tor, manager and playwright, was
born in Essex on the 18th of February 1846, the [v.03 p.0435] son of a
farmer. He made his first appearance on the stage at Halifax in 1864, and
then played in the provinces alone and with his wife, Caroline Heath, in
_East Lynne_. After managerial experiences at Leeds and elsewhere, in 1879
he took the management of the old Court theatre, where he introduced Madame
Modjeska to London, in an adaptation of Schiller's _Maria Stuart_,
_Adrienne Lecouvreur_, _La Dame aux camelias_ and other plays. It was not
till 1881, however, when he took the Princess's theatre, that he became
well known to the public in the emotional drama, _The Lights o' London_, by
G. R. Sims. The play which made him an established favourite was _The
Silver King_ by Henry Arthur Jones, perhaps the most successful melodrama
ever staged, produced in 1882 with himself as Wilfred Denver, his brother
George (an excellent comedian) in the cast, and E. S. Willard (b. 1853) as
the "Spider,"--this being the part in which Mr Willard, afterwards a
well-known actor both in America and England, first came to the front.
Barrett played this part for three hundred nights without a break, and
repeated his London success in W. G. Wills's _Claudian_ which followed. In
1884 he appeared in _Hamlet_, but soon returned to melodrama, and though he
had occasional seasons in London he acted chiefly in the provinces. In 1886
he made his first visit to America, repeated in later years, and in 1898 he
visited Australia. During these years the London stage was coming under new
influences, and Wilson Barrett's vogue in melodrama had waned. But in 1895
he struck a new vein of success with his drama of religious emotion, _The
Sign of the Cross_, which crowded his theatre with audiences largely
composed of people outside the ordinary circle of playgoers. He attempted
to repeat the success with other plays of a religious type, but not with
equal effect, and several of his later plays were failures. He died on the
22nd of July 1904. Wilson Barrett was a sterling actor of a robust type and
striking physique, not remarkable for intellectual finesse, but excelling
in melodrama, and very successful as the central figure on his own stage.

BARRHEAD, a police burgh of Renfrewshire, Scotland, situated on the Levern,
7-1/2 m. S.W. of Glasgow by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Pop.
(1901) 9855. Founded in 1773, it has gradually absorbed the villages of
Arthurli