Early Life
Buckingham, the youngest son of James Silk Buckingham, the oriental traveller, and Elizabeth Jennings, was born at 11 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, London, 29 June 1825. In his early life he was the companion of his father in visits made to America, France, and the East, and the experience thus acquired rendered his services valuable as a lecturer on several occasions.
When the Royal Panopticon (afterwards the Alhambra in Leicester Square) was originated in 1854 as a scientific institution, Buckingham was selected to write and deliver the explanatory description of the views of various countries, and more recently at the Egyptian Hall he was the lecturer engaged to illustrate Hamilton's Tour of Europe.
Connecting himself in early life with the stage he produced several light pieces at the Strand Theatre when that establishment was under Mr. J. Payne's direction in 1856–7, and for a short time undertook the responsibilities of management. Among the most successful comedies he afterwards wrote may be mentioned The Merry Widow, 1863; Silken Fetters, 1863; The Silver Lining, 1864; and Faces in the Fire, 1865.
Read more about this topic: Leicester Silk Buckingham
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“We early arrive at the great discovery that there is one mind common to all individual men: that what is individual is less than what is universal ... that error, vice and disease have their seat in the superficial or individual nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Young, and so thin, and so straight.
So straight! as if nothing could ever bend her.
But poor men would bend her, and doing things with poor men,
Being much in bed, and babies would bend her over,
And the rest of things in life that were for poor women,
Coming to them grinning and pretty with intent to bend and to kill.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)