Richard Yates

Richard Yates 1815-73, American political leader, b. Warsaw, Ky. He studied law and became a lawyer and Whig politician in Jacksonville, Ill. A state legislator (1842-46, 1848-50) and U.S. Congressman (1851-55), he failed to win reelection because of his adherence to the new Republican party. As governor of Illinois (1861-65), Yates was active in raising troops (he gave Ulysses S. Grant his first Civil War commission) and managed to hold in check the powerful pro-Southern group in Illinois. In the U.S. Senate from 1865 to 1871, he supported the radical Republican program.

Yates, Richard (1706–96), English comedian, considered almost as good a Harlequin as Woodward. He joined the company at the second Goodman's Fields Theatre when it opened in 1732, and remained until it was closed on the passing of the Licensing Act of 1737. He then went to Drury Lane, where he remained for many years, playing Sir Oliver Surface in the first production of Sheridan's The School for Scandal (1777). He was also good as Shakespeare's fools, and was considered the only actor of the time to have a just notion of how they should be played. His style in comedy was modelled on that of Doggett; fine gentlemen and serious comedy lay outside his range, and he never appeared in tragedy.