John Heminges (bapt. 25 November 1566 – 10 October 1630) was an actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

wrote. Along with

Henry Condell Henry Condell ( bapt. 5 September 1576 – December 1627) was a British actor in the King's Men, the playing company for which William Shakespeare wrote. With John Heminges, he was instrumental in preparing and editing the First Folio, the c ...

, he was an editor of the

First Folio ''Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies'' is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare, commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio, published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare's death. It is cons ...

, the collected plays of Shakespeare, published in 1623. He was also the financial manager for the King's Men.

Life

Heminges was baptised at St Peter de Witton Church,

Droitwich Droitwich Spa (often abbreviated to Droitwich ) is an historic spa town in the Wychavon district in northern Worcestershire, England, on the River Salwarpe. It is located approximately south-west of Birmingham and north-east of Worcester. The ...

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

, on 25 November 1566. Sent to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

at the age of twelve, he was apprenticed for nine years to the City

Grocer A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, a ...

John Collins, becoming a freeman of the Grocers' Company on 24 April 1587. On 10 March 1588 he received a licence to marry Rebecca Knell (née Edwards), the widow of William Knell, an actor with the

Queen's Men Queen Elizabeth's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in English Renaissance theatre. Formed in 1583 at the express command of Queen Elizabeth, it was the dominant acting company for the rest of the 1580s, as the Admiral's Men and the ...

who had been killed at Thame, Oxfordshire, in 1587 by John Towne, a fellow actor. Heminges and his sixteen-year-old wife settled in the parish of St Mary Aldermanbury, and had at least thirteen children there between the years 1590 and 1613. Heminges's association with the theatre had begun by 1593, when he and

Augustine Phillips Augustine Phillips (died May 1605) was an Elizabethan actor who performed in troupes with Edward Alleyn and William Shakespeare. He was one of the first generation of English actors to achieve wealth and a degree of social status by means of his ...

were with

Lord Strange's Men Lord Strange's Men was an Elizabethan playing company, comprising retainers of the household of Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange (pronounced "strang"). They are best known in their final phase of activity in the late 1580s and early 1590s. After ...

. By the next year he and Phillips had joined the

Lord Chamberlain's Men The Lord Chamberlain's Men was a company of actors, or a " playing company" (as it then would likely have been described), for which Shakespeare wrote during most of his career. Richard Burbage played most of the lead roles, including Hamlet, Oth ...

, later the King's Men. Heminges remained with the Company until his death.

Privy Council A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mo ...

records from 1630 state that he received £100 to relieve the Company during a period of plague. Heminges remained active in the Grocers' Company alongside his theatrical activities; indeed, the two sometimes intertwined. On 13 December 1608 he was admitted as one of the ten seacoal-meters for the city of London, citizens appointed to measure the coal imported into the city by sea. Shortly afterwards he took on John Jackson as his deputy. Both Heminges and Jackson later acted as trustees for

when he purchased the Blackfriars Gatehouse in 1613. Between 1595 and 1628 Heminges took on ten apprentices with the Grocers' Company. Of these ten, eight appear to have performed for Heminges's company, in both boys' and adult roles.

Alexander Cooke Alexander Cooke (died February 1614) was an actor in the King's Men and the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the acting companies of William Shakespeare, John Heminges and Richard Burbage. Cooke was most likely introduced to the theatre by John Hemi ...

was one of his apprentices. Heminges also built and operated a taphouse at the Globe. Heminges was mentioned in Shakespeare's will, along with

Richard Burbage Richard Burbage (c. 1567 – 13 March 1619) was an English stage actor, widely considered to have been one of the most famous actors of the Globe Theatre and of his time. In addition to being a stage actor, he was also a theatre owner, entr ...

and

, each being bequeathed 26 shillings and eightpence to buy

mourning ring Mourning is the expression of an experience that is the consequence of an event in life involving loss, causing grief, occurring as a result of someone's death, specifically someone who was loved although loss from death is not exclusively ...

s. Burbage died before the publication of Shakespeare's ''

'', but Heminges and Condell became credited contributors of the book. They mentioned in their preface, "To the great Variety of Readers", that they wished "the Author himselfe had liv'd to have set forth, and overseen his owne writings", they also mention their own care and pain "to haue collected & publish’d" the works. Their editorial efforts were vital to preserving a number of Shakespeare's plays, some of which might have been lost otherwise. As a sharer in the Globe Theatre, Heminges’ name, along with the other sharers, is mentioned several times in various legal documents that were discovered by American researcher

Charles William Wallace Charles William Wallace (February 6, 1865 – August 7, 1932) was an American scholar and researcher, famed for his discoveries in the field of English Renaissance theatre. Wallace was born in Hopkins, Missouri to Thomas Dickay Wallace a ...

