Elliston, Robert William

Elliston, Robert William (1774–1831), English actor, who made his London début in 1796 at the Haymarket Theatre. Charles Dibdin wrote a number of entertainments for him, and he was frequently seen at Drury Lane, being one of the most popular actors of the day, second only to Garrick in tragedy. He was also much esteemed in comedy, playing Doricourt in Mrs Cowley's The Belle's Stratagem, Charles Surface in Sheridan's The School for Scandal, Rover in O'Keeffe's Wild Oats, and Ranger in Hoadly's The Suspicious Husband with equal success. In later life one of his finest parts was Falstaff in Henry IV, Part One in which he had previously played Hotspur. He managed a number of provincial theatres, the Surrey, and the Olympic, and in 1819 achieved his ambition of managing Drury Lane where he opened with Edmund Kean in King Lear and in 1821 put on Byron's Marino Faliero in the face of much opposition. But his resources could not meet his expenditure and his outside speculations, and in 1826 he went bankrupt. He then returned to the Surrey Theatre, where he made a substantial profit from Jerrold's Black-Ey'd Susan (1829) starring T. P. Cooke. He made his last appearance about a fortnight before his death.