Snippets 1880s

Published 1891

1870s
1880s 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889

Deaths and Obituaries from Theatrical Circles
E.T Smith
Charles Dicken's death

1880

17^th January 1880

I hear the sad news of the death of Wharton Simpson, editor of the Photographic News. He will be much missed at the Whitefriars and other clubs, where his geniality had a cheering influence; he was a good and worthy fellow.

22^nd January 1880

James Coward died, after a long illness, aged about fifty-nine: another of the old amateur pantomime company gone, and only Charles Withall and myself remaining. J.C had been an organist at the Crystal Palace for many years. Hear also of the death, at New York, in December of last year, of George Jones, known afterwards as ‘Count Johannes’. I remember him an excellent actor at the Bowery in 1831, and have recollections of the practical joke which conferred upon him his supposed title, John James and C.J James assisting. Strange history.

9^th February 1880

The Dublin Theatre Royal burnt down this afternoon with loss of life.

*It was most unfortunate, as a special performance was that afternoon going to take place for the relief of Dublin’s poor and under vice regal patronage. The fire originated in the box prepared for the Viceroy. The theatre was burnt almost completely to the ground, and a valuable library of old books, plays and MSS., and some musical folios were lost. The damage was estimated at £40,000. It’s first stone was laid October 14^th 1820, and it opened January 1^st 1821, under the management of Henry Harris.

17^th February 1880

More vanishing friends. At Staples Inn, Charles Horsey, solicitor, formerly of Worcester, aged sixty-nine; John Taylor Sinnett of the old London Journal, passes away at the age of seventy. What a lot of old memories link with his name!

Hear of the death, in Canada, of ‘Lily Lonsdale’ (daughter of my old friend, also gone, Thomas Littleton Holt) aged about forty; she had been twice married.

10^th March 1880

At his residence, Hampton, aged seventy, David Bolton Kane Raw late of the General Post Office. This was the old chairman of the Merry Melodists, who assembled at the Belvedere Tavern, Pantonville, in 1850, and who used to sing so admirably my old song of ‘Jolly Old Cockle, am I’, composed by William Wilson.

19^th August 1880

We go to Grays, to visit the Exmouth training ship; a very interesting visit. Herbert Coulter, the schoolmaster, dispatches his boys to meet us at Grays railway station, and we are ushered aboard the boat by the bugle band; find the ship has six hundred boys on board at a cost of £16,000 to £20,000 per annum, paid by the several metropolitan parishes, at a cost of about half a farthing each householder annually. See the boys go through their various drills and exercises, their trade lessons, etc and leave the ship, again honoured by the escort.

27^th October 1880

Writing memoir of my poor friend Charles Harcourt, who died this night at Charing Cross Hospital from the effect of his accident at Haymarket rehearsal a week ago.

*The accident referred to was the falling through an open trap at the Haymarket, a distance of some twelve feet, which occasioned such injuries that erysipelas supervened.

Great excitement this evening. Assassination of Alexander of Russia, by bomb shells having been thrown under his carriage. Going to Edinbro’ Castle to tell John the news, find they’ve got it by a private telegraph on the premises, for which Hooper, the landlord, pays £40 per annum.

At 4.30 this morning, as the ebb tide is turning expires Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, and with him the country loses the services of a great man.

On this day the ‘Morning Post’ in the 109^th year of it’s existence, returns to the price of 1d., at which it was originally published on Nov 2^nd 1772. The paper had previously been 5d., then 4d., and lately 3d. It is now the oldest daily paper in London. It was this day published with 12 pages.

Much excitement this week about the murder of a Mr Gould in the London and Brighton Railway, in a first class smoking carriage. Arthur Lefroy suspected of it.

Excitement at the capture of Arthur Lefroy, and apprehension for the Brighton Railway murder.

