Lancelot Booth (24 September 1845 – 20 May 1913) was an Australian colonial actor, comedian, playwright, journalist and writer of short stories, novels and poems.[1]
Born in Durham, England, Lancelot Booth was the son of Lancelot Parker Booth, colliery owner, and his wife, Anne Hedley. He emigrated to New Zealand in the 1870s and moved to Australia in 1876.
In the early 1870s Booth worked on the stage in New Zealand, marrying actress Eliza Frances Eltham at the Union Hotel in Dunedin on 29 January 1873.[1] During Booth's period in New Zealand his works for stage included: Guided by Public Opinion, or the Fortunes of a New-Chum (farce), Crime in the Clouds (drama), Formosa Married (farce), and New Magdalene.[2]
He moved to Australia in 1876, where he initially worked on the Sydney stage. He made his first appearance at the Royal Victoria Theatre on 24 July 1876 as Count De Rivera in the Italian drama, Society, or a Mistake in Education. Booth was a prolific performer, appearing in more than 70 productions between 1876 and 1880, many of them alongside fellow actor Bland Holt, mainly in the Victoria Theatre and Queen's Theatre. The two first appeared together in The Steeplechase at the Royal Victoria on 28 October 1876 in Holt's first appearance in Sydney.
During the early to mid-1880s, he lived in Brisbane, where he was connected with the Brisbane Theatre Royal, appearing in more than 20 productions. Booth returned to Sydney sometime after 1885 and from that time made only rare appearances on stage. He appeared as Charles Beeswing in the farce, Taming a Tiger, at the Royal Standard on 28 November 1892 and in July 1898 joined with several old actors to perform Othello to raise money for the benefit of retired actors.
Booth also wrote a number of plays including Crime in the Clouds, performed at the Royal Standard Theatre in Sydney in January 1898 by Henry's Sydney and Suburban Company and Outlaw Kelly (1899) a four Act melodrama, first performed in Tasmania in September 1899 by the Henry Dramatic Company.
In addition to writing plays, he published short stories, poetry and children's fiction as well as two popular novels: The Devil's Nightcap (1912), an Australian bushranging adventure of the Frank Gardiner–Ben Hall gang, and Tools of Satan (1914), a murder mystery in an English setting, both published by the NSW Bookstall Company.
Many of his short stories and poems were published in The Queenslander. Favourite subjects were bushranging and life on the gold diggings, with many themes exploring encounters between migrants from the 'old country' and the Australian bush.
In May 1903 at the age of 58, Booth commenced on a walking tour of the north coast of New South Wales, starting at the Hunter River and ending at the Tweed River on the Queensland border and then back again. His plan was to publish an account of his travels and although he duly completed this endeavour, the account appears to have never found its way into print.[3]
Booth died on 20 May 1913 in Balmain aged 67 and is buried in Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney. His wife, Eliza, pre-deceased him 20 years earlier on 4 September 1893. Together, they had ten children: Mark, George, Harry, Francis, Ada, Ernest, Ruby, William, Archibald, Harold and Mary.