Rutland Barrington - Life and Career

Life and Career

Barrington was born George Rutland Fleet at Penge, England, the fourth son of John George Fleet (1818–1902), a wholesale sugar dealer in London. His mother was the former Esther Faithfull (1823–1908) of Headley, Surrey, England. He was educated at Headley rectory and then at the Merchant Taylors' School in London. His six brothers included Indologist John Faithfull Fleet (1847–1917), Vice-Admiral Henry Louis Fleet (1850–1923), The Reverend Ferdinand Francis Fleet (1857–1940) and actor Duncan James Fleet (1860–1909). He also had two sisters, one named Esther (one boy and one girl died in infancy). Barrington was employed in a bank for eighteen months as a young man, but had no enthusiasm for such work, as he had ambitions to be an actor. Barrington's father did not want his son to go on the stage and forbade him to do so until he came of age. His aunt, activist and dramatic reader Emily Faithfull, helped him to make his first connections in the theatre. Barrington was a keen football player in the mid-1870s.

In 1880, Barrington married Ellen Louisa Jane Stainer (1851–1922), from Woolwich in Kent, the daughter of William Stainer and the former Lucy Mary Wheeler. Barrington and his wife had no children.