Richard Yates (actor)

Richard Yates (c. 1706–1796) was an English comic actor, who worked at the Haymarket Theatre and Drury Lane among others, appearing in David Garrick's King Lear.

[3] For his benefit and that of Mrs. Elizabeth Yates, his first wife (about whom little is known) who played at this time small parts such as Emilia in The Winter's Tale, and was the Duchess of York on David Garrick's first appearance on the stage, he attempted Lovegold in The Miser, in the style of Benjamin Griffin.

[4] Under the management of Thomas Harris, John Rutherford, George Colman the Elder, and William Powell, King made his first appearance at Covent Garden on 31 October 1767 as Major Oakly, in Colman's The Jealous Wife, and was the original Prig and Frightened Boor in Royal Merchant, an opera based by Thomas Hull on the Beggar's Bush on 14 December.

At this house he played Cloten, Florimond in Edgar and Emmeline by John Hawkesworth, Sir Gilbert Wrangle in The Refusal, Brass, and Lucio.

He was the original Sir Benjamin Dove in Richard Cumberland's Brothers, 2 December 1769; and Stanley in An Hour before Marriage, 25 January 1772.

[4] Yates from then no longer worked in London; he was engaged with his wife in Edinburgh 1784–5, and probably acted with her in York during her return journey on 21 April 1785.

In 1789 he was introduced to Miss Elizabeth Jones, an aspiring actress wishing to be employed in Yates's Birmingham theatre.

(Thomas Yates and his sister ( name unknown) The sister eloped with the Yates's coachman, a Mr Bowen and was disinherited, But Thomas was always considered the heir and expected to inherit the substantial fortune of Richard, including the Pimlico House and a house in Mortlake, carriages, silver and jewellery.

Thomas was called to the house by Miss Jones who produced a document showing that everything (except a small annuity) was left to her.

In her old age she tried to trace Thomas Yates descendants and left them a chest full of jewels and silver, worth 30,000 pounds.

Three barrels of solid silver found its way to Dunedin in New Zealand, with Thomases great-grandchildren, there is sat and blackened in a cellar of a Miss Cargill, my mother's great-aunt, who was alcoholic.

A maid asked her what should be done with the silver and the great aunt said 'Give it all to the dustman, which is what happened, and it was tipped into the landfill over which the cricket ground was built.