William Hunter Kendal (1843-1917) was an English actor, born William Hunter Grimston. He was born in London on 16 December, 1843, the son of a painter.
He made his first stage appearance at Glasgow in 1862 as Louis XIV, in A Life's Revenge, billed as "Mr Kendall". After some experience at Birmingham and elsewhere, he joined the Haymarket company in London in 1866, acting in everything from burlesque to Shakespeare. In 1869 he married Margaret ("Madge") Robertson Grimston (born 15 March, 1849, in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, England), a sister of the dramatist, T. W. Robertson. Mrs. Kendal began as a child actress, and by 1865 was playing Ophelia and Desdemona in London. She was Mary Meredith in Our American Cousin with Sothern, and Pauline to his Claud Melnotte. But her real triumphs were at the Haymarket in Shakespearian revivals and the old English comedies. As "Mr. and Mrs. Kendal" their professional careers then became inseparable. While Mr. Kendal played Orlando, Charles Surface, Jack Absolute and Young Marlowe, his wife made the combination perfect with her Rosalind, Lady Teazle, Lydia Languish and Kate Hardcastle; and she created Galatea in Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea (1871). Indeed, in the early 1870s, the Kendals starred in a series of "fairy comedies" by Gilbert. Short seasons followed at the Court theatre and at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, at the latter of which they joined the Bancrofts in Diplomacy and other plays. Then in 1879 began a long association with Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Hare as joint-managers of the St. James's Theatre (until 1888) where they presented a large number of Pinero plays, among many others. Their reign there was noted for its taste, and the theatre became very fashionable again. Some of their notable successes included The Squire, Impulse, The Ironmaster, and A Scrap of Paper. In 1888, however, the Hare and Kendal partnership ended. From that time Mr. and Mrs. Kendal chiefly toured in the provinces and in America, with an occasional season at rare intervals in London. Margaret Kendal was knighted as a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 1926, 9 years after the death of her husband, who died on 7 November, 1917, aged 76, in London. Dame Madge Kendal (as she would be known) died on 14 September, 1935, in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, England, aged 86.
References
- Archer, "Mr. and Mrs. Kendal", in Matthews and Hutton, Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States (New York, 1886)
- Scott, The Drama of Yesterday and To-Day (London, 1899)
- T. E. Pemberton, The Kendals: A Biography (New York, 1900)
