John and Clementina Benson / Whitehead

Thank you for reading my post.

I'm searching for information about the stage careers of John and Clementina Benson, from between 1860 and 1864 for Clementina, and between 1840 and 1870 for John.

They are my great-great grandparents; although I have a lot of other information about their lives, the time in the theatre seems difficult to track down.

John was described as a Comedian on all his official documents, and their census documents show them living in a different part of the UK each time, so I'm assuming they were members of a wandering troupe of actors. John's children from a previous marriage were also involved - they were William and Caroline Matilda.

Apparently they used the stage name of Benson, but John's marriage, birth and death records seem to alternate between Benson and Whitehead as surnames.

Any extra clues would be much appreciated!

The British Newspaper archive (This is a pay for site) is the place to look - ask Google to show you where it is. Put in the name of the person and it will bring you a list of ALL the entries it can find, including adverts, obituaries and reviews. Not just national newspapers but the small local ones too. Most stage notices and adverts can be found in The Era but local papers sometimes did huge reviews and you can follow their progress by the dates and see where they were at any time.
I think BNA is the best thing since sliced bread as far as my actors are concerned and I keep going back because they keep adding more newspapers - These are the newspapers that used to be available at the British Newspaper Library at Colindale but now all we have to do is put the name in the search box and click - marvellous

Thanks for all that excellent advice, Ladkyis - I'll certainly follow up on it. Those archives are just what we need when we live on the other side of the world from the places and family we're researching!