A popular tragedian on the London stage, he appeared with many leading actors of his day, including William Charles Macready, Edwin Booth and Fanny Kemble and was well known for his Shakespearean and melodrama roles in Britain, the U.S. and Australia.

[4] Creswick was engaged for three years at the Haymarket Theatre, where he first appeared in July 1847 as Claude Melnotte to the Pauline of Helen Faucit in The Lady of Lyons by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

He was also seen as True-worth in The Love Chase, Mordaunt in The Patrician's Daughter, Proteus in Two Gentlemen of Verona (December 1848), the Ghost in Hamlet, and Cassio in Othello.

At the Surrey he appeared for three years in roles including the Stranger, Virginius, Richelieu and Hamlet, and in February 1849, he was the first Laroque in Henry Fothergill Chorley's Old Love and New Fortune.

[3] In 1871 Creswick made a second trip to America, appearing first as Joe, the idiot foundling, in Watts Phillips's Nobody's Child, a part in which he had been seen at the Surrey Theatre in 1867,[5] and played with Charlotte Cushman and Edwin Booth.

[1] In 1877, after being given a benefit at the Gaiety Theatre, in which he played Macbeth, he went to Australia, where he opened in Melbourne in the title role of Sheridan Knowles's Virginius, and was enthusiastically received.

He was popular in tragedy, and won acceptance in melodrama, but had little subtlety or insight.The Era said of him, He was everywhere recognised as a most intelligent and estimable companion, a scholarly critic of dramatic literature and a deeply read Shakespearian student.