Stafford (UK Parliament constituency)
Stafford is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Theodora Clarke, a Conservative.
Charles Shaw
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Anglo-Irish playwright, writer and Whig politician who sat in the British House of Commons from 1780 to 1812, representing the constituencies of Stafford, Westminster and Ilchester. The owner of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London, he wrote several prominent plays such as The Rivals (1775), The Duenna (1775), The School for Scandal (1777) and A Trip to Scarborough (1777), along with serving as Treasurer of the Navy from 1806 to 1807. After dying in 1816, Sheridan was buried at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, and his plays remain a central part of the Western canon and are regularly performed around the world.
Portrait by John Hoppner, c. 1788-92
Portrait of a Gentleman, traditionally identified as Richard Brinsley Sheridan, by John Hoppner
Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, aged 31, by Gainsborough (National Gallery of Art)
In Uncorking Old Sherry (1805), James Gillray caricatured Sheridan as a bottle of sherry, uncorked by Pitt and bursting out with puns, invective, and fibs.