James Robertson Anderson

James Robertson Anderson
as Ulric in Werner
Born	8 May 1811 Glasgow
Died	3 March 1895 Covent Garden
Cause of death	murdered
Nationality	British

James Robertson Anderson (8 May 1811 – 3 March 1895) was a Scottish stage actor and dramatist.

Anderson was born in Glasgow on 8 May 1811. His father was an actor and he went to school on Leith Walk in Edinburgh. He acted as a toddler in 1813 in Edinburgh under William Henry Murray. He married in 1831 and his wife appeared in New York. Anderson acted in Nottingham around 1830 and around Newcastle upon Tyne until in 1834 he became the manager of the Leicester, Gloucester, and Cheltenham theatres. He married his second wife Georgina Stohwasser in Kensington in 1836.

He left his job as a theatre manager to make his London debut with William Charles Macready at Covent Garden as Florizel in the 1837 Winter's Tale. At the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane he was the first Basil Firebrace in Douglas Jerrold's Prisoner of War. He was also seen as Othello, Iago, Cassio and others. In 1846 he left for America, and cannily published his diary for 1847 on his return.

On Boxing Day 1849, as manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, he opened with the Merchant of Venice. Among the pieces he produced was a play by Beaumont and Fletcher, Schiller's Fiesco, Dion Boucicault's Queen of Spades, and he played the main part in Maria Ann Lovell's Ingomar the Barbarian. In 1851 he retired from management, citing the postponement of the Great Exhibition and his losses which ran to thousands of pounds. Between 1853 and 1858 he frequented America, but he was also at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, as Rob Roy in 1855. In 1863 he joined the Surrey Theatre management. Before the theatre was burned to the ground in January 1865, Anderson produced one of his own plays, The Scottish Chief; and he played two parts in his production of Henry VI, Part 2.

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