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Sir Henry Irving (6 February 1838 – 13 October 1905), christened John Henry Brodribb, sometimes known as J. H. Irving, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility (supervision of sets, lighting, direction, casting, as well as playing the leading roles) for season after season at the West End's Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as representative of English classical theatre. In 1895 he became the first actor to be awarded a knighthood, indicating full acceptance into the higher circles of British society.
He married Florence O'Callaghan on 15 July 1869 at St. Marylebone, London, but his personal life took second place to his professional life. On the opening night of The Bells, 25 November 1871, Florence, who was pregnant with their second child, criticised his profession: "Are you going on making a fool of yourself like this all your life?" Irving exited their carriage at Hyde Park Corner, walked off into the night, and chose never to see her again. He maintained a discreet distance from his children as well but became closer to them as they grew older. Florence Irving never divorced Irving, and once he had been knighted she styled herself "Lady Irving"; Irving never remarried.
His elder son, Harry Brodribb Irving (1870–1919), usually known as "H B Irving", became a famous actor and later a theatre manager. His younger son, Laurence Irving (1871–1914), became a dramatist and later drowned, with his wife Mabel Hackney, in the sinking of the Empress of Ireland. H B married Dorothea Baird and they had a son, Laurence Irving (1897–1988), who became a well-known Hollywood art director and his grandfather's biographer, and a daughter, Elizabeth Irving (1904 – 2003) an actress and the founder of Keep Britain Tidy.
In November 1882 Irving became a Freemasonry, being initiated into the prestigious Jerusalem Lodge No 197 in London. Prescott, Andrew 'Brother Irving: Sir Henry Irving and Freemasonry' The Irving Society website In 1887 he became a founder member and first Treasurer of the Savage Club Lodge No 2190,"Distinguished members" section, Savage Club Lodge website. a Lodge associated with London's Savage Club.
He eventually took over the management of the Lyceum Theatre and brought actress Ellen Terry into partnership with him as Ophelia to his Hamlet, Lady Macbeth to his Macbeth, Portia to his Shylock, Beatrice to his Benedick, etc. Before joining the Lyceum, Terry had fled her first marriage and conceived two out-of-wedlock children with architect-designer Edward William Godwin, but regardless of how much and how often her behavior defied the strict morality expected by her Victorian audiences, she somehow remained popular. It could be said that Irving found his family in his professional company, which included his ardent supporter and manager Bram Stoker and Terry's two illegitimate children, Teddy and Edy Craig.
Whether Irving's long, spectacularly successful relationship with leading lady Ellen Terry was romantic as well as professional has been the subject of much historical speculation. Most of their correspondence was lost or burned by her descendants.Irving, John H. B. "Quest for the Missing Letters" , The Irving Society, accessed 12 October 2011 According to Michael Holroyd's book about Irving and Terry, A Strange Eventful History:
Terry's son Teddy, later known as Edward Gordon Craig, spent much of his childhood (from 1879, when he was 8, until 1897) indulged by Irving backstage at the Lyceum. Craig, who came to be regarded as something of a visionary for the theatre of the future, wrote an especially vivid, book-length tribute to Irving. ("Let me state at once, in clearest unmistakable terms, that I have never known of, or seen, or heard, a greater actor than was Irving.") George Bernard Shaw, at the time a theatre critic who was jealous of Irving's connection to Ellen Terry (whom Shaw himself wanted in his plays), conceded Irving's genius after Irving died.
For 10 years, he went through arduous training in various stock companies in Scotland and the north of England, taking more than 500 parts.
