Ernest Gaskell Sterndale BennettCM (30 May 1884 – 8 April 1982) was an actor and theatre director in Canada.
Born in London and a grandson of the English composer Sir William Sterndale Bennett, he was educated at Derby School and in 1904 qualified with first class honours as a civil and mechanical engineer from the Central Technical College of the City & Guilds of London Institute. In 1905, he emigrated to Canada and began working in amateur theatres in Moose Jaw, Medicine Hat and Lethbridge.
In 1923, he founded and directed the Lethbridge Playgoers Club[1] and later the Alberta Drama Festival upon which the Governor General the Earl of Bessborough later based the Dominion Drama Festival.[2][3]
Abandoning his career as an engineer in favor of the theatre, he moved to Toronto in 1933 to become a professional actor, director, teacher, adjudicator and consultant. He was a director of the T. Eaton Dramatic Club, later renamed The Toronto Masquers Club. Several of his students won major awards.
During the Second World War he served as a munitions inspector for the British Admiralty Technical Mission. In 1945, he returned to Toronto to create the drama department of the Royal Conservatory of Music.[4]
Bennett was married first to Sarah O'Donnell in 1905 who died the following year, then five years later to Belle Seater who died in 1936 and finally to Hilda Church with whom he established the Toronto-based Canadian Theatre School in 1949 [5]
In December 1974, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada for services to the theatre. He died in Vancouver on 8 April 1982 at age 97.[6]
In his memory, the Sterndale Bennett Theatre in the Genevieve E. Yates Memorial Centre in Lethbridge, Alberta was opened on 21 April 1990. It was renovated and reopened in 2021.[7][8]
^Galt Museum and Archives Accessed 21 Feb 2024
^Canadian Government Archives Accessed 21 July 1987
^Toronto Globe & Mail 23 March 1974
^Mann pp13-26
^"Sterndale Bennett, Ernest Gaskill". Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
^"Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia". Retrieved 19 July 2023.
Ernest Gaskell SterndaleBennett CM (30 May 1884 – 8 April 1982) was an actor and theatre director in Canada. Born in London and a grandson of the English...
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The British Library. ISBN 978-0-7141-0398-3. Bennett, J.R. Sterndale (1907). The Life of SterndaleBennett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OCLC 59807054...
Alberta. In 1928, she founded the Alberta Drama League together with ErnestSterndaleBennett, which became a model for the Dominion Drama Festival. In 1929...
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of taste. The opening music, under the superintendence of William SterndaleBennett, was directed by George Thomas Smart. The world's first soft drink...
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William Christian Sellé (1813–1898) Henry Smart (1813–1879) William SterndaleBennett (1816–1875) Henry Charles Litolff (1818–1891) Edmund Chipp (1823–1886)...
alongside his work in insurance. In London he took lessons from William SterndaleBennett, but finding them insufficiently demanding he sought lessons from...
journalist, went here aged 10. Robin Sterndale-Bennett, Naval Commander and great-grandson of William SterndaleBennett Jeremy Young, Noted South-Coast Businessman...
when its recently appointed Principal (and former pupil) William SterndaleBennett took on the chairmanship of the academy's board of directors and established...
(1893–1960) George Benjamin (born 1960) Richard Rodney Bennett (1936–2012) William SterndaleBennett (1816–1875) Lennox Berkeley (1903–1989) Michael Berkeley...
actress Jill Bennett. Sir Godfrey Tearle died on 9 June 1953, aged 68. Romeo and Juliet (1908 short) - Romeo The Fool (1913) - Sterndale Lochinvar (1915...
its principal, Sir William SterndaleBennett. At the academy, Matthay studied composition under Sir William SterndaleBennett and Arthur Sullivan, and piano...
who conducted the whole 1855 season of orchestral concerts, William SterndaleBennett for the following ten years, Arthur Sullivan, and Tchaikovsky, who...
opens at the Aldwych Theatre. J. R. Sterndale – The Life of William SterndaleBennett. Cambridge University Press. Ernest Walker – A History of Music in England...
Browning Lott 1875 Yoku Myles Bossman 1884 Herbert Austin Fricker 1892 J. Sterndale Grundy 1906 W. T. Harvey 1909 Frank Charles Butcher 1918 Rene Soames 1926 ...
at the invitation of the Philharmonic Society conducted by William SterndaleBennett, she sang the chief soprano part in the first English performance...
Crotch (1822) Cipriani Potter (1832) Charles Lucas (1859) Sir William SterndaleBennett (1866) Sir George Macfarren (1876) Sir Alexander Mackenzie (1888)...
Charles-Valentin Alkan – Variations sur un thème de Bellini, Op.16 No.5 William SterndaleBennett – Piano Concerto in C Minor Hector Berlioz – Harold in Italy Ole Bull...
Robinson Admiral Sir Edward Spragge Ralph Vaughan Williams Sir William SterndaleBennett The following are buried in the south choir aisle: Andrew Bell James...
include Ralph Vaughan Williams, Charles Villiers Stanford, William SterndaleBennett, Orlando Gibbons and, more recently, Alexander Goehr, Thomas Adès...
Herbert Aslin, architect Samuel Bailey, philosopher and author William SterndaleBennett, composer Clifford Edmund Bosworth, historian Malcolm Bradbury, author...
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