On this day in 1786 William Farren the second was born into an acting family. His father was an actor and his brother Percy ran a troupe in Plymouth. William Farrens father had reached the pinnacle of his career in 1784 when he played Othello at Covent Garden, he would remain at Covent Garden until his death in 1795. Farren had been left £8000, the modern equivalent is seven hundred and ninety thousand pounds, by his father and so was able to start a career on the stage without worrying about his earnings. He would join his brothers troupe in Plymouth and debut on the stage of the Theatre Royal Plymouth in 1806 in the play 'Love a la Mode' by Charles Macklin. Moving on from this debut he carved a career from himself out of playing "crusty old bachelors, jealous old husbands, stormy fathers, worrying uncles or old fops" and reached the London stage in 1818 as Sir Peter Teazle in 'School for Scandal' at Covent Garden. Farren would then flit back and forth between the companies at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, although he did have a spell as the stage manager at the Haymarket, before falling ill onstage with paralysis in 1843. His popularity dropped after he came back from his illness due to the negative effect it had on all the aspects of his acting, so he moved into actor management and took over the Strand Theatre and later the Olympic theatre. Farren passed away at his home in Brompton Square in 1861.
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