He gained recognition by degrees, and in 1866 Ruth Herbert engaged him as her leading man and sometime stage director at the St. James's Theatre, London, where she first played Doricourt in The Belle's Stratagem. One piece that he directed there was W. S. Gilbert's first successful solo play, Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack (1866)Crowther, Andrew. Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan, p. 60, The History Press Ltd (2011) The next year he joined the company of the newly opened Queen's Theatre, where he acted with Charles Wyndham, J. L. Toole, Lionel Brough, John Clayton, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Wigan, Ellen Terry and Nellie Farren. This was followed by short engagements at the Haymarket Theatre, Drury Lane, and the Gaiety Theatre. In the spring of 1869, Irving was one of the original twelve members of The Lambs of London—assembled by John Hare as a social club for actors—and would be made an Honorary Lifetime member in 1883. He finally made his first conspicuous success as Digby Grant in James Albery's Two Roses, which was produced at the Vaudeville Theatre on 4 June 1870 and ran for a very successful 300 nights.
In 1871, Irving began his association with the Lyceum Theatre by an engagement under Bateman's management. The fortunes of the house were at a low ebb when the tide was turned by Irving's sudden success as Mathias in The Bells, a version of Erckmann-Chatrian's Le Juif polonais by Leopold Lewis, a property that Irving had found for himself. The play ran for 150 nights, established Irving at the forefront of the British drama, and would prove a popular vehicle for Irving for the rest of his professional life.
With Bateman, Irving was seen in W. G. Wills' Charles I and Eugene Aram, in Richelieu, and 1874 in Hamlet. The unconventionality of this last performance, during a run of 200 nights, aroused keen discussion and singled him out as the most interesting English actor of his day. In 1875, again with Bateman, he was seen as the title character in Macbeth; in 1876 as Othello, and as Philip in Alfred Lord Tennyson's Queen Mary; in 1877 in Richard III; and The Lyons Mail. During this time he became lifelong friends with Bram Stoker, who praised him in his review of Hamlet and thereafter joined Irving as the manager of the company.
Much Ado About Nothing (1882) was followed by Twelfth Night (1884); an adaptation of Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield by W. G. Wills (1885); Faust (1885); Macbeth (1888, with incidental music by Arthur Sullivan, The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, 28 January 2005, accessed 21 August 2016; Hugill, Robert. "Mendelssohnian charm: Sir Arthur Sullivan's Macbeth and The Tempest", PlanetHugill.com, 15 August 2016); The Dead Heart, by Watts Phillips (1889); Ravenswood by Herman, and Merivales' dramatic version of Scott's Bride of Lammermoor (1890). Portrayals in 1892 of the characters of Cardinal Wolsey in Henry VIII and of the title character in King Lear were followed in 1893 by a performance of Thomas Becket in Tennyson's play of the same name. During these years, too, Irving, with the whole Lyceum company, paid several successful visits to the United States and Canada, which were repeated in succeeding years. As Terry aged, there seemed to be fewer opportunities for her in his company; that was one reason she eventually left, moving on to less steady but beloved stage work, including solo performances of Shakespeare's women.
Irving was one of the first high-profile people to donate to the relief fund for survivors and orphans, sending £100.
The fire caused Irving to become involved in ensuring better safety for theatres, and he developed the "Irving Safety Theatre" principles, working with eminent architect Alfred Darbyshire. These principles included making the theatre site isolated, dividing the auditorium from the back of the house, a minimum height above street level for any part of the audience, providing two separate exits for every section of the audience, improving stage construction including a smoke flue, and fire-resistant construction throughout.
The first theatre built to these principles was the rebuilt New Theatre Royal in Exeter.
Irving received a death threat in 1899 from fellow actor (and murderer of William Terriss) Richard Archer Prince. Terriss had been stabbed at the stage door of the Adelphi Theatre in December 1897 and in the wake of his death, Prince was committed to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Irving was critical of the unusually lenient sentence, remarking "Terriss was an actor, so his murderer will not be executed." Two years later, Prince had found Irving's home address and threatened to murder him "when he gets out". Irving was advised to submit the letter to the Home Office to ensure Prince's continued incarceration, which Irving declined to do. Aberdeen Evening Express British Newspaper Archive 5 April 1899, p. 3.
In 1898 Irving was Rede Lecturer at the University of Cambridge. The new regime at the Lyceum was signalled by the production of Sardou's Robespierre in 1899, in which Irving reappeared after a serious illness, and in 1901 by an elaborate revival of Coriolanus. Irving's only subsequent production in London was as Sardou's Dante (1903) at the Drury Lane.