The entire block of buildings on the north side of Holborn by the Duke’s theatre, is now announced to be coming down, to make room for the Royal Avenue Hotel. Next to the theatre is the old Crown Coffee-house, now a restaurant, which I knew in 1835 as the best coffee house in London, then kept by Mr Humphreys who founded, I think, the Coffee-house Keepers Association. I see a tablet above , ‘Founded 1825’; but I think it was not really opened as a coffee house until the period I refer to. Opposite was the Chancery Coffee house, a very popular place in 1837, where I first read the ‘Boz’ articles in the old Monthly.

“Then there is the Crown and the Chancery in Holborn, near Chancery Lane, where you get an excellent cup of coffee, nearly as good as in the Haymarket, for 2d., and have all the magazines and newspapers equally at your command. Upstairs at the Chancery you may enjoy your cigar and sip your Mocha whilst lounging on a sofa; and when tired of that there is a billiard table for you and the company you meet with are all highly respectable. Here they have hot joints in the afternoon, and you may get an excellent dinner for about a shilling – quite as good a repast as a married man would want at home, and a better one than a bachelor will get at most eating houses.

Hear of sad wreck of steamer going to Bombay with Ada Lester and her father (real name James Akhurst) on board. The ‘Clan McDuff ‘ lost in the Irish Sea in a storm. Ada’s sister Alice also drowned.

To Strand; first night of three act comic opera Manola. Brightly acted and well got up, and house full, but the idiotic inanities of the dialogue make me very sad and the crowds in the street afterwards, with their coarseness, make me melancholy, as denoting a very marked change in the manners and tastes of the rising generation, which is certainly not for the better.

The death of Charles Darwin, the great evolutionist, announced – a most notable man.

Death of Garibaldi announced. What memories this recalls of April 1864, when I wrote of his triumphant entry into London – after I was thrown out of the press carriage and drawn into the next, with other strange adventures.

Grand opening of the Home for the Colonial Emigration Society, Dorset St, Portman Square, by her Royal Highness the Duchess of Teck.

I find recorded in the Daily Telegraph today the death of my father’s and my old friend William Brailsford, on which I write an obituary notice of him in The Era, for which a fortnight after he calls to thank me – saying it is not often a man lives to see the regrets of his death in his own lifetime.

With this week the Grecian Theatre ceases to be a place of amusement, and passes into the hands of the Salvation Army, represented by General Booth.

See in Athenaeum the death recorded of George Falkner of Manchester, aged sixty-six, who, in 1842, used to edit Bradshaw’s Journal of Miscellany; to which I was a frequent contributor. He was a great friend of John Critchly Prince, the poet, and in later life had a printing establishment at Manchester. More old memories revived.

Augustus Harris this day advised that he had taken £16,000 at Drury Lane in eighteen days – the largest sum ever received!

Hear that on the 8^th inst., at Shanklin Hotel, the death of Archibald Hinton, formerly of Highbury Barn, aged sixty-eight, took place. I knew him well; liked him much.

The renters’ shares in Drury Lane expire in 1896. Each renter has the right of free admission to any unappropriated seat for himself or his nominee, and also tentatively to one shilling and threepence for every performance.

Wife off early to St John’s Wood to witness the marriage of Agnes, the daughter of Charles J. Dunphie (essayist and dramatic critic), to George Anderson Critchett. Afterwards, the breakfast proves a brilliant affair: held at Union Hotel, St James’s. Dr Westland Marston proposed the health of the bride and bridegroom.

Wife starts this day on emigration tour through the Black Country with the Countess Strangford and Mr Thomas Archer, the Agent-General for Queensland, taking Leeds, York and Birmingham on their way and intending to conduct public meetings in all these towns, of which I read pleasing accounts in the papers of these days.

This has been a very green and grey Christmas, with mild, foggy, damp and depressing weather, which continued to the end of the week.

A pleasing interview, after fifty years, with my old schoolfellow, John Wilson, proves very interesting as we recall old memories of 1834, and our old schoolmaster Birkett; his Uncle Railton, of Eagle House, Brook Green; our old tutors- J.C Horry Bayley, the eccentric, with a turn for the stage, and who used to rouse me before daybreak to play chess with him; Burrows, the writing master, who waded about breast high into water to rescue William Winter, and, afterwards quartered himself on the father, ‘Tom Spring’, at the Castle Tavern in Holborn, later known as the Napier. John Wilson took a college degree, and has twice been Mayor of Chippenham.

