John Heminges
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John Heminges (sometimes spelled Hemminge or Hemings) (About 1556 - 1630) was an English Renaissance actor. Most famous now as one of the editors of Shakespeare's 1623 First Folio, Heminges served in his time as an actor and financial manager for the King's Men.
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[edit] Life
Heminges was born in Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire in 1556. Sent to London as an apprentice at age twelve, he was presented to the Grocers' Company, becoming a freeman in 1587. In London, he lived in the parish of St Mary Aldermanbury, at which church he served as a sidesman. He married in 1588; Alexander Chalmers originated the now-accepted argument that his wife was the widow of William Knel, an actor with the Queen's Men who had been killed in a fight with a fellow actor. His association with theatre had certainly begun by 1593; records from that year show Heminges and Augustine Phillips, another future King's Man, in the touring company of Lord Strange's Men. By the next year he and Phillips had joined the Lord Chamberlain's Men/King's Men. He stayed with this company until his death in 1630. In 1630, Privy Council records show him receiving one hundred pounds to relieve the company during a period of plague; Heminges himself died a short time after this order, at age 74. With Henry Condell, he connected the era of Shakespeare and Burbage to the era of Philip Massinger and Joseph Taylor; most significantly, his editorial efforts were vital to preserving a number of Shakespeare's plays, some of which might have been lost otherwise.
Heminges remained active in the Grocers' Company alongside his theatrical activities; indeed, the two sometimes intertwined. He was, between 1608 and 1621, one of the ten citizen seacoal-meters for the city of London. Beginning in 1595, he bound ten apprentices with the Grocers' Company; of these ten, eight appear to have performed for Heminges' company, in both boys' and adult roles. Alexander Cooke was one of his apprentices. Heminges was confirmed as a gentleman in 1629, shortly before his death.
Due to his intimate involvement in the creation of the First Folio, readers have found it both tempting and easy to idealize Heminges; one early critic, exercising more admiration than objectivity, wrote that "He was a fine actor, a trustworthy man, and had a good head for business. Until his death, he managed the company's financial affairs with extraordinary success." A darker picture of Heminges emerged when American researcher Charles William Wallace discovered the records of the lawsuit Ostler v. Heminges (1615). When King's Man William Ostler died intestate in 1614, his property should have passed to his widow, Thomasine Heminges Ostler. But the widow's father, John Heminges, seized control of his late son-in-law's shares in the Globe and Blackfriars theatres. Thomasine sued her father to regain her property. The surviving records do not specify the final outcome of the suit, though it appears that Heminges managed to retain control of the shares.
[edit] Work
The extent and nature of Heminges' acting is not entirely clear. He is known to have performed in Ben Jonson's Sejanus and Every Man in His Humour (in both cases, alongside Shakespeare). A Jacobean inscription in the 1616 Jonson folio lists him playing the role of Corbaccio in Volpone; since the same list includes Nathaniel Field, who did not join the King's Men until 1616, it seems that Heminges continued to act, at least intermittently, into his fifties. Edmond Malone reported seeing Heminges' name associated with the role of Falstaff; there is, however, no other evidence exists of this connection. There is little more evidence to substantiate the claim later made by an actor to Alexander Pope that Heminges was a tragedian. Of his activities as manager more is known. Court documents relating to the King's Men generally list Heminges as the recipient of money due the company; the records of Henry Herbert indicate that Heminges at least sometimes served as the point of contact between the company and the Master of the Revels. He appears to have owned a structure abutting the Globe Theatre, which may have been used as an alehouse. He served as trustee for Shakespeare when the latter purchased a house in Blackfriars in 1613. Shakespeare bequeathed him (along with Condell) two nobles (roughly a pound) to buy mourning rings.
[edit] References
- Collier, J. P.. Lives of the Original Actors in Shakespeare's Plays. London: Shakespeare Society, 1853.
- Edmond, Mary. "John Heminges." Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
- Egan, Gabriel. "John Heminges' Tap-house at the Globe." Theatre Notebook 55 (2001), 72-7.
- Halliday, F. E. A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964. Baltimore, Penguin, 1964.
- Kathman, David. "Grocers, Goldsmiths, and Drapers: Freemen and Apprentices in the Elizabethan Theater." Shakespeare Quarterly 55 (2004), 1-49.
- Nunzeger, Edwin. A Dictionary of Actors and of Other Persons Associated With the Public Presentation of Plays in England Before 1642. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929.
