Sir Henry Irving

Sir Henry Irving (born Feb. 6, 1838, Keinton Mandeville, Somerset, Eng.—died Oct. 13, 1905, Bradford, Yorkshire) was one of the most famous of English actors, the first of his profession to be knighted (1895) for services to the stage. He was also a celebrated theatre manager and the professional partner of the actress Ellen Terry for 24 years (1878–1902).

Irving’s father, Samuel Brodribb, was a salesman who collected orders for the tailoring department of the local store. His mother, Mary, was the daughter of a Cornish farming family. In 1842 Samuel found better employment in Bristol, and, rather than risk John’s health in the damp and dirt of the city, his parents decided to send him to relatives in Cornwall. For the next six years John was brought up by his aunt and her husband, Isaac, the captain of a Cornish tin mine at Halse Town near St. Ives. Growing up in Cornwall endowed John with a strong constitution. Cornish Methodism, to which his mother was a dedicated adherent, gave him his first taste of spellbinding oratory—the language of John Wesley. In 1848 John was returned to his parents, who by this time had moved to London. There he attended Dr. Pinches’ private school.

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After leaving school he entered a merchant’s office as a clerk, but his spare time and thoughts centred on the plays and players of the London theatre. In 1856 a Brodribb uncle gave him a legacy of £100, which he invested in theatrical necessities such as wigs, swords, and costumes. The legacy also allowed him to buy the leading part in an amateur production of Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Soho Theatre. As was the custom of the day, he adopted a stage name—Irving—his choice determined by the romances of Washington Irving and the evangelical sermons of the Scottish preacher Edward Irving. A warm reception of his performance gave him the encouragement he needed. He joined a theatrical stock company in Sunderland in the north of England as a “walking gentleman” (i.e., in noncomedic supporting roles).

The stock companies that traveled from town to town throughout England at this time constituted the only theatrical academy for a young aspiring actor. In three years Irving played more than 400 different parts in 330 plays, including most of the Shakespeare repertoire. This apprenticeship continued for 10 years in the provincial towns of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His first success in London came in 1866 in a play called Hunted Down.

In 1871 Irving emerged as one of the leading actors of his day with his performance in The Bells. Staged by the impresario H.L. Bateman at the Lyceum Theatre, it was an instant success. The part of Mathias, an unconvicted murderer haunted by his conscience, suited Irving’s gift for the macabre and the melodramatic, and the play was to remain a feature of Irving’s repertoire until his death.

For four years Irving was the star of Bateman’s company. When Bateman died in 1875, Irving continued to play under the management of Bateman’s widow until 1877. In 1878 Irving became lessee and manager of the Lyceum Theatre and built around him a dedicated if subservient company. He possessed a strong personal vision of the best that could be accomplished: he paid prodigious attention to detail, took no account of expense for settings and costumes, and hired the best designers and musicians in the country. The Victorian public responded to his lead with packed houses, for the romantic historical fare satisfied their concept of what the theatre ought to be. Although he was criticized for his unusual diction, his special mannerisms, and the shakiness of his literary scholarship, Irving took note of the press only as a useful instrument in support of his grand design. Box-office figures spoke louder than the words of the critics, and success brought acclaim from the rich and the famous. The Lyceum became the scene for sumptuous post-performance supper parties at which society was further entertained at Irving’s expense. It was the leading dramatic theatre of the English-speaking world, known for pictorial splendour and exactitude in staging.

In 1878 he engaged Ellen Terry as his leading lady and thereby began one of the most famous partnerships in the history of the English stage. Their theatrical qualities complemented each other admirably: he the brooding introvert, she the spontaneous, impulsive creature whose charm won every heart. Together, as Hamlet and Ophelia, Shylock and Portia, they drew enormous audiences.

In 1883 Irving embarked on the first of several American tours with the whole company of actors and technicians, as well as the scenic and lighting effects for which his theatre was famous. His reputation had gone before him, and the company enjoyed a triumphal winter season.

For the next few years Irving and the Lyceum company were at the height of their financial success. Each new production sought to outshine the existing repertoire in sumptuousness and elaboration, though each absorbed the profits of the previous season. The plays themselves were of no lasting literary merit, as a young critic named George Bernard Shaw pointed out. He regretted that an actress as talented as Ellen Terry should waste her time on such ponderous trifles. Shaw had written a play, The Man of Destiny, that he hoped Irving and Terry might perform. Irving read it, gave Shaw a retainer, and forgot about it. Shaw then accused him of suppressing the play. Irving’s retainer, however, had been only a kind gesture to a struggling young author. The two men now became antagonists. In July 1895, when Irving was honoured by Queen Victoria with a knighthood, his status as a national institution made a more inviting target for Shaw. At the same time, through Ellen Terry, Shaw implored Irving to consider the work of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. She managed to read Irving two acts of Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman, but Irving’s comment was “Threadworms and leeches are an interesting study, but they have no interest to me.” Irving’s success had been built on the strength of his own theatrical presence expressed through dramatic vehicles of a certain type. With all the signs of popular success around him, he saw no reason to change the formula. His conception of the theatre was that of an “actor’s theatre,” in which the dramatist was the servant of the performer and scenic-effects designer. Shaw and Ibsen marked the emergence of the “author’s theatre,” whereby an actor was judged on the fidelity with which he interpreted the vision and message of the playwright.

In 1897 Irving suffered three severe blows. A production by his son Laurence of a play about Peter the Great was a financial disaster. A far more devastating blow was the loss through fire of all the stored scenery for many of the classic productions in the Lyceum repertoire. Insurance coverage was inadequate, and the capital loss was crippling. Then, in 1898, Irving had his first serious illness. The company toured without him, and the box-office receipts fell accordingly.

The final years of Irving’s life became a struggle to keep the Lyceum company a going concern. New productions of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, as well as of the French playwright Victorien Sardou’s play on Dante, hastened rather than stemmed the decline. Tours to America were exhausting, without compensating profits. In 1902 the limited-liability company formed after the fire went into liquidation, and Irving’s reign at the Lyceum ended. In 1905, after a performance of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Becket in Bradford, Irving died, still touring at the age of 68.