Raised on
Gower Street in London, he was raised in comparative affluence, supported not only by his father's wealth but also by a large gift from surgeon
Percival Pott. He attended school in
Soho and may have apprenticed as an attorney in
Wolverhampton; by 1806, however, he had joined his brother Percy's troupe in
Plymouth. His first appearance on the stage was at the
Theatre Royal, Plymouth in
Charles Macklin's
Love à la mode. From the beginning he specialized in comic old men and Irish parts. A decade of provincial apprenticeship followed in southern England and in Dublin (where he married); his first roles included Adam Contest in
Elizabeth Inchbald's
The Wedding Day and Lovegold in
Henry Fielding's translation of
Molière's
The Miser; however, his name is associated with a wide variety of roles. He played at Covent Garden every winter until 1828, and began in 1824 a series of summer engagements at the
Haymarket which also lasted some years. He next joined
Benjamin Webster at the Haymarket as stage-manager as well as actor. Now nearly sixty, he succeeded in two notable old-men roles by
Mark Lemon: the title characters in
Grandfather Whitehead and
Old Parr. His performance as
Thomas Parr was praised by
The Times as a breakthrough in English acting. He was performing in that role in 1843 when he suffered an on-stage stroke. He was, however, able to reappear the following year, and he remained at the Haymarket ten years more, though his acting never again reached its former level;
Edward Dutton Cook recalls an 1851 performance in which Farren, though "acting admirably", did not utter a single intelligible word. For a time he managed the
Strand, and between 1850 and 1853, was lessee of the Olympic. During his later years he confined himself to parts portraying old men, in which he was unrivalled. In 1855 he made his final appearance at the Haymarket, as Lord Ogleby in a scene from the
Clandestine Marriage. With Faucit, he left two sons,
Henry (1826–1860) and
William (1825–1908), both actors. The former was the father of
Nellie Farren, long famous for boy's parts in
Gaiety musical burlesques, in the days of
Edward Terry and
Fred Leslie. As Jack Sheppard, and in similar roles, she had a unique position at the Gaiety, and was an unrivalled public favourite. In 1892 her health failed, and her retirement, coupled with Fred Leslie's death, brought to an end the type of Gaiety burlesque associated with them. ==Art and reputation==