Roger Kemble

Roger Kemble (1 March 1721 – 6 December 1802) was an English theatre manager, strolling player and actor.

In 1753, he married Irish actress Sarah "Sally" Ward (1735–1806) at Cirencester in Gloucestershire, and they had thirteen children, who formed the Kemble family of 19th-century actors and actresses.

Kemble first entered the theatre by joining Smith's company at Canterbury in 1752.

She first appeared as Ariel in The Tempest with her father's company in Coventry in 1766.

As primarily a theatre manager, Roger Kemble never became as famous as his children, although he scored a success at London's Haymarket Theatre where in 1788 he appeared as Falstaff in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1 and in the Miller of Mansfield.

Portrait by Thomas Beach c. 1786