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Life
| b. Dublin; b. 20 [var. 23] Nov. 1719, Skinner Row [Werburgh Parish], son of silversmith who mismanaged his business; appeared at Smock Alley, 15 Feb. 1744 as Othello; moved to London on the invitation of David Garrick, and played Othello to Macklin’s Iago at Drury Lane, Oct. 1746; remained there up to 1747, alternating with Garrick in such parts as Jaffeir and Pierre in Otway’s Venice Preserv’d, likewise sharing Chamont and Castalio in Otway’s The Orphan, Hastings and Dumont in Rowe’s Jane Shore, and Lothario and Horatio in Rowe’s The Fair Penitent; 1746; considered outstanding as young lover; appeared as Young Norval in Home’s Douglas, opp. Peg Woffington as Lady Randolph; moved to Covent Garden in 1750; playing Romeo, Lear and Richard III in open rivalry with Garrick; |
| returned to Ireland, 1798; opened Crow Street theatre with Henry Woodward, 1759, and another theatre in Cork, 1761, playing Hamlet at opening of the latter; wasted theatrical revenue through magnificent private parties; Woodward withdrew 1761; ruined through speculative building in Dublin, Barry returned to London and appeared at the Haymarket, 1767; on death of first wife he m. Ann Dancer (née Street, 1734-1801 - b. in Bath, the dg. of an apothecary), in 1768 - having played Lear to her Cordelia in Crow St. at her first recorded performance, in 1758; |
| d. 10 Jan., reputedly of gout; bur. Westminster; after his death, his wife m. a Mr. Crawford and appeared as Mrs. Crawford in 1778, and is bur. at Westminster Abbey; he was called ‘Harmonious Barry’ by Arthur Murphy and the ‘wonder and darling of every audience’ by London critics, he was finally considered to have had the voice and figure but not the intellect of a great actor; a lengthy biography of Barry appears in in Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica, Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. I, p.44-58. RR ODNB DIB OXTH OCIL FDA |
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Commentary
Sir John Gilbert, History of Dublin [1854-59] (Shannon IUP 1972 [re. edn.], Vol. 2, gives an extensive account of the founding of Crow Street and Barry's carriage as an actor, including satiric lines upon him by Churchill: ‘What man, like Barry, with such pains can err / In elocution, action, character [... .] Who else can speak so very, very fine, / That sense may kindly end with every line [...]. No flame from Nature ever yet he caught; / nor knew a feeling that he was not taught.’ (p.184.)
| Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica; or, Biographical Dictionary of Irish Worthies [...], Vol. I (London & Dublin 1819) - |
| This early reference work contains a lengthy article on Spranger Barry which incorporates an extended footnote-history of his wife, née Steel, also an actor, and much about the Dublin and London theatres in which he was involved as actor and manager. The whole is greatly concerned with his affable disposition and problems arising thereform: ‘Barry was the easiest man in the world to live with as a companion and friend. He had a gift of pleasing in conversation beyond most men, owing more to the manner than the matter. To those who are conversant with the domestic management of actors, it will create no surprise to find that Barry did not confine himself within the limits of his income, which, from the first, was very considerable. One of his greatest pleasures consisted in giving splendid and sumptuous entertainments; ...’ (pp.44-57; p.51.) |
| See full copy of Biog. Hibernica I in RICORSO Library > Criticism > Legacy - via index, or as attached. |
Rev. S[amuel] C[arlyle] Hughes, Pre-Victorian Drama in Dublin (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis 1904): ‘Spranger Barry, 1717-1777, was a son of William Barry, a goldsmith in Skinner Row, and was baptized in S. Werburgh's Church, where the Barrys and Archdalls sat in the same pew. He was brought up to his father's business, and served as Constable of the Watch in 1741. Business and he soon parted company, and he made a brilliant entrance on the stage at Smock Alley, on February 15th, 1744, as [16] Othello. He was already married, but his first wife apparently died in 1764. Nature was very bountiful to Barry: tall, graceful, and possessing a voice of exquisite music and sweetness, he was the ideal of tragedy and stately comedy. He had spent three seasons in Dublin, and nearly ten in London, before the opening of Crow Street. He spent nine years in Crow Street, and returned to London, where he was readily welcomed. He revisited Dublin in 1771, 1773, and 1774. The Dublin people wished to have more of him, but his later years were sadly racked with gout. In 1777, he was laid to rest in the cloisters of Westminster, where his second wife, the great player, followed in 1801. His public life covered thirty-three years of rare splendour and popularity. Barry was at his best in tragedy, and at his worst in opera. His great wife, Ann Barry, was trained by himself in Crow Street. Though she was married three times, we cannot call her by any other name than Barry.’ (pp.15-16.)
| See Barry page in Theatre History - online [accessed 25.12.2009.] |
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Notes
Theatre Royal: The Crow Street (Royal) Theatre was erected by Spranger Barry and Henry
Woodward on the site of a music hall in 1758, it became the Theatre Royal
when Barry acquired the patent of Master of Revels in 1759. Raised at
a cost of £22,000, it matched the contemporary playhouse at Drury Lane
in London, with a stage 90 feet deep and 36 feet wide and a capacity for
audiences of a thousand.
Portrait: An engraving of Barry as Timon in Act V of Shakespeare’s (Timon of Athens) play appeared in Bell’s Edition of Shakespeare’s Plays (1776) and is reproduced in Brian de Breffny, gen. ed., Encyclopaedia of Ireland (1968), p.40. Another portrait of Barry by E. Harding, from original by Sir Joshua Reynolds, is held in the Harvard Theatre Collection and is reproduced in Jane Dunbar, Peg Woffington (1968), facing p.182.
Excellent Mrs Barry: Mrs. Dancer excelled as Millant and Angelica in Congreve’s The Way of the World and Love for Love, and as Mrs Sullen in Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Stratagem; retired in 1798.
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