Life
1750-1788; b. Cork; actor-playwright; plays incl. The Invasion
(1778); The Fair American (1782); anon, The Drama (1755),
poem; also farces and musical pieces, incl. The Liverpool Prize
(1779), and The Siege of Gibraltar (1780); He Would be a Soldier
(London 1780), com.; d. Lon., bur. Lambeth. RR DNB PI DIW.
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Notes
Peter Kavanagh, Irish Theatre (1946), Frederick Pilon 1750-1788;
13 pieces, mostly farces; The Invasion or A Trip to Brighthelmstone
(CG 4 Nov 1778) 1788; The Liverpool Prize (CG 22 Feb 1779) 1779,
repeated 17 times; Illumination or The Glazier’s Conspiracy,
prelude (CG 12 April 1779) 1799, 8 nights, concerning acquittal of Admiral
Keppel; Thedevice or The Deaf Doctor (CG 27 Sept 1779) Larpent
MS, revised as The Deaf Lover (CG 2 Fe 1780); The Siege of Gibraltar,
op. farce (CG 25 Apr 1780 and 5 nights) 1780, mus. William Shield; The
Humours of an Election (CG 19 Oct 1780, and 14 nights), formerly acted
as The Close of the Poll, or The Humours of an Election; Thelyphthora
or More Wives than One, farce (CG 8 Mar 1781, 2 nights), ridiculing
Dr Martin Madan’s Thelphthora, an apology for polygamy; The
Fair American, com. op. (DL 18 May 1782, and 7 nights) 1785, plag.
from Hull’s alteration of Sir Samuel Tuke’s Adventures of
Five Hours, with mus. by T. Carter; Aerostation or the Templar’s
Stratagem (CG 29 Oct 1784) 1784, a satire on balloons; Barataria
or Sancho Turn’d Governor (CG 29 Mar 1785) 1793, became a stock
piece, based on Durfey’s plays on Don Quixote; All’s Well
that Ends Well (Hay 26 July 1785), unprinted alteration of Shakespeare;
He Would be a Soldier, com. (CG 18 Nov 1786; 23 nights in the season)
1786; unfinished com. The Ward in Chancery, possibly finished
as The Toy or Hampton Court Frolics, by John O’Keeffe, though
this is denied by the latter in Recollections.
Dictionary of National Biography, actor and dramatist, first appeared
Edinburgh, and drifted to London to write clever ephemeral plays after
1778. He Would be a Soldier achieved considerable success in Covent
Garden, (premier 18 Nov. 1786). Earlier successes include The Invasion,
or a Trip to Brighthelmstone (1778). NOTE PI, d. London, April 1779.
See Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821),
Vol. II, p.464.
Brief reference to The Siege of Gibraltar (1780) in Joseph Th.
Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fior-Ghael: Studies in the Idea of Irish
Nationality, Its Development and Literary Expression Prior To The Nineteenth
Century (Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co. 1986).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)