Conrad Knowles
(1810-1844) actor and manager
Conrad Theodore Knowles (1810 – 19 May 1844), born in England, was an Australian actor and theatre manager. With no formal training, he became a versatile and accomplished actor, and his roles included several Shakespearian parts; he was the first actor in the country to play Hamlet and King Lear.
Early years in Australia
Knowles was born in England in 1810. His father John Knowles, a Wesleyan minister, "was induced to let his son indulge his natural disposition for travel and adventure"; Knowles was an early emigrant to the Swan River Colony (later Perth). The colony experienced difficulties and in April 1830 he arrived in Hobart Town, where he was a tutor of drawing and languages.
He later moved to Sydney, where distant relatives lived. The Theatre Royal opened in 1832 and, although he had no theatrical experience, he became an actor at the theatre. He was unwilling to lose the friendship of his Wesleyan relatives, and at first appeared as Mr Cooper, but eventually he left the Methodist church. From the second season he used his own name; he was acting manager, and played melodramatic, tragic and comic roles. He played major Shakespearian roles; he was Australia's first Hamlet and King Lear.
“Conrad Knowles” enters the record as (1810-1844) actor and manager. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Conrad, Knowles and 1810-1844 can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Conrad Knowles” 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.