John Heminges (1566-1630)
- Apprenticeships
- Funding and Support
- Inward Investment
- Business Rates
- Licensing
- The Pillar business hub
- Town Centre Investment Plans
- Pershore Place Board
- Evesham Place Board
- Droitwich Spa Place Board
- Meet the Team
- Tides of Time
- Vivid Memories
William Shakespeare’s First Folio was a collection of 36 works published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death. It was brought together by John Heminges and Henry Condell. Many of Shakespeare’s plays had not previously been published, and so it is likely that without the First Folio, these plays would have been lost to us today.
John Heminges was baptised at St Peter-de-Witton Church in Droitwich on 25 November 1566. He was sent to London at the age of 12 to be an apprentice grocer and became a freeman of the Grocer’s Company on 24 April 1587.
He was a friend of Shakespeare, and a co-founder of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (the playing company for which Shakespeare wrote during most of his career, which later became the King’s Men) and the Globe Theatre. Some sources credit Heminges with originating the role of Falstaff, a primarily comic figure appearing in three of Shakespeare’s plays.
Although credited as an actor, sources indicate that Heminges made a greater contribution to the business side of the playing company, utilising his status as a Grocer to support the playing company financially and promote connections at the highest possible social level. Records indicate that the Lord Chamberlain’s Men performed around 320 times in the courts of three monarchs during Heminges’ lifetime: Queen Elizabeth I, King James I and King Charles I.
References:
- https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/my-fellows-john-heminges-and-henry-condell/
- https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-first-folio/
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Heminge
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Heminges