Lichfield on the main routes from London to the north-west and Birmingham to the north-east. It also became a centre of great intellectual activity, being the home of many famous people including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward; this prompted Johnson's remark that Lichfield was "a city of philosophers". In the 1720s Daniel Defoe described Lichfield as 'a fine, neat, well-built, and indifferent large city', the principal town in the region after Chester. During the late 18th and early 19th century much of the medieval city was rebuilt with the red-brick Georgian style buildings still to be seen
David Garrick (play) becomes Alderman Trawley, Richard Chivy becomes Robert Raubreyne, "Sawney" Smith becomes "Sammy" Smith, and Ada Ingot becomes Ada Trawley. David Garrick (play) David Garrick is a comic play written in 1864 by Thomas William Robertson about the famous 18th-century actor and theatre manager, David Garrick. The play premiered at the Prince of Wales Theater in Birmingham, where it was successful enough to be moved to the Haymarket Theatre in London, on 30 April 1864. It was a major success for the actor Edward Askew Sothern, who played the title role, but came later to be associated with the actor Charles