Another witness at the play, Bram Stoker (known for being the author of Dracula), told reporters later that "We chatted for awhile after the play, and I left him, although not notably strong, not in any way cast down and not more exhausted than had been usual for some time. A little more than three-quarters of an hour afterward I was sent for by the man who attended Sir Henry from the theatre, who told me that he had fainted or collapsed on entering the Midland Hotel. Hurrying down, I found Sir Henry lying in the passage— dead." Stoker added, "Had he died on the stage, as might have happened, it would have given the shock and bitter memory to many tender hearts.""The Last Hours", The Daily Telegraph (London), 16 October 1905, p. 9 Guthrie's confusion may have come from the fact that the character Becket's last words in the play are "O Lord, into thy hands," but, as a correspondent noted, "Then the curtain falls, and within a very short time, having just reached his hotel, the great actor breathed his last.""'Lights Out.'", The Daily Telegraph (London), 16 October 1905, p. 9
The chair that he was sitting in before he died is now at the Garrick Club. He was cremated and his ashes buried in Westminster Abbey, thereby becoming the first person to be cremated before interment at Westminster.
There is a statue of him near the National Portrait Gallery in London. That statue, as well as the influence of Irving himself, plays an important part in the Robertson Davies novel World of Wonders. The Irving Memorial Garden was opened on 19 July 1951 by Laurence Olivier.
His acting divided critics; opinions differed as to the extent to which his mannerisms of voice and deportment interfered with or assisted the expression of his ideas. Irving's idiosyncratic style of acting and its effect on amateur players were mildly satirised in The Diary of a Nobody. Mr. Pooter's son brings Mr. Burwin-Fosselton of the Holloway Comedians to supper, a young man who entirely monopolised the conversation, and:
"...who not only looked rather like Mr Irving but seemed to imagine he was the celebrated actor... he began doing the Irving business all through supper. He sank so low down in his chair that his chin was almost on a level with the table, and twice he kicked Carrie under the table, upset his wine, and flashed a knife uncomfortably near Gowing's face."Grossmith, George and Weedon. (1892). The Diary of a Nobody. Arrowsmith, Bristol. Burwin-Fosselton returns on several evenings in full "Irving" costume; Mr Pooter confides to his diary that "... one can have even too much imitation of Irving."
In T. S. Eliot's poem, "" (), the title character's old age and theatrical distinction are expressed in the couplet:
For he once was a Star of the highest degree--
He has acted with Irving, he's acted with Tree.
These verses appear in the lyrics of the homonymous song in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1981 musical Cats.
In the 1963 West End musical comedy Half a Sixpence the actor Chitterlow does an impression of Irving in The Bells. Percy French's burlesque heroic poem "Abdul Abulbul Amir" lists among the mock-heroic attributes of Abdul's adversary, the Russian Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar, that "he could imitate Irving". In the 1995 film A Midwinter's Tale by Kenneth Branagh, two actors discuss Irving, and one of them, Richard Briers does an imitation of his speech. In the play The Woman in Black, set in the Victorian era, the actor playing Kipps tells Kipps 'We'll make an Irving of you yet,' in Act 1, as Kipps is not a very good actor due to his inexperience. In the political sitcom Yes, Prime Minister (sequel to Yes Minister), in the episode "The Patron of the Arts", first aired on 14 January 1988, the Prime Minister is asked what was the last play he'd seen and replies "Hamlet." When asked "Whose?" – specifically, who played Hamlet, not who wrote it – he is unable to remember and is prompted with the suggestion "Henry Irving?" to audience laughter. A play by David Hare, to premiere in 2025 and starring Ralph Fiennes as Irving, Grace Pervades, explores the life of Irving, Terry and Terry's children, Edith Craig and Edward Gordon Craig. "Ralph Fiennes / Theatre Royal Bath season announced for 2025 including new David Hare play Grace Pervades & As You Like It starring Gloria Obianyo & Harriet Walter", West End Theatre, 26 March 2024
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