James Quin

Who was James Quin?

James Quin was an English actor of Irish descent.

Quin was born in London. He was educated at Dublin, and probably spent a short time at Trinity College.

Soon after his father's death in 1710, he made his first appearance on the stage at Abel in Sir Robert Howard's The Committee at the Smock Alley Theatre. Quin's first London engagement was in small parts at Drury Lane, and he secured his first triumph at Bajazet in Nicholas Rowe's Tamerlane, on 8 November 1715. The next year he appeared as Hotspur at Lincoln's Inn, where he remained for fourteen years.

On 10 July 1718 he was convicted of manslaughter for having killed Bowen, another actor, in a duel which the victim had himself provoked. Quin was not severely punished, the affair being regarded as more of an accident than a crime. The public took a similar view of another episode in which Quin, on being attacked by a young actor who had been angered by the sarcastic criticism of his superior, drew upon him and killed him.

But if he was eager in his own defence he was no less so in that of others.