John Billington

John Billington (1830 – 8 September 1904) was an English actor, for many years a member of the company of the Adelphi Theatre in London. Life Adelphi Theatre Through his appearances outside London, Billington acquired the reputation of being a painstaking and efficient actor. He first appeared in London in April 1857, at the Adelphi Theatre in the play Like and Unlike. He remained a member of the theatre company, under the management of Benjamin Webster, until 1868. During this time he appeared in most of the original performances of notable plays. Such roles included Walter in The Poor Strollers by Watts Phillips in January 1858; Frederick Wardour in Tom Taylor's The House or the Home in May 1859; Hardress Cregan in The Colleen Bawn by Dion Boucicault in September 1860; George Peyton in Boucicault's The Octoroon in November 1861; Ned Plummer in Dot, dramatized by Boucicault from Charles Dickens's The Cricket on the Hearth, in April 1862; in March 1863 John Mellish in Aurora Floyd, dramatized by Benjamin Webster; and in December 1867 Walter Wilding in No Thoroughfare by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins.