Glynne William Gladstone Wickham (15 May 1922 – 27 January 2004) was a BritishShakespearean and theatre scholar.
Wickham was born inCape Town, and was a great-grandson ofWilliam Ewart Gladstone. He was educated atWinchester College andNew College, Oxford. In 1941 he played the title role inHamlet for theOxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), directed byNevill Coghill. In 1942–1946, interrupting his undergraduate studies, he served as a navigator in theRAF. He returned to New College in 1946, and became the first postwar president of OUDS. In 1948 Coghill chose him to direct a "complex" production of amasque to celebrate the visit of the thenPrincess Elizabeth to Oxford.[1]
He was awarded aDPhil in 1951 based on postgraduate research into the evolution ofElizabethan andJacobean theatre from its medieval beginnings. This work formed the basis for his later workEarly English Stages, published in five volumes between 1959 and 2002.[1]
Appointed in 1948 to the department of drama atBristol University (the UK's first such department),[2] he convened a 1951 symposium on "the responsibility of universities to the theatre" to endorse the policy of studying drama in the context of theatre and a 1954 symposium on "the relationship between universities and radio, film, and television".[2] He also did the groundwork for theuniversity's theatre collection in 1951 (which now has museum status and is a major archive).[2]
In 1954 he married Hesel Mudford with whom he had two sons and one daughter.[3] Mrs Wickham died in 2025.[4]
In 1955, he was made the department's head and in 1960 took up its chair of drama, the first such in the UK.[2] He also helped to set up a playwriting fellowship in the department, attracting young playwrights likeJohn Arden, and premieredHarold Pinter's first play,The Room in 1957.[2] At his death he was the department's professor emeritus.[2]
Wickham served as president of theAmerican Society for Theatre Research from 1976 to 1999.[1] In 1970 his advice was sought bySam Wanamaker on the setting up ofShakespeare's Globe.[2] In 1999 he was awarded theSam Wanamaker Prize.[1] The Standing Conference of University Drama Departments's postgraduate scholarship and Bristol University's studio theatre are both named after him.[2]
