Arthur Williams (actor)

He made his London stage debut at the St James's Theatre in 1868, where his roles included Thomas in The Secret, Baron Factotum in a burlesque of Sleeping Beauty, and Moses in The School for Scandal.

After playing in dramas in the 1870s, he appeared in comic operas in the 1880s, in which he created the roles Sir Mincing Lane in Billee Taylor, Sir Whiffle Whaffle in Claude Duval, Amaranth CVIII in Lord Bateman, his most famous role, Lurcher in Dorothy and Corporal Bundy in The Red Hussar.

His first role was in 1861 as Alfred Martelli in "The Corsican Brothers" in Gravesend, in northwest Kent, England, at the age of 17.

In 1867, he appeared in The Carpenter of Rouen, by Joseph Stevens Jones and a stage version of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.

In 1881, at the Olympic Theatre, he created Sir Whiffle Whaffle in another Solomon and Stephens opera, Claude Duval.

The same year, he also played Octavius Dell in The Jackal, by E. B. Aveling, followed by Solomon and Stephens' The Red Hussar, in which he created the role of Corporal Bundy.

In 1892, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, he played Tom Blinker in The Prodigal Daughter and appeared in Little Bo-Peep, Little Red Riding Hood & Hop O' My Thumb, by Augustus Harris and John Wilton Jones.

From 1898 to 1901, he played at the Comedy Theatre with Sir Charles Hawtry in Lord & Lady Algy, The Cuckoo, as Penny in An Interrupted Honeymoon, by F. Kinsey Peile, and in the long-running A Message from Mars, by Richard Ganthony, among other works.

In 1906, at the Vaudeville Theatre, he created the role of Sir John Chaldicott in The Belle of Mayfair and appeared there in 1907 in That Brute Simmonds.

In 1911, he was Touchstone in As You Like It, Sir Walter Raleigh in The Critic and Percival in Sweet Nell of Old Drury by Paul Kester, touring in the latter until 1913.

He then appeared as Master Blakey in Peg & the Prentice and in 1914 was Jaikes in The Silver King and Perkyn Middlewick in Our Boys.