CHARLES

See also:

• CHARLES BANNISTER (1738-18o4)

BANNISTER (1738-18o4)  , English actor and singer, was born in Gloucestershire, and after some amateur and provincial experience made his first London appearance in 1762 as Will in The Orators at the Haymarket . Gifted with a fine bass voice, Bannister acquired a reputation as a singer at Ranelagh and elsewhere, as well as an actor, and was received with such favour that Garrick engaged him for Drury Lane . He died on the 26th of October 1804 . His son JOHN BANNISTER (1760-1836), born at Deptford on the 12th of May 176o, first studied to be a painter, but soon took to the stage . His first formal appearance was at the Haymarket in 1778 as Dick in The Apprentice . The same year at Drury Lane he played in James Miller's version of Voltaire's Mahomet the part of Zaphna, which he had studied under Garrick . The Palmira of the cast was Mrs Robinson (" Perdita ") . Bannister was the best low comedian of his day . As manager of Drury Lane (1802) he was no less successful . He retired in 1815 and died on the 7th of November 1836 . He never gave up his taste for painting, and Gainsborough, Morland and Rowlandson were among his friends . See Adolphus's Memoirs of John Bannister (2 vols., 1838) .