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==Life and career==
Bancroft was born at [[Doncaster]]
===Prince of Wales's Theatre (1865–80)===
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In April 1865, she began, in partnership with [[Henry James Byron|Henry Byron]], the management of the [[Prince of Wales's Theatre]]. For two seasons before her marriage she managed the theatre alone. She secured as a leading actor [[Squire Bancroft]], whom she had met shortly before in [[Liverpool]] and married in December 1867. Her son Charles Edward Wilton (born 1863) changed his name to Bancroft upon the marriage of his mother to Squire Bancroft. Their sons together were George Louise Pleydell Bancroft (born 1869) and Arthur Hamilton Bancroft (born and died 1870).<ref name=Lodge>{{cite web|last=Gare|first=Chris| title= The mystery of Charles Bancroft & Margaret Grimston| url=http://www.oldwhitelodge.com/bancroft.htm|website= oldwhitelodge.com|accessdate= 31 August 2020}}</ref> The Prince of Wales's soon became noted for its series of successful comedies by [[Thomas William Robertson|T. W. Robertson]], namely: ''[[Society (play)|Society]]'' (1865), ''Ours'' (1866), ''[[Caste (play)|Caste]]'' (1867), ''Play'' (1868), ''School'' (1869) and ''M. P.'' (1870).<ref>[[Thomas Edgar Pemberton|Pemberton, T. Edgar]]. [https://archive.org/stream/societyandcastee00robeuoft/societyandcastee00robeuoft_djvu.txt ''The English Drama from its Beginning to the Present Day'' – ''Society'' and ''Caste''], D. C. Heath & Co., Publishers Boston USA and London (1905)</ref>
Bancroft regularly took the principal female parts in these pieces, her husband playing the leading man. Together, Robertson and the Bancrofts are considered to have instigated a new form of drama known as 'drawing-room comedy' or 'cup and saucer drama', in which actors perform natural behaviors onstage, such as drinking tea or reading books.<ref>Stedman, p. 87</ref> The Bancrofts gave Robertson an unprecedented amount of directorial control over the plays, which was a key step to institutionalizing the power that directors wield in the theatre today.<ref>Vorder Bruegge, Andrew "W. S. Gilbert: Antiquarian Authenticity and Artistic Autocracy" (Associate Professor, Department Chair, Department of Theatre and Dance, Winthrop University). Professor Vorder Bruegge presented this paper at the Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States annual conference in October 2002 {{Cite web |url=http://faculty.winthrop.edu/vorderbruegg/winthropweb/vitaindex/gilbert.html |title=Archived copy |access-date=27 March 2008 |archive-date=3 May 2011 |archive-url=https://www.webcitation.org/5yPic5kyJ?url=http://faculty.winthrop.edu/vorderbruegg/winthropweb/vitaindex/gilbert.html |url-status=bot: unknown }}, accessed 26 March 2008</ref>
The Bancrofts were also responsible for making fashionable the 'box set', which [[Lucia Elizabeth Vestris]] had first used at the [[Olympic Theatre]] in the 1830s – this consisted of rooms on stage which were dressed with sofas, curtains, chairs, and carpets on the stage floor. They also provided their actors with salaries and wardrobes. Also, the Bancrofts redesigned their theatre to suit the increasingly upscale audience: "The cheap benches near the stage, where the rowdiest elements of the audience used to sit were replaced by comfortable padded seats, carpets were laid in the aisles, and the pit was renamed the stalls."<ref>[http://www.peopleplayuk.org.uk/guided_tours/drama_tour/19th_century/cup.php Information about Cup and Saucer realism] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070416042300/http://www.peopleplayuk.org.uk/guided_tours/drama_tour/19th_century/cup.php |date=16 April 2007 }} (PeoplePlay UK)</ref>
Other plays that the Bancrofts produced at the Prince of Wales's Theatre were ''Tame Cats'' (1868), ''[[The School for Scandal]]'' (1874), ''[[Sweethearts (play)|Sweethearts]]'' (1874), ''The Vicarage'' (1877), and ''[[Diplomacy (play)|Diplomacy]]'' (1878, an adaptation of [[Victorien Sardou]]'s ''Dora''). Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft likewise presented at their theatre a number of prominent actors, among them [[John Hare (actor)|Hare]], [[Charles Francis Coghlan|Coghlan]], the [[William Hunter Kendal|Kendals]], and [[Ellen Terry]]. In 1879, she reprised a favourite role of hers, Nan, in [[John Baldwin Buckstone]]'s ''Good for Nothing'', in a mixed bill alongside [[W. S. Gilbert]]'s ''[[Sweethearts (play)|Sweethearts]]'', in which she played Jenny Northcott.<ref>[http://www.peopleplayuk.org.uk/collections/object.php?object_id=2074 Information about ''Sweethearts''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011105042/http://www.peopleplayuk.org.uk/collections/object.php?object_id=2074 |date=11 October 2007 }} (PeoplePlay UK)</ref>
===Later years===
[[File:ladybancroft.jpg|thumb|upright|As Nan, in ''Good for Nothing'' (1879)]]
In 1879, the Bancrofts moved to the [[Haymarket Theatre]], a larger house, where they renovated the theatre and reportedly introduced he first use of the electric light on the English stage in 1880.<ref>[https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp00235/marie-effie-nee-wilton-lady-bancroft "Marie Effie (née Wilton), Lady Bancroft"], National Portrait Gallery, accessed </ref> They continued the successful presentation of modern comedy until both retired from management on 20 July 1885, having made a considerable fortune producing theatre.<ref>{{cite news| newspaper= Evening Standard|location=London|date= 21 July 1885|page= 5}}</ref> After that,
==Books==
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