Weston, Thomas

1737

1776

Thomas Weston’s father was reputed to be an undercook in the kitchen of George II, and Thomas was originally apprenticed there as a turn-broach. After some time as a midshipman and as an actor with a strolling company, he appeared about 1759 at a Bartholomew Fair booth. He then made his first appearance in a London theatre on 28 September 1759 when he played Sir Francis Gripe in “The Budy Body” at the Haymarket. Some years more were passed in the provinces, particularly at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin, until Weston returned to London to play at Drury Lane in the summer of 1761. He continued to be engaged at the Haymarket and Drury Lane, off and on, through 1775-76, appearing mainly in inconsequential comic pieces that made him a favourite with the gallery. Contemporary critics gave him high praise for his comic abilities and inimitable and simple manner. ‘It was impossible,’ related James Northcote to Hazlitt, ‘from looking at him, for anyone to say that he was acting. You would suppose they had gone out and found the actual character they wanted, and brought him upon the stage without him knowing it.’ But he was a difficult man, overbearing and insolent by several accounts, and unlettered and possessed of few ideas. He also drank a good deal. Weston died sometime in January 1776. There are 11 pictures of Weston listed in the BDA, including four renditions of him as Scrub in “The Beaux’ Stratagem”, two with Garrick as Archer. Garrick declared that Weston’s portrayal of Scrub was one of the finest jobs of acting he had ever seen. (BDA)