Death of ‘Graveyard’ Walker. The evening papers this day record the death of Dr George Alfred Walker as having occurred near Barmouth, in his seventy-fifth year. Well do I remember him in 1840 and a few years afterwards, and the good he did by his curious book of ‘Gatherings from Graveyards’. He kept a doctor’s shop at the corner of Blackmore Street, Drury Lane, and frequently looked in at Tom White’s, in Wych Street while I was writing my early novel in 1841, of ‘George Barnwell’. I fancy he must have been older than the years stated.

Terrible panic at the Star Music Hall, Glasgow: fourteen killed and many injured.

*This was known as the Star Theatre of Varieties. A cry of fire was raised in the balcony. The principal cause arose from the mad alarm among the occupants of the gallery, who crowded down the staircase, and met people coming up from the pit. The consequence was that numbers were knocked down, trampled on and suffocated. The alarm was a false one.

Victory of the British in the Soudan, relieving much apprehension regarding Buller’s forces.

*Jenny Lee was, perhaps, the very best Jo that has ever appeared on the stage. She was so full of humanity and a quaint pathos that few could equal.

A lovely day, too hot for literary work, and should prefer day in the country among apple blossoms and the nightingales.

Court Theatre where the matinee for the benefit of the Colonial Emigration Society takes place, and where Mrs Labouchere kindly appeared as Juliette in the comedy of Petticoat Perfidy: the whole affair a great success.

After I had made the above entry I seemed to have fallen down the staircase in a swoon, and my dear wife, much frightened, had to send for Dr Lomas; about two hours before I recovered consciousness. This day accordingly I have to remain in bed with a bella-donna plaster on my side, and medicine every hour. Suffer great pain between a few intervals of sleep.

Sir Julius Bendict passed away this morning at his residence at the age of eighty-one. It a curious coincidence that his death took place on the same day of the same month as that of Carl Maria von Weber, whose pupil he was, and to whose teaching he owed much of his subsequent success. Weber was found dead in his bed at the house of Sir George Smart, whose guest he was at that time, on the morning of the 5^th of June 1826.

To Grand Theatre, Islington to see Ring of Iron, which goes off well. We walk there and back, myself much troubled by the changes in the old London I knew so well.

Death of Harry Jackson, the Drury Lane comedian aged fifty. Supposed to have been caused by an overdose of morphia.

*Apoplexy was given in print as the cause of death. He was a remarkable actor and his impersonation of Napoleon Bonaparte – to whom, at one time, he bore a striking resemblance-, would always be remembered. He was also an excellent stage manager, was very much respected and indeed beloved by all who knew him.

Death of Rev. W.H Pinnock. This Pinnock was the son of ‘Catechism’ Pinnock but was, in ’36 the nominal proprietor pf Pinnock’s Guide to Knowledge, of which in that year I was the sub editor at the princely remuneration of 10s a week, paid at first by Whitaker and Co., publishers of Ave Maria Lane.

Go to Drury Lane to see Aladdin. Augustus Harris seems to have placed it very brilliantly on the stage, but it is more dazzling than funny, and I get weary of the gagging of the music hall people, and with eyes dazzled with the gas and glitter, cannot stay til midnight, when the harlequinade only commences, and which few now seem to care about. Oh, the change from one’s boyhood! Left to be rattled through as rapidly as possible, and without I fear any adequate rehearsal.

This year, 1886, is a remarkable year of Fridays. On a Friday the year is born; on a Friday it will die. The longest and shortest days are both Fridays. Upon five Fridays occur changes of the moon. No less than four months of the twelve contain five Fridays apiece; and Friday occurs 53 days in the year instead of fifty-two.

The Glasgow News, started in September 1873, Now becomes the Scottish News, and absorbs the Edinburgh Courant, the oldest paper in Scotland.

