Thomas, a celebrated actor, was the son of Mr Betterton, under-cook to King Charles I., and was born in Tothill-street, Westminster, in the year 1635. Having received the rudiments of a genteel education, his fondness for reading induced him to request his parents to bind him apprentice to a bookseller; which was readily complied with, and one Mr Rhodes, near Charing-cross, fixed on for his master. This gentleman, who had been wardrobe-keeper to the theatre in Blackfriars before the troubles, obtained in 1639, from the powers then in being, a license to set up a company of players in the Cockpit in Drury-Lane, in which company Mr Betterton entered himself; and, though not much above twenty years of age, immediately gave proofs of genius and merit in the histronic line.

Soon after the Restoration, two different theatres were established by royal authority; the one in Drury-Lane in Betterton, consequence of a patent granted to Henry Killigrew, Esq., which was called the "King's Company;" and the other in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, who styled themselves the "Duke of York's Servants," the patentee of which was Sir William Davenant. This gentleman having long had a close intimacy with and warm friendship for Mr Rhodes, engaged Mr Betterton, and all who had acted under Mr Rhodes, into his company, and opened in 1662 with a new play of his own, in two parts, called the Siege of Rhodes. In this piece, as well as in the subsequent characters which Mr Betterton performed, he increased his reputation with the public, and became so great a favourite with the king, that by his majesty's special command he went over to Paris to examine the French stage with a view to the improvement of our own; and it was after his return, as is generally supposed, that moving scenes were first introduced upon the English theatre, which previously had been only hung with tapestry.

In the year 1670 he married Mrs Sanderson, a female performer on the same stage, who, both as an actress and a woman, was every thing he could desire, and with whom, throughout the whole course of his after-life, he possessed every degree of happiness that a perfect union of hearts could bestow.

When the duke's company removed to Dorset-Gardens, Betterton still continued with them; and, on the coalition of the two companies in 1684, he acceded to the treaty, and remained among them, Mrs Betterton maintaining the same rank among the female that her husband supported among the male performers. And so great was the estimation in which they were both held, that, in the year 1675, when a pastoral called Calista, or the Chaste Nymph, written by Mr Crown, at the desire of Queen Catharine, consort to Charles II., was to be performed at court by persons of the greatest distinction, Mr Betterton was employed to instruct the gentlemen, and Mrs Betterton to tutor the ladies, amongst whom were the two princesses, Mary and Anne, daughters of the Duke of York. In grateful remembrance of this tuition, the latter, when queen, settled a pension of L.100 per annum on her old instructress.

In 1693 Mr Betterton having sounded the inclinations of a select number of the actors whom he found ready to join him, obtained, through the influence of the Earl of Dorset, the royal license for acting in a separate theatre; and was very soon enabled, by the voluntary subscriptions of many persons of quality, to erect a new playhouse within the walls of the Tennis Court in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. To this step Mr Betterton is said to have been induced, partly by ill treatment from the managers, and partly with a view to repair, by the more enlarged profits of a manager, the loss of his whole fortune, upwards of L.2000, which he had sustained in the year 1692, by risking it in a commercial adventure to the East Indies. Be this, however, as it will, the new theatre opened in 1695 with Mr Congreve's Love for Love, the success of which was very great. Yet, in a few years, it appeared that the profits arising from this theatre, opposed as it was by all the strength of Cibber's and Vanbrugh's writings at the other house, were very insignificant; and Mr Betterton growing infirm through age, and labouring under violent attacks of the gout, gladly quitted at once the fatigues of management and the hurry of the stage.

The public, however, who retained a grateful sense of the pleasure they had frequently received from this theatrical veteran, and sensible of the narrowness of his circumstances, resolved to continue the marks of their esteem to him by giving him a benefit. On the 7th of April 1709, the comedy of Love for Love was performed for this purpose, and Betterton himself, though then upwards of seventy years of age, acted the youthful part of Valentine; as in the September following he did that of Hamlet, his performance of which the author of the Tatler has particularly noticed. On the former occasion Mrs Barry, Mrs Bracegirdle, and Mr Doggett, who had all quitted the stage some years before, in gratitude to one to whom they were under so many obligations, enacted the parts of Angelica, Mrs Frail, and Ben; and Mr Rowe wrote an epilogue for that night, which was spoken by the two ladies, supporting between them this once powerful supporter of the English stage. The profits of the night are said to have amounted to upwards of L.500, the prices having been raised on the occasion; and when the curtain drew up, almost as large an audience appeared behind as before it.

The next winter Mr Betterton was prevailed on by Mr Owen M'Swinney, then manager of the opera-house in the Hay-market, at which plays were acted four times a week, to continue performing, though but seldom. In consequence of this arrangement, in the ensuing spring, being that of 1710, another play was given out for his benefit, namely, The Maid's Tragedy of Beaumont and Fletcher, in which he performed his celebrated part of Melanthus. This, however, was his last appearance on the stage; for having been suddenly seized with the gout, and being impatient at the thought of disappointing his friends, he made use of outward applications to reduce the swellings of his feet, and succeeded so far in accomplishing his object. But although he acted that day with unusual spirit and briskness, and met with universal applause, he paid dear for this tribute of public applause; for the fomentations he had made use of occasioning a revulsion of the gouty humour, threw the distemper into his head, and terminated his life on the 28th of April. On the 2d of May his body was interred with much ceremony in the cloister of Westminster, and great honour was paid to his memory by his friend the Tatler, who has related in a pathetic, and at the same time dignified manner, the process of the ceremonial. As an author, Mr Betterton had a considerable degree of merit. His dramatic works are:

1. Amorous Widow, a comedy; 2. Diocletian, a dramatic opera; 3. Masque in the Opera of the Prophetess; 4. Revenge, a comedy; 5. Unjust Judge, a tragedy; and, 6. Woman made a Justice, a comedy.

As an actor, he possessed uncommon merit; and those who are desirous of ascertaining the opinion formed of him by his contemporaries may refer to the description given of him by his friend and rival Colley Cibber, in the Apology for his own Life. The picture is unquestionably painted en beau; but the lineaments are nevertheless true to nature, and the likeness seems on the whole a just one.