Robert Gardner Warton
Robert Gardner Warton (1847–1923)[1] was a British military officer, cricketer and amateur singer.
Contents
Biography
Born Robert Gardner Warton born in Islington on 16 January 1847 and educated at Highgate School, he served in the British Army in Japan and South Africa.
He passed away on 20 September 1923.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
While stationed in South Africa, Warton organised the first ever visit by an English cricket team to play against a South African team in South Africa in 1888-9, a team led by C. Aubrey Smith, who would later become famous as a stage and film actor. The teams played two games games, later designated "Tests", that took place at St George's Park, Port Elizabeth, on 12 and 13 March 1889 and at Newlands in Cape Town on 25 and 26 March. Warton acted as an umpire for both games.
On 24 December of that year the members of the team attended and took part in a "smoking concert" held in their honour in the Exhibition Theatre, Cape Town. The concert had two parts, first a Christy Minstrel show, that included a comic ditty called "The Man that Struck O'Hara". The second half saw songs by local celebrities such as Tom Graham, a talk on public entertainers by Robert Baden-Powell, as well as other team members, such as Warton himself and the popular bowler Johnny Briggs. The critic and chronicler of theatre in the Cape, D.C. Boonzaier, was himself involved in the event, helping to blacken the faces of the performers in the Christy show.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Warton_(umpire)
D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1923. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)
F.C.L. Bosman, 1928. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel I: 1652-1855. Pretoria: J.H. de Bussy. [2]: pp.
F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1916. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp.
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