This evening the one-week season of ‘cheap’ Italian Opera at Her Majesty’s Theatre comes to an untimely end. In the midst of the opera of Faust, the orchestra, chorus and supers, not having been paid their salaries, refused to proceed, and the audience answered their piteous appeals to save them from starvation by throwing pence on the stage which were eagerly scrambled for. Thus ends, I think, the existence of ‘Her Majesty’s’ as a theatre.

*The audience were peculiarly good-natured, and dispersed without insisting on their money being returned. There were several applications at Bow Street in consequence of this. Mr Edouard Carillon had embarked on this venture, and stated afterwards that the gentlemen who had promised to finance him, had only done so up to a certain point.

[Unfortunately almost the same kind of disaster occurred at this theatre a few years later. The Christmas pantomime of 1889, that had been prepared at enormous expense, collapsed, and hundreds of deserving people were thrown out of work. – C.S]

We go in evening to the Society of Arts – Edward Combes giving a discourse on the resources of Australia; and we bring back the lecturer with us for an hour of pipe-smoking, chat, and pleasing reminiscences from the intelligent Australian.

Harry Plowman brings me a Roman sword as a souvenir of Samuel Phelps, in whose possession it had long remained. From close inspection I fancy it once belongs to Romeo Coates, the amateur of fashion.

*This sword was afterwards presented by E.L Blanchard’s widow to Henry Irving.

All evening copying out first scene of Drury pantomime, which from feeble fingers, I accomplish with great difficulty. Appetite entirely failing me at this time, and my work getting into terrible arrears.

In the Illustrated of this week, George A. Sala refers to Frederick Marriott as the late editor and proprietor of the San Francisco Letter. F Marriott originated The Death Warrant, printed at the Sun office about 1843, which he changed to The Guide to Life, which became The London Mercury; and in 1848 he started the halfpenny periodical Chat, with all of which I had some association, and Sala had especially with the latter.

A dense fog and no visitors. In consequence wife and I welcome in the New Year by ourselves.

Viscountess Strangford leaves for Suez in Lusitania, to open her hospital in Port Said.

Wife terribly shocked by a telegram from Naples announcing the death of her beloved friend, the good and philanthropic Viscountess Strangford, who died on board the Orient steamer Lusitania, on her way to Port Said. This cast a great gloom over our household, where she was dearly loved and honoured.

Our dear friend’s body, having been embalmed at Naples and brought back to England, is buried today at Kensal Green. A large concourse of friends, and a number of the nurses and members of the St John’s Ambulance Society, wreaths and floral tributes being sent by member’s of the Royal Family and many other philanthropic bodies, relations and close friends.

Jubilee celebration general, and with tickets and invitations to see everything we are both compelled to stay indoors, being confirmed invalids.

A fine day; I take my dear wife a turn around the Terrace, being her first walk after her recent illness.

Announcement through Mr Le Sage that an important event in my life occurs. I am henceforth to be spared the terrible duties of theatre critic for Daily Telegraph and I am honourably to retire on half-pay: the only one of the staff ever pensioned.

Memorable for being the last day of my old Daily Telegraph salary and retirement from my work of thirty years.

New Exeter Theatre burnt down, with the loss of one hundred and forty six lives.

*The theatre had only been opened a fortnight, and was one that, from the designs by C.J Phipps, the celebrated theatrical architect, had been built with every regard for safety. Romany Rye was the piece that was being played, and the audience was very large. When the fourth act was drawing to a close, about half past ten, the curtain was suddenly lowered, which at first caused considerable laughter as it was looked on as a mistake; but almost immediately there burst forth flames from it, and it then seen that the stage was ablaze. The actors and actresses escaped by ladders and fire escapes, and lost everything. In the front of the house a scene of the wildest panic and confusion ensued. People fainted and were trampled upon, and no doubt, some were suffocated from the thick smoke. The casualties, which were so frightfully heavy, occurred principally among the occupants of the upper circle and gallery. The theatre was built in 1885, soon after the former Exeter Theatre was destroyed by fire, which took place that year. Mr Phipps could give no information as to the origin of the fire, but stated that had an iron curtain been used the probability is that the blaze would have been shut off, and thus would have prevented such great loss of life. The theatre was calculated to hold some nineteen hundred people; cost £5,000 in building. The staircases appeared, too, well adapted for easy exit. Benefits were got up for the sufferers and realized considerable sums.

