Thomas Sheridan

(1775-1817) Theatre manager, colonial administrator, poet, actor and playwright.

Biography
Usually referred to as Tom, he was born in November 1775 in England, the only son of Elizabeth Ann Linley and the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

He briefly served in the army in 1803, then in Ireland where he served as a muster-master general in 1806, while also (unsuccessfully) trying his hand at a career in politics.

In 1806 he joined his father at the Drury Lane Theatre, becoming the manager, while also fulfilling managerial duties at the Lyceum Theatre as well as managing the Theatre Royal. He wrote poetry, plays and melodramas, including Description of Characters in 1808 and The Russian (1813).

He married Caroline Henrietta Callander of Craigforth on 21 June 1805 and the couple had 10 children.

To ease the symptoms of the tuberculosis he was afflicted with, he left England with his wife and eldest daughter to take up an appointment as the Colonial Governor's treasurer at the Cape of Good Hope in 1813. In Cape Town he became involved in local theatricals.

He died of tuberculosis in Cape Town in 1817.

Contribution to South African theatre
He was a member of the Garrison Players, and wrote a prologue to their performance of Wild Oats (O'Keefe) on 4 November, 1815.

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