Peter Warren Dease

Peter Warren Dease , 1788-1863, Canadian explorer. He was in the North West Company before its merger with the Hudson's Bay Company and later was a Hudson's Bay Company trader. He was a member of the party of Sir John Franklin's second arctic expedition. Later he and Thomas Simpson (see under Simpson, Sir George ) explored (1836-39) the coast of the Arctic Ocean in Canada and Alaska from the mouth of the Mackenzie River to Point Barrow. They also mapped the southern shores of Victoria and King William islands.

Warren, William (1767–1832), character actor. The heavy‐set, puffy‐faced performer was born in Bath, England, and had been playing some time in the provinces when Wignell hired him to perform with his company at Philadelphia's Chestnut Street Theatre. Arriving in America in 1796, an outbreak of plague in Philadelphia forced him to make his debut in Baltimore. Philadelphia first saw him as Friar Laurence, and he quickly established himself as a favorite, later taking over management of the theatre with William Wood. Among his notable roles were Sir Anthony Absolute, Sir Toby Belch, Brabantio, Sir John Falstaff, and Sir Peter Teazle. Although he excelled at comedy, he was a fine judge of all young talent, comic or serious, and it was he and Wood who gave Edwin Forrest his first major opportunity. Warren was married three times, each time to actresses, and had six children, all of whom had careers in the theatre. He retired in 1829 but later made several special appearances. One of his sons was William WARREN [Jr.] (1812–88), considered by many of his contemporaries to be the greatest 19th‐century American comedian. Shortly after his father's death he made his debut at Philadelphia's Arch Street Theatre as Young Norval in Douglas. He then played in various cities over the next fourteen years, including brief engagements in New York and in London. In 1846, tired of a roving life, he settled in Boston and was enlisted as a member of the Howard Athenaeum company before going to the Boston Museum, where he continued as its leading comedian until his retirement shortly after celebrating his semicentennial as an actor in 1882. During his stint there he gave over thirteen thousand performances in nearly six hundred plays. His most admired interpretations included Sir Peter Teazle, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, Polonius, Tony Lumpkin, Touchstone, and numerous comic roles in contemporary pieces, such as Jefferson Scattering Batkins in The Silver Spoon. He was a large, tall, jowly man, with penetrating, heavy‐lidded eyes and a large shock of curly black hair. Although the noted Boston critic Henry Austin Clapp complained that “the one fault of his style was a slight excess in the use of stentorian tones,” most critics undoubtedly would have agreed with an obituary which noted, “His range as a comedian was unequaled, and to the interpretation of every variety of character he brought that exquisite sensibility and clearness of insight, that mobility of nature and fullness of understanding which made his work vital, natural and satisfying.” Autobiography: Life and Memoirs of William Warren, 1882.

Warren, William the younger (1812–88), American actor, son of the above, who spent most of his professional life at the Boston Museum. He made his first appearance at the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia, shortly after his father's death, playing Young Norval in Home's Douglas, and then toured for several years and was a member of several good stock companies. He was seldom seen in New York and only once, in 1845, in England. He began his long association with the Museum in 1847, and remained there until his retirement in 1883. In his early days he acted a wide variety of parts, but later specialized in comedy, being particularly admired as Touchstone in As You Like It, Polonius in Hamlet, and Bob Acres and Sir Peter Teazle in Sheridan's The Rivals and The School for Scandal. He appeared also in a number of new plays, which his excellent acting often redeemed from mediocrity, and in 1882 celebrated his stage jubilee by playing Dr Pangloss in the younger Colman's The Heir-at-Law. He was last seen on the stage as Old Eccles in T. W. Robertson's Caste.