Thomas King (1730–1805) was an English actor, known also as a theatre manager and dramatist.
Early life
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.
London actor
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.
In 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.
Leading actor in London
The troubles of the Dublin theatres drove King back to Drury Lane, where he became a mainstay of the cast for over 30 years. He reappeared as Tom in the Conscious Lovers, on 2 October 1759, and was assigned leading parts. With occasional visits to Dublin or to country towns, and with one season at Covent Garden and a summer visit to the Haymarket, he remained at Drury Lane until 1802. On his reappearance at Drury Lane he was accompanied by Mary Baker, a hornpipe dancer, who then made her first appearance at Drury Lane. He married her in 1766, and she retired from the stage 9 May 1772. King's characters covered well over one hundred parts.
At Drury Lane King was, on 31 October 1759, the original Sir Harry's servant in High Life Below Stairs, and on 12 December the original Squire Groom in Charles Macklin's Love à la Mode. With his performance of Lord Ogleby in the Clandestine Marriage of Garrick and Colman, on 20 February 1766, he reached a peak of his career. Garrick studied the part and resigned it to King, who accepted it with reluctance, but Garrick was pleased with his conception.
In July 1766 King broke his leg, and was unable to act until the following November. On 8 May 1777, when he was the original Sir Peter Teazle in the outstanding first representation of The School for Scandal, King also spoke Garrick's prologue. On 29 October 1779, in the original cast of The Critic, King was Puff. His original characters amounted to about eighty.
King played also in his own pieces. Love at First Sight, a ballad-farce, by him (1763), was acted at Drury Lane on 17 October 1763, King playing in it Smatter, a servant who personates his master. Wit's Last Stake (1769), another farce, was given at Drury Lane on 14 April 1768; It was an adaptation of Le Légataire Universel by Jean-François Regnard, and its success was attributed to King's reading of the part of Martin, the Crispin of the original, a servant who personates a man supposed to be dying, and dictates a will by which he himself benefits. Under the title of A Will and no Will, or Wit's Last Stake, it was revived on 24 April 1799 for King's benefit, on which occasion King was Linger the invalid, and Bannister, jun., Martin.
Actor-manager
On the death of William Powell King bought his share in the King Street Theatre. There during the summer seasons of 1770 and 1771 he was actor and sole manager. He then sold his share to James William Dodd, and purchased from builder 75% of Sadler's Wells, in which he was associated with Samuel Arnold. He made some changes in the performances, raised the prices of admission, and provided horse patrols, to guard through a dangerous district the fashionable visitors whom he attracted. His prices entitled the visitor to receive a pint of wine at an added cost of sixpence. In 1778 King sold his share, and was succeeded by Richard Wroughton.