Edward Stirling (April 1809 – c. September 1894) was an English stage manager, actor and dramatist. He published around 200 works for the stage, many being adaptations of works by popular authors, notably Charles Dickens, Walter Scott and Harrison Ainsworth, often within days of the novel's publication.[a] He married Mary Anne Stirling (1815–1895), an actress who went on to a long and illustrious career as Mrs Stirling.[2]
Stirling was born Edward Stirling Lambert in Thame, Oxfordshire, and started working life as a banker's clerk. Around age 20 he began his stage career first as an actor in the provinces, then as actor/stage manager at the Adelphi, London for Frederick Henry Yates, later took on production at other theatres, finally at Drury Lane.
His first successful work for the stage was Sadak and Kalasrade, a spectacular drama.[when?]
Apart from his original plays he "adapted" the latest novels of Dickens and other authors for the stage. His adaptation of The Cricket on the Hearth played at the Adelphi for over 90 performances. Among his numerous titles were:
Other titles include
In 1881 he published a memoir: Old Drury Lane – Fifty Years' Recollections in 2 volumes, which at least one critic enjoyed[9] but another found worthless as a history.[10]
Stirling married the actress Miss Fanny Clifton[2] (1815-1895) in 1832[11][12][13] Born Mary Ann Hehl, she was a daughter of Captain Hehl, a military secretary at the War Office.
Her career blossomed when she took Helen Faucit's part in the role of Clara in Lytton’s play Money. Their daughter, Miss Fanny Stirling, made her appearance on the stage about 1860, and gained some reputation as an actress. (Elsewhere her name is given as Pamela Stirling.)[14] Mrs. Stirling retired from the stage in 1886, her last appearance being at The Lyceum as Martha in Faust in 1890.[15]
In 1894, six weeks after Stirling's death, she married Lieut-Colonel Sir Charles Hutton Gregory, a well-known civil and military engineer.[16] She was 79 years of age and he was 78. The wedding was covered sympathetically by all the newspapers, whereas Stirling's death received no mention at the time, and later only in reference to this marriage, and in the most unflattering terms.[17]