Garrick’s Shakespeare Jubilee, 1769

On the morning of May 8th, 1769, a delegation representing the Corporation of the Borough of Stratford-upon-Avon visited England’s most famous actor-manager in his London home. They came to present David Garrick with the Freedom of their city, enclosed in a box made from a mulberry tree planted ‘undoubtedly’ by Shakespeare’s own hands, and a request to open their new Town Hall. Garrick was reputed to be very rich; his fortune was founded on his successes in Shakespeare plays (which he had mauled with demonstrably the happiest results); he was also said to have a childish love of flattery. Considerable correspondence had preceded this interview, and much more was to follow. Garrick was inspired by the suggestion of a Shakespeare Jubilee in the dramatist’s home town. He agreed to open the new building and bestow upon it a statue of Shakespeare. He was decidedly bitten by the idea of companion portraits of himself and the Bard. But perhaps that might be thought presumptuous. He asked his old friend Thomas Gainsborough to run down to look at the bust in Holy Trinity church. If not quite contemporary, it had at any rate been accepted as a likeness by people who had known the man.