After returning to England in 1792, he obtained a situation in the post-office, but this he soon resigned for the stage, making his first recorded appearance at Sheffield as Orlando in As You Like It in that year. During the early period of his career as an actor he made his way slowly to public favour. For a considerable time he played with his brother and sister, chiefly in secondary parts, and this with a grace and finish which received scant justice from the critics. His first London appearance was on the 21st of April 1794, as Malcolm to his brother’s Macbeth. Ultimately he won independent fame, especially in such characters as Archer in George Farquhar’s Beaux’ Stratagem, Dorincourt in Mrs Cowley’s Belle’s Stratagem, Charles Surface and Ranger in Dr Benjamin Hoadley’s Suspicious Husband. His Laertes and Macduff were hardly less interesting than his brother’s Hamlet and Macbeth. In comedy he was ably supported by his wife, Marie Therèse De Camp (1774–1838), whom he married on the 2nd of July 1806. His visit, with his daughter Fanny, to America during 1832 and 1834, aroused much enthusiasm. The later period of his career was clouded by money embarrassments in connexion with his joint proprietorship in Covent Garden theatre. He formally retired from the stage in December 1836, but his final appearance was on the 10th of April 1840. For some time he held the office of examiner of plays. In 1844–1845 he gave readings from Shakespeare at Willis’s Rooms. He died on the 12th of November 1854. Macready regarded his Cassio as incomparable, and summed him up as “a first-rate actor of second-rate parts.”
See Gentleman’s Magazine, January 1855; Records of a Girlhood, by Frances Anne Kemble.
Elizabeth Whitlock (1761–1836), who was a daughter of Roger Kemble, made her first appearance on the stage in 1783 at Drury Lane as Portia. In 1785 she married Charles E. Whitlock, went with him to America and played with much success there. She had the honour of appearing before President Washington. She seems to have retired about 1807, and she died on the 27th of February 1836. Her reputation as a tragic actress might have been greater had she not been Mrs Siddons’s sister.
Frances Anne Kemble (Fanny Kemble) (1800–1893), the actress and author, was Charles Kemble’s elder daughter; she was born in London on the 27th of November 1809, and educated chiefly in France. She first appeared on the stage on the 25th of October 1829 as Juliet at Covent Garden. Her attractive personality at once made her a great favourite, her popularity enabling her father to recoup his losses as a manager. She played all the principal women’s parts, notably Portia, Beatrice and Lady Teazle, but Julia in Sheridan Knowles’s The Hunchback, especially written for her, was perhaps her greatest success. In 1832 she went with her father to America, and in 1834 she married there a Southern planter, Pierce Butler. They were divorced in 1849. In 1847 she returned to the stage, from which she had retired on her marriage, and later, following her father’s example, appeared with much success as a Shakespearian reader. In 1877 she returned to England, where she lived—using her maiden name—till her death in London on the 15th of January 1893. During this period Fanny Kemble was a prominent and popular figure in the social life of London. Besides her plays, Francis the First, unsuccessfully produced in 1832, The Star of Seville (1837), a volume of Poems (1844), and a book of Italian travel, A Year of Consolation (1847), she published a volume of her Journal in 1835, and in 1863 another (dealing with life on the Georgia plantation), and also a volume of Plays, including translations from Dumas and Schiller. These were followed by Records of a Girlhood (1878), Records of Later Life (1882), Notes on some of Shakespeare’s Plays (1882), Far Away and Long Ago (1889), and Further Records (1891). Her various volumes of reminiscences contain much valuable material for the social and dramatic history of the period.
Adelaide Kemble (1814–1879), Charles Kemble’s second daughter, was an opera singer of great promise, whose first London appearance was made in Norma on the 2nd of November 1841. In 1843 she married Edward John Sartoris, a rich Italian, and retired after a brief but brilliant career. She wrote A Week in a French Country House (1867), a bright and humorous story, and of a literary quality not shared by other tales that followed. Her son, Algernon Charles Sartoris, married General U. S. Grant’s daughter.
Among more recent members of the Kemble family, mention may also be made of Charles Kemble’s grandson, Henry Kemble (1848–1907), a sterling and popular London actor.
KEMBLE, JOHN MITCHELL (1807–1857), English scholar and historian, eldest son of Charles Kemble the actor, was born in 1807. He received his education partly from Dr Richardson, author of the Dictionary of the English Language, and partly at the grammar school of Bury St Edmunds, where he obtained in 1826 an exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge. At the university his historical essays gained him high reputation. The
bent of his studies was turned more especially towards the Anglo-Saxon period through the influence of the brothers Grimm, under whom he studied at Göttingen (1831). His thorough knowledge
of the Teutonic languages and his critical faculty were shown
in his Beowulf (1833–1837), Über die Stammtafel der Westsachsen
(1836), Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici (1839–1848), and in
many contributions to reviews; while his History of the Saxons
in England (1849; new ed. 1876), though it must now be read
with caution, was the first attempt at a thorough examination
of the original sources of the early period of English history. He
was editor of the British and Foreign Review from 1835 to 1844;
and from 1840 to his death was examiner of plays. In 1857 he
published State Papers and Correspondence illustrative of the
Social and Political State of Europe from the Revolution to the
Accession of the House of Hanover. He died at Dublin on the
26th of March 1857. His Horae Ferales, or Studies in the Archaeology
of Northern Nations, was completed by Dr R. G. Latham,
and published in 1864. He married the daughter of Professor Amadeus Wendt of Göttingen in 1836; and had two daughters and a son; the elder daughter was the wife of Sir Charles Santley, the singer.
KEMÉNY, ZSIGMOND, Baron (1816–1875), Hungarian author, came of a noble but reduced family. In 1837 he studied jurisprudence
at Marosvásárhely, but soon devoted himself entirely
to journalism and literature. His first unfinished work, On the
Causes of the Disaster of Mohacs (1840), attracted much attention.
In the same year he studied natural history and anatomy at
Vienna University. In 1841, along with Lajos Kovács, he edited
the Transylvanian newspaper Erdélyi Hiradó. He also took an
active part in provincial politics and warmly supported the
principles of Count Stephen Széchenyi. In 1846 he moved to
Pest, where his pamphlet, Korteskedés és ellenszerei (Partisanship
and its Antidote), had already made him famous. Here he
consorted with the most eminent of the moderate reformers, and
for a time was on the staff of the Pesti Hirlap. The same year
he brought out his first great novel, Pál Gyulay. He was elected
a member of the revolutionary diet of 1848 and accompanied
it through all its vicissitudes. After a brief exile he accepted
the amnesty and returned to Hungary. Careless of his unpopularity,
he took up his pen to defend the cause of justice and
moderation, and in his two pamphlets, Forradalom után (After
the Revolution) and Még egysz ó a forradalom után (One word
more after the Revolution), he defended the point of view which
was realized by Deák in 1867. He subsequently edited the Pesti
Napló, which became virtually Deák’s political organ. Kemény
also published several political essays (e.g. The Two Wesselényis,
and Stephen Szechenyi) which are among the best of their kind
in any literature. His novels published during these years, such
as Férj és nö (Husband and Wife), Szivörvényei (The Heart’s
Secrets), &c., also won for him a foremost rank among contemporary
novelists. During the ’sixties Kemény took an active
part in the political labours of Deák, whose right hand he continued
to be, and popularized the Composition of 1867 which
he had done so much to bring about. He was elected to the diet
of 1867 for one of the divisions of Pest, but took no part in the
debates. The last years of his life were passed in complete
seclusion in Transylvania. To the works of Kemény already
