Major Warton
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Robert Gardner Warton (1847–1923) was a British military officer, cricketer and amateur singer.
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Biography
Born Robert Gardner Warton on 16 January 1847
He passed away on 20 September 1923.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
Warton was the organiser of first the 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 in Port Elizabeth and in Cape Town. Warton acted one of the umpires 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/Johnny_Briggs_(cricketer)
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. [1]: 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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