Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Bateman, Kate Josephine

846620Men of the Time, eleventh edition — Bateman, Kate JosephineThompson Cooper

BATEMAN, Kate Josephine, born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1842. Both her parents were actors, and she, with her sister, two years older than herself, appeared in public as the "Bateman Children" as early as 1850. She afterwards prepared herself assiduously for the stage, and in 1859 played successfully in the leading American theatres, her principal characters being those of Evangeline, founded on Longfellow's poem; Geraldine, in a play written for her by her mother; Julia, in the "Hunchback;" Pauline, in the "Lady of Lyons;" and Juliet and Lady Macbeth. She arrived in England in the autumn of 1863, and appeared 210 times in the character of the Jewish maiden Leah, in an adaptation of the German play, "Deborah," at the Adelphi Theatre, Oct. 1. After a provincial tour, she re-appeared at the Adelphi, playing Julia in the "Hunchback," and other characters. She took a farewell of the English public at Her Majesty's Theatre, in the character of Juliet, in "Romeo and Juliet," Dec. 22, 1865, and was married to Mr. George Crowe, in Oct. 1866. Mrs. Crowe returned to the stage in 1868, retaining her stage name of Kate Bateman. She has made the character of Leah peculiarly her own. In 1872, and subsequently, she appeared with great success in London as Medea, in the play of that name. In 1875, on a revival of "Macbeth" at the Lyceum (Mr. Irving as Macbeth) she played the part of Lady Macbeth. She also sustained the title rôle in Mr. Tennyson's "Queen Mary," which was produced at the same house in April, 1876. Miss Bateman afterwards became the lessee of Sadler's Wells Theatre.