Ralph Kimpton

(b. London, **/06/1879 - d. **/**/****). British-born administrator, producer, director. According to the 1901 census records for England and Wales, Howard Ralph Kimpton was a commercial clerk, but by 1904 he was an assistant stage manager at the St. James' Theatre in London and later worked with Alfred Wareing, the driving force behind the Glasgow Repertory Theatre, which was founded in 1909. It looks as though in August 1913 he arrived in the United States (passage paid by a New York theatre), but by 1916 he was in South Africa, producing The Merchant of Venice for presentation at the Palladium Theatre from 24 to 27 April on the occasion of the Johannesburg Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebration. After that he was employed by African Film Productions and, according to Stage & Cinema of 1 September 1917, was one of the company’s assistant producers. However, in February of that year the magazine had reported that he was the co-producer (with Joseph Albrecht) of The Border Scourge (1917). It was a first feature film for both of them and it is likely that Albrecht took care of the technical side, while Kimpton directed the actors. By the end of the year Kimpton was involved in an acrimonious libel case against his former employer, joining Harold M. Shaw, who had also fallen out with I.W. Schlesinger. In April 1918 the case was withdrawn, probably because it had been settled out of court. In that same month he was the producer of the play The Blindness of Virtue, staged at the Standard Theatre with Freda Godfrey and Frank Cellier in the cast. We know that he moved to Cape Town to join Shaw's new company, but after that we lose sight of Kimpton, though during the 1940s he worked with the Cape Town Repertory Theatre and produced at least one play at the Little Theatre. (FO)