February 1860 (1860-02-11) (Age 55) New York City, United States

William Evans Burton (24 September 1804 – 10 February 1860), who often went by the nickname Billy, was an English actor, playwright, theater manager and publisher who relocated to the United States.

Born in London on 24 September 1804, Burton was the son of William George Burton (1774-1825), a printer and the author of Research into the religions of the Eastern nations as illustrative of the scriptures in 1805. Intended for a career in the church, Burton was a pupil at St. Paul's School in London, an institution associated also with the dramatic names of Robert William Elliston and Charles Mathews. At the age of 18, in consequence of the death of his father, the youth was called to take charge of the printing office, and also to be the support of a widowed mother. His first effort was to establish a monthly magazine. The attempt was a failure, but it brought him theatrical acquaintances, and under their influence he presently drifted toward the stage.

The first step in his theatrical career, as usual, was to join an amateur dramatic society, and it is said that about this time he gave a performance of Hamlet somewhere on the Strand. In 1825 he was associated with a provincial company acting at Norwich, and elsewhere in England, and he played low comedy. His aspirations at the start were for the tragic, and it is known that late in life he still at times entertained the fancy that nature had intended him to be a tragedian. Burton was one of the funniest creatures that ever lived, but his interior nature was thoughtful and saturnine. He thought, felt, and understood tragedy, but when he came to act, he was all comedian.

At the outset of his career he led the usual life of an itinerant actor. There is a tradition that in the course of his wanderings he once played before George IV at Windsor. After several years in the provinces, he made his first London appearance in 1831 at the Pavilion Theatre as Wormwood in The Lottery Ticket, in which part he was much admired, and which he then acted there upward of fifty consecutive times. John Liston was then the reigning favorite in London (Joseph Shepherd Munden, who died in 1832, being in decadence), and next to Liston stood John Reeve, upon whom it is thought that the earlier style of Burton was in a measure founded.