Anglo-American actor William Redmund in the 1882-83 Boston Theater production of Youth a play by Henry Pettitt and Augustus Harris.

William Redmund was born William Redmund Gollop on 3 May 1850 at the Wellington Foundry in London being the son of John Gollop and Emilia Redmund. A cabinet maker in his youth he seems to have taken to the stage sometime before removing to the United States on 8 September 1881. He became a key member of the Boston Theater and took leading roles in many productions during the 1880s.

He married Clara Elizabeth Walton at Margate, Kent in 1869. The marriage brought forth three children: Frank Redmund born in 1871, Percy born in 1878, and Lillian Ione Redmund born in 1879. He later married in 1893 - one assumes his first wife had passed away by that date - Clara Susanna Biddles Barry in New York.

William Redmund became a naturalized United States citizen on 3 October 1902 in New York City.

In this pictured role, Redmund seems to be portraying Frank Darlington in the Pettitt and Harris play Youth. The production was described as a military play in the 1908 book The History of the Boston Theater, 1854-1901 by Eugene Tompkins. Parts of the play take part in Afghanistan and the above-mentioned books make note of the fact that this was the first
time that Gatling guns were ever fired on a stage and of the particular attention given to the uniforms and the "...white helmets, since so common in our own army uniforms, where seen here for the first time.". This curious statement about the white helmets (one of which is visible as set decoration in the photograph)  would seem to indicate that the author Eugene Tompkins was British even though he resided and authored the book in Boston, Massachusetts.


Cabinet Photograph
George D. Russell - Photographer
125 Tremont St. Boston, Massachusetts, United States
c. 1883