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Charles Williams (English actor)

British stage actor (1693-1731)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 5, 2025
Entity authorityQ101223632 ↗
Source-derived summary

Charles Williams (1693–1731) was a British stage actor.

Williams joined the company at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1718 and remained with it to his death in the year of his 38th birthday.

Selected roles

Lorenzo in Love in a Veil by Richard Savage (1718)

Herbis in The Siege of Damascus by John Hughes (1720)

Alan in The Briton by Ambrose Philips (1722)

Earl of Warwick in Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester by Ambrose Philips (1723)

Ammon in The Fatal Constancy by Hildebrand Jacob (1723)

Duke Frederick in Love in a Forest by Charles Johnson (1723)

Araxes in The Captives by John Gay (1724)

Decius in Caesar in Egypt by Colley Cibber (1724)

Julio in Double Falsehood by Lewis Theobald (1727)

Amyntas in Love in a Riddle by Colley Cibber (1729)

Freeman in The Village Opera by Charles Johnson (1729)

Scipio in Sophonisba by James Thomson (1730)

Dinarchus in Timoleon by Benjamin Martyn (1730)

References

Bibliography

Brean, Hammond (ed.) Double Falsehood. AC & Black, 2010.

Highfill, Philip H, Burnim, Kalman A. & Langhans, Edward A. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800: West to Zwingman. SIU Press, 1973.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Charles Williams (English actor)” is british stage actor (1693-1731). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Charles, Williams and English, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1693, 1731, 1718, 1720—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1693-01-01. For this dossier, Charles, Williams and English is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “british stage actor (1693-1731)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q101223632. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1693, 1731, 1718 and 1720.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Charles Williams (English actor)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Charles Williams (English actor) primary sources, Charles Williams (English actor) archive and Charles research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Charles Williams (English actor)”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Charles Williams (English actor)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.