1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Davenport, Edward Loomis

13683761911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 7 — Davenport, Edward Loomis

DAVENPORT, EDWARD LOOMIS (1816–1877), American actor, born in Boston, made his first appearance on the stage in Providence in support of Junius Brutus Booth. Afterwards he went to England, where he supported Mrs Anna Cora Mowatt (Ritchie) (1819–1870), Macready and others. In 1854 he was again in the United States, appearing in Shakespearian plays and in dramatizations of Dickens’s novels. As Bill Sykes he was especially successful, and his Sir Giles Overreach and Brutus were also greatly admired. He died at Canton, Pennsylvania, on the 1st of September 1877. In 1849 he had married Fanny Vining (Mrs Charles Gill) (d. 1891), an English actress also in Mrs Mowatt’s company. Their daughter Fanny (Lily Gipsy) Davenport (1850–1898) appeared in America at the age of twelve as the king of Spain in Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady. Later (1869) she was a member of Daly’s company; and afterwards, with a company of her own, acted with especial success in Sardou’s Fédora (1883), Cleopatra (1890), and similar plays. Her last appearance was on the 25th of March 1898, shortly before her death.