Biography

Tate Wilkinson (1739 –1803)

The Yorkshire company under Tate Wilkinson’s management from 1766 to 1803 had the best-known circuit in the North with its base in York and theatres in Hull, Leeds, Doncaster, Wakefield, Pontefract and occasionally in Halifax, Sheffield, Beverley, Newcastle and Edinburgh. Wilkinson recorded that the York actors had been operating on “levelling” principles when he arrived in 1765 to act as their “monarch” and he began the practice of paying his actors regular wages, believing that “constant full pay and good quarters” improved the quality of his troupe. His longevity as manager is proof of his abilities as both a performer and manager.

Wilkinson also wrote two autobiographies which are filled with valuable information about provincial theatrical life in this period. This puts pay to the often promoted argument that the provinces simply followed metropolitan tastes as Wilkinson provides examples of popular London plays that were rejected by Yorkshire audiences.

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