. The Globe was plagued by lawsuits as the shares were left to beneficiaries who did not have the continued welfare of the company at heart. In one such lawsuit, ''Heminges v Ostler'', Heminges was sued by his daughter, Thomasina Ostler over a share of the company. The surviving records do not specify the final outcome of the suit. At his death, Heminges’ shares in the Globe and Blackfriars theatres passed to his son,

William Heminges William Heminges (1602 – c. 1653?), also Hemminges, Heminge, and other variants, was a playwright and theatrical figure of the Caroline period. He was the ninth child and third son of John Heminges, the actor and colleague of William Shakespear ...

. The lawsuit records are valuable to historians for the detailed information they contain regarding the company business. Heminges died in October 1630 in

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

, and was buried 12 October 1630 at the parish church of St Mary Aldermanbury. In his will he had asked to be buried as close to his wife as possible.
Edmond, Mary (2004). "Heminges, John (bap. 1566, d. 1630)". ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (online ed.). Oxford University Press

Work

The extent and nature of Heminges' acting is not entirely clear. He is known to have performed in

Ben Jonson Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...

's ''

Sejanus Lucius Aelius Sejanus (c. 20 BC – 18 October AD 31), commonly known as Sejanus (), was a Roman soldier, friend and confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Of the Equites class by birth, Sejanus rose to power as prefect of the Praetorian ...

'' and ''

Every Man in His Humour ''Every Man in His Humour'' is a 1598 play by the English playwright Ben Jonson. The play belongs to the subgenre of the " humours comedy," in which each major character is dominated by an over-riding humour or obsession. Performance and pu ...

'' (in both cases, alongside Shakespeare). A Jacobean inscription in the 1616 Jonson

folio The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...

lists him playing the role of Corbaccio in ''

Volpone ''Volpone'' (, Italian for "sly fox") is a comedy play by English playwright Ben Jonson first produced in 1605–1606, drawing on elements of city comedy and beast fable. A merciless satire of greed and lust, it remains Jonson's most-perfor ...

''; since the same list includes

Nathan Field Nathan Field (also spelled Feild occasionally; 17 October 1587 – 1620) was an English dramatist and actor. Life His father was the Puritan preacher John Field, and his brother Theophilus Field became the Bishop of Llandaff. One of his brother ...

, who did not join the King's Men until 1616, it seems that Heminges continued to act, at least intermittently, into his fifties.

Edmond Malone Edmond Malone (4 October 174125 May 1812) was an Irish Shakespearean scholar and editor of the works of William Shakespeare. Assured of an income after the death of his father in 1774, Malone was able to give up his law practice for at first p ...

reported seeing Heminges' name associated with the role of Falstaff; there is, however, no other evidence of this connection. There is little more evidence to substantiate the claim later made by an actor to

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

that Heminges was a tragedian. Of his activities as manager more is known. Court documents relating to the King's Men generally list Heminges as the recipient of money due the company; the records of Henry Herbert indicate that Heminges at least sometimes served as the point of contact between the company and the

Master of the Revels The Master of the Revels was the holder of a position within the English, and later the British, royal household, heading the "Revels Office" or "Office of the Revels". The Master of the Revels was an executive officer under the Lord Chamberlain ...

. He appears to have owned a structure abutting the

Globe Theatre The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, on land owned by Thomas Brend and inherited by his son, Nicholas Brend, and ...

, which may have been used as an alehouse. He served as trustee for Shakespeare when the latter purchased a house in Blackfriars in 1613.

References

Notes

*Pam Hinks. ''John Heminges (bapt 25 November 1566 ) St Peter de Witton Church, Droitwich, Worcestershire Parish Register 1544 onwards'' * Collier, J. P. ''Lives of the Original Actors in Shakespeare's Plays''. London: Shakespeare Society, 1853. *Egan, Gabriel. "John Heminges' Tap-house at the Globe." ''Theatre Notebook'' 55 (2001), 72–7. *Nunzeger, Edwin. ''A Dictionary of Actors and of Other Persons Associated With the Public Presentation of Plays in England Before 1642''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929.

External links

John Heminges at the Globe Theatre

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hemminges, John 1556 births 1630 deaths People from Droitwich Spa English male Shakespearean actors English male stage actors English editors 16th-century English writers 16th-century male writers 17th-century English writers 17th-century English male writers 16th-century English male actors 17th-century English male actors King's Men (playing company) People associated with Shakespeare