Christopher Beeston

Alias Christopher Hutchinson. Gave in 1623 his age as 43, an therefore born in 1579 or 1580. By Kathman identified as the ‘Kitt’ who had three small parts in SDS as adult men. In that case past voice mutation. Principal actor in a 1598 Ben Jonson production, but not mentioned in Jonson’s 1623 F1. Probably because he left the company in 1602 in the wake of a dismissed allegation of rape. Chr. Beeston is in the last will and testament (1605) of Augustine Phillips mentioned as ‘my servant’. Samuel Gilbourne is in the same will ‘my late apprentice’. Beeston may have been apprenticed to Phillips too, but is, despite his age, and despite his departure from the Burbage troupe, by 1605 apparently still in Phillips’s service. If not a ‘late apprentice’, Beeston can have been anything to Phillips from a caretaker during his last illness to a secret lover.