James Prescott Warde

The Dictionary of National Biography says he was "full of promise at the time of his first appearance in London", in 1818, but did not reach the top ranks of the profession.

[1] He served for three years in the Cape of Good Hope, then left the army in poor health in 1813, returning to England.

[2] Warde's first recorded appearance at Bath, where he settled, was on 28 December 1813 as Achmet in John Brown's tragedy Barbarossa, a part created by Henry Mossop.

During 1814 he played at Bath Faulkland in The Rivals (5 March) and Harry Dornton in Thomas Holcroft's The Road to Ruin (17 April); and on 10 December had the title role in Isaac Pocock's John of Paris.’[1] In 1815 Warde was on 3 January Laertes to the Hamlet of William Macready.

[3][1] The next year, 1817, Warde was seen as Doricourt in the Belle's Stratagem (1 November), and was considered very good as Biron in David Garrick's Isabella, adapted from Thomas Southerne's The Fatal Marriage.

[5][1] This was the Isaac Pocock adaptation Rob Roy Macgregor, or Auld Lang Syne, an operatic drama in three acts, of the Walter Scott novel.

[6] Another supporter of Warde was Harriet Willoughby, illegitimate daughter of Charles James Fox and the courtesan Elizabeth Bridget Cane.

[9] Next season Warde opened as Leon (26 July), and was seen as Faulkland, Don Felix in Susanna Centlivre's comedy The Wonder, Valmont in William Dimond's The Foundling of the Forest as his benefit on 28 August, and other parts.

[1] Warde reappeared on the London stage in the autumn of 1825, when he was engaged at the Covent Garden Theatre as second lead to Charles Kemble.

[1] He was no longer a rising star: the London Magazine that year was of the opinion that "Mr. Warde, we think is not fitted to fill the first parts"; though he was adequate to substitute for William Abbot.