Lewis Strange Wingfield

Lewis Strange Wingfield (February 25, 1842 – November 12, 1891) was an Irish traveller, actor, writer, and painter.

Life The third and youngest son of Richard Wingfield, 6th Viscount Powerscourt, by his wife, Lady Elizabeth Frances Charlotte, eldest daughter of Robert Jocelyn, 3rd Earl of Roden, he was born on 25 February 1842, and educated at Eton College and Bonn University. He was intended for the army, but gave up the career at the request of his mother, after her second marriage to Frederick Stewart, 4th Marquess of Londonderry the Marchioness of Londonderry. He then had many occupations.

Actor On 21 August 1865 Wingfield was at the Haymarket Theatre Roderigo to the Othello of Ira Aldridge, the Iago of Walter Montgomery, and the Desdemona of Madge Robertson. He had previously played in the burlesque Ixion (F. C. Burnand). Reputed adventures were going to The Derby in blackface, spending nights in workhouses and pauper lodgings, and becoming an attendant in a lunatic asylum and prison.

Wingfield also worked as a war correspondent, embedded with the military staff. He joined the British Army in the Sudan in 1884, but was then long in hospital in Egypt, and never quite regained his health. He voyaged to Australia; and died at 14 Montague Place, London (where he had moved from Mecklenburgh Square), on 12 November 1891, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery.

Works Wingfield's first published work was Under the Palms in Algeria and Tunis, 1868, 2 vols. For Helena Modjeska he adapted Schiller's play Mary Stuart, produced at the Royal Court Theatre on 9 October 1880. He also wrote some unacted dramas. He published in various literary genres (some of these works reached second editions):

Slippery Ground, a novel in 3 vols., appeared in 1876; Lady Grizzle: an Impression of a momentous Epoch, 1878, 3 vols.; My Lords of Strogue: a Chronicle of Ireland from the Convention to the Union, 1879, 3 vols.; For Good or Evil appeared in Eros; Four Tales, vol. i. 1880; In Her Majesty's Keeping, 1880, 3 vols.; Gehenna, or Havens of Unrest, 1882, 3 vols.; Abigail Rowe: a Chronicle of the Regency’ 1883, 3 vols.; Notes on Civil Costume in England, 1884; Barbara Philpot: a Study of Manners, 1886, 3 vols.; Lovely Wang: a Bit of China, 1887; The Curse of Koshin: a Romance, 1888; Wanderings of a Globe-trotter in the Far East, 1889; and The Maid of Honour: a Tale of the Dark Days of France, 1891, 3 vols.

Wingfield was also responsible for Her English Dress, lectures issued by the International Health Exhibition, 1884.

Family Wingfield married, on 16 June 1868, Cecilia Emma, fourth daughter and fifth child of John Wilson Fitzpatrick, 1st Baron Castletown.