Joseph Williams (actor)

Joseph Williams was an English stage actor of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century.^[1]

Williams initially joined the Duke's Company and was apprenticed to the senior actor Henry Harris In 1682 he moved to the merged United Company, appearing at Drury Lane and the Dorset Gardens Theatre. In 1695 when the company split, Williams initially planned to join Thomas Betterton and the breakaways at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, but ended up remaining at Drury Lane.^[2] One of his contemporaries at the United Company was an actor named David Williams, and occasionally it is hard to distinguish their roles listed on playbills.

• Highfill, Philip H, Burnim, Kalman A. & Langhans, Edward A. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800: West to Zwingmanl. SIU Press, 1973.
• Straub, Kristina, G. Anderson, Misty and O'Quinn, Daniel . The Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama. Taylor & Francis, 2017.