Now! Then! The York Herald is conned into posting the American actor Ira Aldridge’s sensational account of his own death

Excerpt

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Llandillos, July 18. It is with extreme regret I have to inform you of a most melancholy and fatal accident that occurred to Mr. Aldridge, the African Roscius. From the interest you and your friends took in him during his sojourn among you, I feel satisfied that you would sympathise in his friends’ bereavement, and the loss to the stage of one of its most promising ornaments. Mr. A. was returning in his carriage from the seat of Colonel Powell, where he had been driving about, and when within half a mile of this town one of the horses took fright at the blaze of light from the iron-works with which this country is studded; this occurred on the brink of a precipice, over which the carriage swerved with its inmate, dragging the horses and postilion, who had not time to disengage himself. The footman had a most providential escape; he was in the act of alighting to seize the horses’ heads as the carriage was precipitated over the cliff. It is needless to add that Mr. Aldridge, the postilion and horses were killed upon the spot – the carriage being dashed to atoms. The place where this frightful accident occurred is 120 feet from the summit to the bottom. – Correspondent of the Kerry Evening Post.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Comment

From the correction in the Hull Packet:

We are constrained to ask the question, did the black man, who is up to a trick or two in the art of puffery, occasion the account of his own pretended death to be sent to the papers, for the sake of obtaining notoriety – eh? (Hull Packet 1845/08/22)

Among countless other gags, Bernth Lindfors notes Aldridge starring in whiteface and drag in Douglas Jerrold’s comedy Black-eyed Susan (Lindfors 2011).

Apparently he first performed Macbeth and Lear in Hull – in whiteface – but I haven’t found any contemporary accounts.

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Original

Llandillos, July 18. It is with extreme regret I have to inform you of a most melancholy and fatal accident that occurred to Mr. Aldridge, the African Roscius. From the interest you and your friends took in him during his sojourn among you, I feel satisfied that you would sympathise in his friends’ bereavement, and the loss to the stage of one of its most promising ornaments. Mr. A. was returning in his carriage from the seat of Colonel Powell, where he had been driving about, and when within half a mile of this town one of the horses took fright at the blaze of light from the iron-works with which this country is studded; this occurred on the brink of a precipice, over which the carriage swerved with its inmate, dragging the horses and postilion, who had not time to disengage himself. The footman had a most providential escape; he was in the act of alighting to seize the horses’ heads as the carriage was precipitated over the cliff. It is needless to add that Mr. Aldridge, the postilion and horses were killed upon the spot – the carriage being dashed to atoms. The place where this frightful accident occurred is 120 feet from the summit to the bottom. – Correspondent of the Kerry Evening Post.

217 words.