Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) He was born

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

                                             (1751-1816)                                                   

He was born in 1751 on the 30^th of October, in Dublin. He is the third son of Thomas and Frances Sheridan. He was a very popular child at school and he left Harrow school at the age of seventeen. He was placed under the care of a tutor. He was given in his childhood lessons of elocution, fencing and riding.

With a friend he met in Harrow, he had litterary plans. They published a translation of Aristaenetus and wrote a farce entitled Jupiter which was refused for publication. Sheridan wrote a lot by himself but nothing of importance.

His family moved to Bath in 1771 which led to the meeting with the composer Thomas Linley's daughters. The eldest one, Elizabeth Ann, was so beautiful that Sheridan was one of her suitors. Another was a man named Major Mathews. To protect her from him, Sheridan escorted her to a nunnery in March 1772 and then fought two duels with Mathews. This event was sensationnal at that time. As Elizabeth Ann's father didn't consider Sheridan as an eligible suitor, he was kept away from her. But what the father didn't know is that the two of them had secretly married. Sheridan was sent to Essex to continue his mathematics studies. In April 1773, he finally was openly married to Elizabeth Ann.

Even if he had no income apart from his wife's, he settled in a luxurious house and lived in a fashionable manner. His first comedy The Rivals  was produced on the 17^th of January in 1775. Its first perfomance was deceiving but starting from the second one it was a success. He then wrote another farce St. Patrick's Day, or the Scheming Lieutenant. The same year, helped by his father-in-law, he produced The Duenna, played 75 times at Covert Garden during the season. He bought his own theater between 1776 and 1778. He produced a version of Vanbrugh's Relapse  but with little changes. The School for Scandal was produced on the 8^th of May in 1777.Two years latter he produced a new farce The Critic . His only dramatic production was in 1799 entitled Pizzaro.

He entered parliament for Stafford in 1780 but it was dur to a financial help. He did a lot of things in politic in the following years.

His end of life consisted in debts and disappointment. After the death of his wife in 1792, he married again three years later with Esther Jane, the daughter of the dean of Winchester. He only had one son from his first marriage. He became a poet. Sheridan died in 1816 and was solemnly burried in Westminster Abbey.

Léane Leclercq – 1L