Squire Bancroft
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Sir Squire Bancroft (May 14, 1841 - April 19, 1926), born Squire White Butterfield, was an English actor and manager.
Bancroft was born in Rotherhithe. His first appearance on the stage was in 1861 at Birmingham, and he played in the provinces with success for several years. His first London appearance was in 1865 in Wooler's A Winning Hazard at the Prince of Wales's theatre off Tottenham Court Road. Then he was managed by Effie Marie Wilton (b. 1840), whom he married in 1868.
Mr and Mrs Bancroft were associated in the production of all the Thomas William Robertson comedies: Society (1865), Ours (1866), Caste (1867), Play (1868), School (1869) and M.P. (1870), and, after Robertson's death, in revivals of the old comedies, for which they surrounded themselves with an admirable company.
Lytton's Money (1872), Boucicault's London Assurance (1877), and Diplomacy - an adaptation of Sardou's Dora - were among their premieres, which helped to make the little playhouse famous. The Bancroft management at the Prince of Wales’s constituted a new era in the development of the English stage, and had the effect of reviving the London interest in modern drama. In 1879 they moved to the Haymarket, where Sardou's Odette (for which they engaged Madame Helena Modjeska) and Fedora, W. S. Gilbert's Sweethearts and Pinero’s Lords and Commons, with revivals of previous successes, were among their productions. Having made a considerable fortune, they retired in 1885.
Bancroft was knighted in 1897.
Both he and his wife are buried in Brompton Cemetery.
[edit] Publications
- Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft On and Off the Stage, Written by Themselves (London, 1888)
- The Bancrofts: Recollections of Sixty Years (London, 1909)
