- GB-2014-WSA-01282
- Person
- ca. 1721-1788
SHERIDAN, THOMAS, third son of Rev. Thomas Sheridan DD, King’s Mint House, Capel Street, Dublin, schoolmaster, and Elizabeth, only child of Charles MacFadden, Quilca House, co. Cavan; b.; adm. (aged 11) Feb 1732/3; KS 1734; left 1734; Trinity Coll. Dublin, matr. 26 May 1735, scholar 1738; BA 1739; became an actor; appeared as Richard III at Dublin Jan 1743; for several years manager of Theatre Royal, Smock Alley, Dublin; played at Covent Garden 1754-5 and at Drury Lane 1744, 1763; ranked by Churchill in the Rosciad as next to Garrick as a tragic actor; a successful lecturer on elocution; gave readings with Henderson in London; procured the grant of a government pension to Samuel Johnson and also to himself (G. B. Hill, ed, Boswell’s Johnson, i, 372-7, 385-6); MA Oxford 28 Nov 1758, Cambridge 16 Mar 1769; hon. freeman, City of Edinburgh 8 Jul 1761; a voluminous writer; author, A General; Dictionary of the English Language, 1780; father of Right Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan PC MP, politician and playwright; m. 1747 Frances, dau. of Ven. Philip Chamberlayne DD, Archdeacon of Glendalough; d. 14 Aug 1788. DNB.