at the Haymarket he became manager first of the Strand Theatre, and subsequently of the Olympic. The latter house he opened 2 Sept. 1850 with the ‘Daughter of the Stars,’ a drama, and a burlesque entitled ‘The Princesses in the Tower.’ His lesseeship terminated 22 Sept. 1853. He won in his later years much popularity as Grandfather Whitehead, a kind-hearted septuagenarian; as Squire Broadlands, an old English gentleman; Nicholas Flam, a lawyer; and other characters. On 16 July 1855 Farren, whose health had collapsed, took at the Haymarket his leave of the public in a scene from the ‘Clandestine Marriage,’ which formed part of a programme for his benefit, in which appear the names of the principal English actors. On 24 Sept. 1861 he died at his house, 23 Brompton Square. Farren in his later years was the best representative of the present century of old men. A hard wood at first, Farren took ultimately a high polish. An article in the ‘New Monthly Magazine,’ 1 Oct. 1824 (probably by Talfourd), speaks of his range as narrow and disparages his efforts to play the characters of Terry and Dowton. His Admiral Franklyn the writer declares to be ‘only a testy old man.’ The Miser ‘he played like an animated mummy.’ His Lord Ogleby made, however, ‘amends for all.’ So early as 1820 Hazlitt detected the excellence of Farren's old men: ‘He plays the old gentleman, the antiquated beau of the last age, very much after the fashion that we remember to have seen him in our younger days, and that is quite a singular excellence in this’ (Dramatic Essays, ed. 1851, p. 125). When, in later years, his voice grew feeble and his step uncertain, he remained unrivalled in his line, and his Sir Peter Teazle, his Grandfather Whitehead, his Sir Harcourt Courtly in ‘London Assurance,’ and other similar characters remained to the last unequalled performances. Among his fellow-actors he was known as the ‘Cock-salmon,’ in consequence of his having answered to Bunn, who remonstrated against his demands, ‘If there's only one cock-salmon in the market you must pay the price for it. I am the cock-salmon.’ He seems to have been reserved in his habits, unsocial, intellectually dull, and careful in pecuniary expenditure.
Farren married early in life. In January 1856 he married, after the death of her husband, Mrs. Faucit (d. June 1857), an able actress at Covent Garden Theatre,. He left two sons, both known actors, Henry Farren [q. v.], whose daughter Ellen is still on the stage, and William Farren, who plays his father's line of characters, and has also a son on the stage. His elder brother, Percy Farren, actor or manager at Plymouth, Weymouth, Dublin, at the Haymarket, and at the ill-starred Brunswick Theatre, London, was also an actor of merit.
A portrait by De Wilde of William Farren as Lord Ogleby is in the Mathews collection in the Garrick Club. The same collection has a portrait of his father as Orestes, also by De Wilde.
[Genest's Account of the English Stage; Oxberry's Dramatic Biography; Biography of the British Stage; Theatrical Observer, Dublin, 1821 et seq.; Theatrical Times, 1846 et seq.; Vandenhoff's Dramatic Reminiscences; A Full and Accurate Account of the Destruction of the Brunswick Theatre, with the statements of the Rev. G. C. Smith and Messrs. William and Percy Farren, 1828; Morley's Journal of a London Playgoer; New Monthly Mag. passim; Dramatic and Musical Review, passim; Era newspaper, September and October 1861; Gent. Mag. November 1861; Macready's Reminiscences, by Sir Frederick Pollock; Cole's Life of Charles Kean; other works cited.]
FARRIER, ROBERT (1796–1879), painter, was born in 1796 at Chelsea, and resided in that locality during the whole of his life. He was first placed for instruction under an engraver, but subsequently began to earn a living by painting portraits in miniature, and became a student at the Royal Academy. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1818, sending some miniature portraits, and in 1819 exhibited the first of a series of pictures in a slightly humorous vein, depicting domestic subjects, and especially scenes from schoolboy life. These were popular, and a number of them were engraved. The first which attracted notice was ‘The Schoolboy—“He whistled loud to keep his courage up” (Blair's Grave)—’ exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1824, and engraved by J. Romney. Romney also engraved ‘Sunday Morning—The Toilet’ (R.A. 1825), ‘Sunday Evening,’ and ‘The Declaration.’ Other pictures by Farrier were engraved, viz. by Mrs. W. H. Simmons, ‘The Loiterer;’ by C. Rolls, ‘Hesitation;’ by E. Portbury, ‘Minnie O'Donnell's Toilet;’ by William Ward, junr., ‘The Mischievous Boy;’ by Thomas Fairland (lithograph), ‘The Village Champion;’ by William Fairland (lithograph), ‘The Culprit Detected.’ Farrier occasionally travelled, but continued to reside in Chelsea, where he died in 1879. One of his pictures, ‘The Parting,’ was presented after his death to the South Kensington Museum. His sister, Charlotte Farrier, was also an artist, and had a large practice as a miniature-painter, being a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy.
