1629–47) was a boy player or child actor in English Renaissance theatre, one of the young performers who specialized in female roles in the period before women appeared on the stage.
The relevant documents indicate clearly that part of the project's rationale was the training of young actors for the King's Men at the Blackfriars Theatre.
Beeston's involvement in the matter is cryptic, and the Blagrave/Beeston suit was unsuccessful;[4] Hammerton remained with the King's Men and acted for them for the next ten years, till the theatres were closed in September 1642 at the start of the English Civil War.
He played in Sir John Suckling's The Goblins, James Shirley's The Doubtful Heir, and Thomas Killigrew's The Parson's Wedding.
The Epilogue to The Goblins comments on Hammerton's popularity: Killigrew makes the same point at the end of The Parson's Wedding: if "Stephen misses the Wench...that alone is enough to spoil the Play."