Betty

Betty, WILLIAM HENRY WEST, better known as the Young Roscius, born at Shrewsbury in 1791, first appeared on the stage at the age of eleven in Belfast, and achieved an immediate success. For almost five years he sustained the heaviest parts before crowded and enthusiastic audiences, and earned from 50 to 75 guineas nightly. In 1805 Mr Pitt adjourned the House of Commons to permit members to witness the boy's Hamlet. He quitted the stage as a boy-actor in 1808, but after studying for a while at Cambridge, returned to it in 1812. He retired finally in 1824, and lived for fifty years in the enjoyment of the fortune he had so early amassed. He died in London, August 24, 1874.