SIR

See also:

• SQUIRE

SQUIRE

See also:

• BANCROFT, GEORGE (1800—1891)
• BANCROFT, HUBERT HOWE (1832– )
• BANCROFT, RICHARD (1544–161o)
• SIR SQUIRE BANCROFT (1841– )

BANCROFT (1841– )  , English actor and manager, was born near London on the 14th of May 1841 . His first appearance on the stage was in 1861 at Birmingham, and he played in the provinces with success for several years . His first London appearance was in 1865 in Wooler's A Winning Hazard at the Prince of Wales's theatre off Tottenham Court Road, then under the management of Effie Marie Wilton (b . 1840), whom he married in 1868 . Mr and Mrs Bancroft were associated in the production of all the Robertson comedies: Society (1865), Ours (1866), Caste (1867), Play (1868), School (1869) and M.P . (187o), and, after Robertson's death, in revivals of the old comedies, for which they surrounded themselves with an admirable company . Lytton's Money (1872), Boucicault's London Assurance (1877), and Diplomacy—an adaptation of Sardou's Dora—were among their premieres, which helped to make the little playhouse famous . The Bancroft management at the Prince of Wales's constituted a new era in the development of the English stage, and had the effect of reviving the London interest in modern drama . In 1879 they moved to the Hay-market, where Sardou's Odette (for which they engaged Madame Modjeska) and Fedora, W . S . Gilbert's Sweethearts and Pinero's Lords and Commons, with revivals of previous successes, were among their productions . Having made a considerable fortune, they retired in 1885, but Mr Bancroft (who was knighted in 1897) joined Sir Henry Irving in 1889 to play the abbe Latour in a revival of Watts Phillips's Dead Heart .

See Mr and Mrs Bancroft, on and off the Stage (1888), and The Bancrofts: Recollections of Sixty Years (1909), by themselves .