Ralph Kimpton

(b. Bishopsgate, London, **/**/1879 - d. **/**/****). British-born administrator, producer, director. According to the census records for England and Wales, in 1901 Howard Ralph Kimpton was a commercial clerk, but by 1904 he was an assistant stage manager for George Alexander 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. In August 1913 he arrived in the United States and was employed by a New York theatre, which also paid for his passage. In November 1915 he came to South Africa and is known to have produced The Merchant of Venice for presentation at the Palladium Theatre from 24 to 27 April 1916 on the occasion of the Johannesburg Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebration.

After that he was employed by African Film Productions and, according to the S.A. Pictorial of 1 September 1917, was one of the company’s assistant producers and had worked as such on Harold M. Shaw's De Voortrekkers. However, in April of that year the magazine had already reported that he was the co-producer (with Joseph Albrecht) of The Border Scourge (1917). It was a first 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 a acrimonious libel case against his former employer, joining Shaw, who had also fallen out with I.W. Schlesinger. In April 1918 the case was 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 known that he moved to Cape Town to join Shaw's new company and in November 1919 he directed Alfred Holtzer's play A Broken Chain at the Railway Institute for the Owl Club. After that we lose sight of him, though during the 1940s he worked with the Cape Town Repertory Theatre and produced at least one play at the Little Theatre. (FO)