Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/146

Bannister  [Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of Eng. School; Strutt's Dict. of Engravers; Nagler's Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon; Heineken's Dictionaire des Artistes.]  BANNISTER, CHARLES (1738?–1804), actor and vocalist, whose fame is eclipsed by that of his son John [q. v.], was born in Gloucestershire, according to the ‘Thespian Dictionary,’ no very trustworthy authority, in 1738. Seven years after his birth his father obtained a post in the victualling office at Deptford, to which place the family removed. Bannister appears from an early age to have had the run of the Deptford theatre, in which, before he was eighteen, he played as an amateur Richard III, Romeo, and probably some other characters. An application to Garrick for employment being unsuccessful, he joined the Norwich circuit. His début in London was made in 1762 at the Haymarket, then under the management of Foote. The piece was the ‘Orators,’ a species of comic lecture on oratory, written and spoken by Foote, supported by various pupils placed in the boxes, as though they belonged to the audience. The character assigned to Bannister was Will Tirehack, an Oxford student. Palmer, subsequently his close friend, is said, in the ‘Life of John Bannister’ by Adolphus, to have made his début as Harry Scamper in the same play. The statement is, however, inaccurate, the début of Palmer having taken place a few months earlier at Drury Lane. Bannister's imitations of singers like Tenducci and Champneys were successful, and led to his appearance as a vocalist at Ranelagh and elsewhere. Garrick's attention was now drawn to the young actor, who made his début at Drury Lane in 1767, it is said, as Merlin in Garrick's play of ‘Cymon.’ This is possible. Bensley, however, ‘created’ that character 2 Jan. 1767, and the name of Bannister does not appear in Genest till the following season, 1767–8, when he is found, 23 Oct., playing the Prompter in ‘A Peep behind the Curtain, or the New Rehearsal,’ a farce attributed to Garrick. During many years Bannister acted or sang at the Haymarket, the Royalty, Covent Garden, and Drury Lane. His death took place 26 Oct. 1804 in Suffolk Street. An excellent vocalist, with a deep bass voice and a serviceable falsetto, a fair actor, a clever mimic, smart in rejoinder, good-natured, easy-going, and thoroughly careless in money matters, he obtained remarkable social success, was popularly known as honest Charles Bannister, and was the hero of many anecdotes of questionable authority. In one or two characters he was unrivalled. Of these, Steady, in the ‘Quaker,’ was probably best known. It has been said that no adequate representative of Shakespeare's Caliban has been seen since Bannister's death.

[Adolphus's Memoirs of John Bannister, 2 vols., 1838; Thespian Dictionary, 1805; Genest's Account of the English Stage, 1832; Doran's Their Majesties' Servants, 2 vols., 1864.]  BANNISTER, JOHN (1760–1836), comedian, born at Deptford 12 May 1760, was the son of Charles Bannister [q. v.] A taste for painting which he displayed while a schoolboy led to his becoming a student at the Royal Academy, where he had for associate and friend Rowlandson, the caricaturist. His theatrical bent, shown at times to the interruption of his fellow students, and, according to Nollekens, to the great disturbance of Moser, the keeper of the Academy, led to his abandoning the pursuit of painting, and adopting the stage as a profession. Before quitting the Academy he called upon David Garrick, who, two years previously, in 1776, had retired from the stage. Bannister's account of an interview which, though formidable, was not wholly discouraging, is preserved in the diary used by his biographer, Adolphus. Garrick manifested some interest in the young aspirant, and appears to have afforded him instruction in the character of Zaphna, a rôle ‘created’ by Garrick in a version by the Rev. James Miller of the ‘Mahomet’ of Voltaire. Bannister's first appearance took place at the Haymarket, for his father's benefit, on 27 Aug. 1778, as Dick in Murphy's farce, the ‘Apprentice.’ The character, a favourite with Woodward, who had died in the April of the previous year, suggested formidable comparisons, which Bannister seems to have stood fairly well. He recited on this occasion a prologue by Garrick, which Woodward was also in the habit of delivering, and wound up his share in the entertainment by exercising a strong power of mimicry which he possessed, and giving imitations of well-known actors. The following season, 1778–9, saw Bannister engaged with his father as a stock actor at Drury Lane, the début being made on 11 Nov. 1778 in the character of Zaphna (Seid in the original), commended to him by Garrick, with whom it was a favourite. Palmira was played by Mrs. Robinson, better known as Perdita, Alcanor by Bensley, and Mahomet by Palmer. On 19 Jan. following, according to Adolphus, but more probably, according to Genest, 19 Dec., he appeared, again in Voltaire, as Dorislas in a version by Aaron Hill of ‘Mérope.’ On 2 Feb. at Covent Garden he played