Remarkable ‘Shakespeare Dethroned’ articles appear in the Daily Telegraph, embodying the conclusions of the American Ignatius Donelly, who ascribes all to Francis Bacon – sonnets, plays etc. – through a presumed discovery of a cryptogram, which is certainly very curious and rather perplexing. What will Stratford-on-Avon have to say on the subject?

Early this morning the Grand Theatre, Islington is burned to the ground. The theatre was opened August 4^th 1883 and was built on the site of the Philharmonic Theatre, burned down in 1882.

*The performance of the pantomime Whittington and his Cat was over by half past eleven and by half past twelve the theatre was finally closed, everything apparently being safe. The fireman, on making his first round, discovered a small fire in the flies, and though the hydrant was turned on almost immediately, in five minutes a formidable fire blazing. Mr Charles Wilmot (the manager and lessee) and his family, who slept in the front part of the house, were fortunately warned in time, and were rescued by the fire escape. The theatre was completely gutted by 2 o’clock. Everything was lost and owing to the fall of the back wall of the theatre, several horses belonging to the London General Omnibus Company, whose yard adjoined, were killed and injured. A stableman, Henry Fairclough, was so seriously hurt as to require the amputation of the left leg. It should be mentioned that Mr Wilmot, not withstanding his heavy losses, unsolicited, gave his entire company and staff a full week’s salary, though they were legally entitled to only three days.

See the death of Stephen J. Meaney announced as taking place in New York. This was the man who copied out my articles from the People’s Press and sold them as his own to Whitty for the Liverpool Union Magazine. He was also in some trouble with the refreshment department of the Exhibition of 1862, as Leicester Buckingham and I could testify.

*He began life as a constable in the Dublin police, whence he was dismissed. In October 1882, at the Middlesex Sessions, he was convicted of fraud, and sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment with hard labour, duly carried out in the Coldbath Fields House of Correction. On his release from gaol he went to America, returned to this country three years later, and received a sentence of penal servitude for Fenianism, which was not carried out.

When his remains were brought back to Queenstown they were received in state by the Mayor of Cork and all the prominent members of the National League.

Much disturbed by a fire breaking out in Carting Lane, in front of us, which destroys the old Tavern, ‘Fox-under-the-Hill’ of Dicken’s memory, and the adjoining premises.

Go with wife to the Press Club to witness the wonderful process of Edison’s phonograph.

Much perturbed by news that we shall shortly have to change our abode, The Savage Club being in treaty for the premises and likely to throw both houses into one. Wife goes out on a ‘flat-hunting’ expedition, returning with the intelligence that the Albert Mansions, Victoria St, seem the most desirable.

Hear with inexpressible regret that the Savage Club signed yesterday an agreement to take these premises and the adjoining house, No7.

Receive formal notice to give up possession of Adelphi Terrace on Lady Day next, by which I am troubled greatly.

Our fellow lodgers come upstairs (Mr and Mrs Capper) to see the old year out with us; and thus vanishes into the past 1888, leaving me with much impaired health and increasing anxieties as to our new home.

Sale of the lease and effects of the Junior Garrick Club. I hear that Henry Plowman buys my portrait.

Hear of the suicide of Charles Duval, the entertainer, who threw himself overboard whilst on his return voyage from Sth Africa.

*He had had a sunstroke and it was the effect of this which caused him to commit suicide in the Red Sea. He was highly esteemed by everyone who knew him for his probity, his genial disposition, and his ever readiness to assist one in distress.

Late at night, wife and I go to our new quarters, Albert Mansions, Victoria St Westminster.

12^th June 1889So weak; can only take cup of tea and bread and butter in place of dinner. Cannot get on with my work; and not yet reconciled to my change of quarters.