Histories

• actor Samuel Foote,
• Lord Loughborough and
• David Garrick with whom he had a long-standing - but professionally argumentative - artistic partnership.

Birth, childhood and education

Born at Clooniquin, County Roscommon, Ireland on 27 December 1727, the son of Richard Murphy and Jane French. Before he was two years old his father died at sea and he then lived at George’s Quay, Dublin. His mother became dependent on her brother, who moved the family to London in 1735. In 1736, aged 9, Arthur was sent to Boulogne, in France, to stay with his maternal aunt, Mrs Arthur Plunkett. When her health failed in 1738, he remained in France and was sent by his mother to the Jesuit College for English Catholics at St. Omer, under the name of Arthur French since English law prohibited the education of English children at foreign Catholic schools. There he studied for six years, including Greek and Latin classics, the latter of which he later used in his plays and translations of Sallust and Tacitus, among others.

When he returned to London, his uncle Jeffrey French intended to employ him in trade, but upon discovering that he knew no arithmetic in spite of his education he sent him to Webster’s Academy to learn mathematics, accounting, and bookkeeping.

Domestic life

He never married, but lived with his mistress, Miss Ann Elliot, a woman of natural abilities whom he brought on the stage and wrote her biography (1769).

Career

In 1747 Murphy was sent to Cork, Ireland, to serve as an apprentice to the merchant Edmund Harrold. In April 1749 he returned to London, having refused to sail to Jamaica on his uncle Jeffrey French’s orders, and was disowned and disinherited by his uncle.

Acting

Aged 27, Murphy was engaged to act at Covent Garden for the 1754-1755 season. His first role was Othello and George Ann Bellamy’s Desdemona on 18 October 1784. Successful, he performed eight other roles there during that season. During the 1755-1756 season Murphy acted with the company at Drury Lane, his second and final year upon the stage.

Literary

By 1752 Murphy was writing a regular essay for 'The Craftsman' called 'The Gray’s Inn Journal,' which after a year became as a separate publication in opposition to the Spectator, contributing as ‘Charles Ranger’.

In 1754, he submitted his first dramatic work, a two-act farce entitled 'The Young Apprentice', to David Garrick for production at Drury Lane. He began a series of articles for The Chronicle called 'The Theatre,' offering criticism of contemporary theatre and acting; these essays continued intermittently for two years, and many modern critics agree with John P. Emery’s 1946 estimation that…

These essays constitute the best journalistic dramatic criticism of the eighteenth century.

His plays were mostly farces; the most well-known being 'Grecian Daughter' which was first performed at Drury Lane on 26 February 1772, and his most critically acclaimed being 'Know your own mind,' written in 1760 and first performed at Covent Garden on 22 February 1777.

His plays (year first performed) included: