Charles Holland

Who was Charles Holland?

Charles Holland was an English actor, born in Chiswick, the son of a baker.

He made his first appearance on the stage in the title role of Oroonoko at Drury Lane in 1755, John Palmer, Richard Yates and Susanna Cibber being in the cast. He played under David Garrick, and was the original Florizel in the latter's adaptation of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.

Garrick thought highly of him, and wrote a eulogistic epitaph for his monument in Chiswick church. His nephew, Charles Holland was also an actor, who played with Sarah Siddons and Edmund Kean.

Holland died from smallpox at the age of 36. He did not marry, but was engaged to Jane Pope; literary accounts of the betrothal were given by James Smith, and then John Doran.