William E. Burton

William Evans Burton (24 September 1804 – 10 February 1860) was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager, and publisher who built a significant career on both sides of the Atlantic, including appearances on Broadway between 1841 and 1851.

Burton was born in London, the son of William George Burton (1774–1825), a printer and author of Research into the religions of the Eastern nations as illustrative of the scriptures (1805). He was educated at St. Paul's School, an institution also associated with the theatrical figures Robert William Elliston and Charles Mathews. Burton had been directed toward a career in the church, but the death of his father when Burton was approximately eighteen years old required him to assume responsibility for the family printing office and support his widowed mother. An early attempt to launch a monthly magazine failed, though it brought him into contact with theatrical acquaintances who drew him toward the stage.

His first steps in the theatre involved an amateur dramatic society, and he is reported to have performed Hamlet somewhere on the Strand during this period. By 1825 he had joined a provincial company performing at Norwich and elsewhere in England, where he played low comedy roles. His personal ambitions leaned toward tragedy, and he reportedly retained that inclination late in life, though his natural gifts consistently placed him in comic parts. After years of itinerant work in the provinces, including a tradition that he once performed before George IV at Windsor, Burton made his first London appearance in 1831 at the Pavilion Theatre, playing Wormwood in The Lottery Ticket. He performed that role more than fifty consecutive times and was widely admired in it. In 1832 he appeared at the Haymarket Theatre, playing Marall opposite Edmund Kean as Sir Giles Overreach and Mrs. Glover as Meg in A New Way to Pay Old Debts, a credit he recalled with pride throughout his life.

Burton's writing career developed alongside his acting. In May 1833 his play Ellen Wareham was produced, and it was performed at five different London theatres on the same evening. On 10 April 1823 he had married Elizabeth Loft, with whom he had a son in 1824. The marriage was unsuccessful, and in 1834 Burton relocated to the United States, making his American debut in Philadelphia as Dr. Ollapod in The Poor Gentleman. He established himself as both actor and manager in New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, leasing a New York venue that was renamed Burton's Theatre. Among his most celebrated American roles was Captain Cuttle in John Brougham's dramatisation of Dombey and Son, along with other low comedy parts drawn from the novels of Charles Dickens.

His Broadway career spanned 1841 to 1851 and included starring in She's Come! Jenny's Come!, as well as appearances in The Naiad Queen and The World's Fair, or, London in 1851.

In 1837 in Philadelphia, Burton founded the Gentlemen's Magazine, a publication aimed at a general audience that combined poetry and fiction with coverage of sporting pursuits such as hunting and sailing. Edgar Allan Poe served as the magazine's editor for a period beginning in 1839, though the working relationship between the two men was contentious. Burton disliked Poe's harsh critical style, and Poe made plans to launch a competing publication without informing Burton. Burton fired Poe in June 1840. Burton also contributed to the magazine himself, writing for the September 1837 issue an early detective story titled The Secret Cell, which followed a London policeman's efforts to locate an abducted girl and apprehend her kidnappers. In late 1840 Burton sold the magazine to George Rex Graham for $3,500, calculated at one dollar per subscriber. Graham subsequently transformed it into Graham's Magazine, and Burton used the proceeds to renovate his theatre. Burton later edited the Cambridge Quarterly and the Souvenir, and in 1857 he published a Cyclopaedia of Wit and Humour.

In December 1859, not long before his death, Burton traveled to Toronto, Canada, for a two-week engagement at the Royal Lyceum, where he performed in several comedies including The Fillibuster, Toodles, Paul Pry, Wandering Minstrel, The Serious Family, Blue Devils, Poor Pillicoddy, John Jones, and a farewell performance of Dombey and Son. Burton died on 10 February 1860 in New York City. At the time of his death he had assembled a personal library of more than 100,000 volumes, with a particular concentration of works by and about William Shakespeare. He left his estate to charity, but his wife Elizabeth, from whom he had been separated for twenty-six years, traveled from England to contest the disposition of his assets. After a series of appeals, the Supreme Court upheld her claim to dower, establishing a legal precedent regarding the rights of an alien to dower in the United States. Burton was the father of the English painter William Shakespeare Burton.