William Wyatt Dimond

Dimond could not have realised when he made his first visit to the Theatre Royal, Bath in the summer of 1774 that he would be associated with Bath for the next 30 years. He returned to Bath in October 1774 to play a minor role opposite John Henderson in Richard III at the Old Orchard Street Theatre. By this time Bath had become perhaps the most fashionable of the rapidly developing British spa towns, attracting many notable visitors and the Orchard Street theatre being too small to accommodate all who wished to see performances it was expanded to double its capacity by its managers. When Dimond returned for the 1775–6 season he was at last able to play the leading roles he had desired, especially after Henderson went to London in 1777. From 1779 to 1782 Dimond acted opposite Sarah Siddons, playing Jaffier to her Belvidera in Otway's Venice Preserv'd, Posthumus to her Imogen in Cymbeline, Bassanio to her Portia in The Merchant of Venice, and Lord Townly to her Lady Townly in The Provoked Husband (1728), an unfinished fragment by John Vanbrugh reworked and completed by Colly Cibber.^[6][7][8]

Dimond was particularly effective in society comedies such as The Provoked Husband which gave him the opportunity to wear fashionable and extravagant costumes that showed off his graceful body to his audiences. Sheridan considered Dimond's Joseph Surface in The School for Scandal: 'more consonant to his own ideas when he wrote the part, than anybody else'. However, Dimond also continued to play tragic roles including Romeo in 1790 and Hamlet in both Bath and Bristol. Just before his retirement from acting the Bristol Journal gave an appreciation of his skills in comic roles but added that his performances in tragedy were too orderly: 'nothing is irregular, nothing is left to chance. ... Hence it is, that if you have little to excite astonishment, you have a great deal to admire'.^[6][9]

By now a resident of Bath in Somerset, on 2 December 1779 at Westminster in London (and claiming to be 22 years old) he married Matilda Martha Baker (1757-1823), a Norfolk woman of independent means,^[10][11] and their three known children were born and raised in Bath. The elder son, William Dimond, became a "prolific playwright of little quality and a theatrical manager of little more." William Wyatt Dimond's opportunity to manage the theatre in Bath came in 1786 when John Palmer, who acted as his father's London agent and frequently had to travel between London and Bath.^[12] Palmer also owned the Theatre Royal in Bristol, which now houses the Bristol Old Vic. The two theatres shared one acting company, so as Palmer had to move his actors, stagehands and props quickly between Bristol and Bath he set up a coach service which provided safe, quick and efficient transport for his actors and materials. Later, when Palmer became involved in the Post Office, he believed that the coach service he had previously run between theatres could be utilised for a countrywide mail delivery service.^[13] He continued to manage the theatre until 1785 when he was appointed as Comptroller-General of the Post Office,^[14][15] and handed control to two existing members of the company, William Keasberry and Dimond. As a theatre manager Dimond was extremely popular with everyone - not only with the directors but also with the public and the actors.^[6]

Dimond made his farewell performance in Bristol on 1 July 1801 as Edgar in Nahum Tate's The History of King Lear, but he continued in theatre management until his death having been granted a 17-year lease on the Old Orchard Street Theatre in 1799. Probably his greatest achievement was the building of the Theatre Royal, Bath. Opening on 12 October 1805 with a lacklustre performance of Richard III but Dimond was successful in persuading notable actors from London to make the long journey to Bath, including Sarah Siddons in her final tour in 1811, Dorothea Jordan, George Frederick Cooke, Robert William Elliston, Joseph Shepherd Munden, Charles Kemble and John Bannister. At the height of his success as a manager Dimond suffered a stroke on 24 December 1811, and died at his home in Norfolk Crescent on 2 January 1812. The Bath Herald and The Literary Panorama state that he was aged 62 at the time of his death,^[16] which conflicts with the statement that he was 19 in 1773.^[4] In his will he bequeathed his property and theatrical interests to his widow.^[17] From her their son William Dimond obtained the management of the Theatre Royal, Bath which he gave up on her death in 1823.^[6][18]