George James Vining

George James Vining (c. 1824 – 17 December 1875) was an English actor and theatre manager, appearing in London theatres. For several years he was manager of the Princess's Theatre.

Family background George Vining was a member of a family of actors and actresses. His grandparents and their common ancestors were Charles Vining, a silversmith in Kirby Street, Hatton Garden, and his wife Mary. They had eight children, and all became connected with the theatre.

James Vining (1795–1870), George's father, was first seen in London at Covent Garden Theatre in 1828, as Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet. He was with Madame Vestris at the Olympic Theatre in 1831. One of his later parts was Doctor Manette in Tom Taylor's adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities in 1860, and his last appearance was at the Lyceum in that year. John Joseph Knight wrote that "he was seen to most advantage in lovers and fops".

Frederick Guest Tomlins, theatre critic of the Morning Advertiser. harangued against the brutal realism of some of the scenes, writing "... we ourselves denounced the introduction of so complex a question as prison discipline into a melodrama, especially backed up as it is by such dismal and revolting representations of horrors...." (Morning Advertiser, 5 October 1865).

The succeeding act entirely restored the equanimity of the audience.

Later years and retirement In July 1867 he played an original part in The Huguenot Captain by Watts Phillips, of which Adelaide Neilson was the heroine, and in August 1868 a second in Boucicault's After Dark. He was the first Bullhead, to Charles Mathews's Gentleman Jack, in Escaped from Portland, in October 1869. In November of that year he went bankrupt, and his management of the Princess's Theatre ended; he was discharged the following February.

After his retirement from management Vining played, at the Olympic in October 1871, Count Fosco in the first production of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, which was a great success. He died in Reading, Berkshire on 17 December 1875. John Joseph Knight wrote: "He was a respectable actor, not in the first class."