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John Henry Brodribb Irving (February 6,
1838–October 13, 1905),(whose original name
was John Brodribb), became better known as Sir
Henry Irving. Irving was one of the most famous
stage actors of all time. Irving was born at
Keinton Mandeville in the England|English county
of Somerset

After a few years schooling he became a clerk to a
firm of East India merchants in London, but he
soon gave up a commercial career and started as an
actor. On the 29th of September 1856 he made his
first appearance at Sunderland as Gaston, duke of
Orleans, in Buiwer Lyttons Richelieu, billed as
Henry Irving. This name he eventually assumed by
royal licence. 

For ten years he went through an arduous training
in various stock companies in Scotland and the
north of England, acting in more than five hundred
parts. By degrees his ability gained recognition,
and in 1866 he obtained an engagement at the St
James's Theatre, London, to play Doricourt in The
Belles Stratagem. A year later he joined the
company of the newly-opened Queens Theatre, where
he acted with Charles Wyndham, J. L. Toole, Lionel
Brough, John Clayton, Mr and Mrs Alfred Wigan,
Ellen Terry and Nelly Farren. This was followed by
short engagements at the Haymarket, Drury Lane and
Gaiety. 

At last he made his first conspicuous success as
Digby Grant in James Albery's Two Roses, which was
produced at the Vaudeville on the 4th of June 1870
and ran for 300 nights. In 1871 he began his
association with the Lyceum Theatre by an
engagement under Batemans management. The fortunes
of the house were at a low ebb when the tide was
turned by Irvings immediate success as Mathias in
The Bells, a version of Erckmann-Chatrians Le Juif
Polonais by Leopold Lewis. The play ran for 150
nights.With Miss Bateman, Irving was seen in W. G.
Wills's Charles I. ,and Eugene Aram, in Richelieu,
and in 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, still with Miss Bateman, he was seen as
Macbeth; in 1876 as Othello, and as Philip in
Tennysons Queen Mary; in 1877 in Richard III. and
The Lyons Mail.

In 1878 Irving entered into a partnership with the
actress Ellen Terry and opened the Lyceum under
his own management. With Ellen Terry as Ophelia
and Portia, he revived Hamlet and produced The
Merchant of Venice (1879). His Shylock was as much
discussed as his Hamlet had been, the dignity with
which he invested the Jew marking a departure from
the traditional interpretation of the role, and
pleasing some as much as it offended others. 

After the production of Tennysons The Cup, a
revival of Othello (in which Irving played lago to
the Othello of Edwin Booth) and of Romeo and
Juliet, there began a period at the Lyceum which
had a potent effect on the English stage. The
Lyceum stage management, and the brilliancy of its
productions in scenery, dressing and accessories;
were revelations in the art of mise-en-scene.

Much Ado about Nothing (1882) was followed by
Twelfth Night (1884), Olivian adaptation of
Goldsmiths Vicar of Lakefield by W. G. Wills
(1885); Faust (1886); Macbeth (1888): The Dead
Heart, by Watts Phillips (1889); and Ravenswood by
Herman. Merivales dramatic version of Scotts Bride
of Lammermoor (1890). Fine assumptions in 1892 of
the characters of Wolsey in Henry VIII. and of
King Lear were followed in 1893 by a striking and
dignified performance of Becket in Tennyson's play
of that name. During these years too, Irving, with
the whole Lyceum company, paid several visits to
America, which met with conspicuous success, and
were repeated in succeeding years. The chief
remaining novelties at the Lyceum (luring Irvings
sole manager (the theatre passed, at the beginning
of 1899, into the hands of a limited liability
company) were Comyns Carrs King Arthur in 1895;
Cymbeline, in which Irving played Lachimo, in
1896; Sardous Madame Sans-Gene in 1897; Peter the
Great, a play by Laurence Irving, the actors
second son, in 1898; and Conan Doyles Waterloo
(1894). The new regime at the Lyceum was
signalized by the production of Sardous
Robespierre in 1899, in which Irving reappeared
after a serious illness, and in 1901 by an
elaborate revival of Coriolanus. Irvings only
subsequent production in London was Sardous Dante
(1903), a vast spectacular drama, staged at Drury
Lane. He died on tour at Bradford on the 13th of
October 1905, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
There is a statue near the National Portrait
Gallery in London.

Both on and off the stage Irving always maintained
a high ideal of his profession., and in 1895 he
received the honor of knighthood, the first ever
accorded an actor. He was also the recipient of
honorary degrees from the universities of Dublin,
Cambridge and Glasgow. His acting, apart from his
genius as a presenter of plays, divided criticism,
opinions differing as to the extent to which his
mannerisms of voice and deportment interfered with
or assisted the expression of his ideas. So
strongly marked a personality as his could not
help giving its own coloring to whatever part he
might assume, but the richness and originality of
this coloring at its best cannot be denied, any
more than the spirit and intellect which
characterized his renderings. At the least,
extraordinary versatility must be conceded to an
actor who could satisfy exacting audiences in
roles so widely different as Digby Grant and Louis
XL, Richard III. and Becket. Benedick and Shylock,
Mathias and Dr Primrose.

Sir Henry Irving had two sons, Harry Brodribb
Irving,  (b. 1870) established himself as the most
prominent of the younger English actors at the
time of his fathers death then went into
management. His other son,  Laurence Irving (b.
1872) became a dramatist.


1911