James Stark

By 7 may 1855,the construction of George Coppin’s Olympic Theatre—on the site previously occupied by Rowe’s Amphitheatre at the corner of Lonsdale and Stephen Streets, Melbourne—was making rapid progress. The roof was in place, and the fitting up of the interior commenced in the following week. The scenic artist William Pitt,¹ from the Queen’s Theatre, was engaged by Coppin and given carte blanche to decorate.

‘Foundation of the Olympic, the Architect’s Model’—the inaugural issue of Melbourne Punch, 2 August 1855

The construction of John Melton Black’s (1830–1919)² new (second) Theatre Royal in Bourke Street was also progressing apace, advertising that it would be completed sufficiently for performances by 15 June. Former actor and theatre manager (and Alderman for Barwon Ward) Henry Deering (1816–1856),³ meanwhile, had taken the lease of the Queen’s Theatre.

Coppin, for the first time in Melbourne, found himself faced with the prospects of considerable competition and was racing to get his theatre finished first. He headlined Mr Jacobs, the Wizard, Ventriloquist and Improvisatore⁴ to inaugurate the Olympic the week prior, 11 June. Only a portion of the house was actually used, however, Jacobs appearing on the temporary fore-stage pit area as the stage house was incomplete. Otherwise, reported Bell’s Life(16 June 1855),

It is an elegant building, and, although erected in the extraordinarily short period of six weeks, has a thoroughly substantial look. The iron walls are for the most part cased with brick … The facade is simple, but sufficiently distinctive, and the entrances to every part of the house are exceedingly well arranged. … The arch of the proscenium is broad and flattened; it has a span of thirty-three feet [10m]. … The prevailing colours of the whole of the decorations are green, pink and French white …

Pitt’s artwork’s on the scroll medallion include vignettes from G.V. Brooke’s repertoire: Othello,The Merchant of Venice,Hamlet,Richard IIIand A New Way to Pay Old Debts. The Sydney Empire (3 August 1855) reported that the same artist painted the Act Drop: ‘Shakespeare standing in a reflective attitude, admid a group of architectural fragments.’

Audrey (Mrs H. Marston) and Touchstone (Frederick Younge, Richard’s brother) in As You Like it from Sadlers’ Wells. This engraving was used by William Pitt as reference to illustrate one of ‘the glorious embodiments of our immortal bard’ on interior medallions for the newly renovated Queen’s Theatre, Melbourne in July 1854. Other medallions depicted Kean as Richard III, Miss Glyn as Lady Macbeth and Macready as Marc Antony. [see The Argus, 29 July 1854]

Berkeley

John Melton Black, first mayor of Townsville (1866–67) [AI enhanced]

City Libraries Townsville

The Queen’s Theatre, meanwhile, went dark and the only other venues open for public entertainment at this time were Astley’s Amphitheatre⁵ (lessee, George Lewis) and the Mechanics’ Institute. The Theatre Royal, under the management of John Black, opened with great fanfare the following Monday, giving R.B. Sheridan’s School for Scandal on Monday 16 July.

Coppin and G.V. Brooke arrived back from Sydney the following day in time to see Jacob’s final performances at the Olympic (after six well-attended weeks). By this time, thirty-six year old George Coppin had married Harriet Hilsden (née Bray) (1821–1859), relic of the late mariner Robert Hilsden; Harriet was Brooke’s sister-in-law, and came with four children by her previous marriage.

Soon after, Coppin announced the dramatic program for his new theatre and Richard Younge was mentioned amongst the company of actors, but he was also highlighted with a specific credit as Stage Manager, along with the other house creatives: Frederick Coppin (1824–1881) (George’s younger brother), Leader of the Orchestra; William Pitt, Scenic Artist; Mr W. Walker, Mechanist; and Mr Brogden, Properties.

Younge had given 106 performances of his 200 night contract with Brooke for the colony tour. There is no evidence, but given the circumstances, it would be logical that Younge’s arrangement with Brooke was relinquished in favour of a new engagement directly with Coppin (under which, as it transpired, Younge would continue to stage manage existing repertoire as well as build new productions—including those for Brooke—that premiered on the Olympic stage).

The launch of Brooke’s Winter Season at the new Olympic opened on Monday 30 July, during ‘extremely unfavourable’ weather, with the tragedian reappearing in the role of Claude Melnotte in The Lady of Lyons;Coppin played Colonel Damas, Fanny Cathcart (still using her maiden name) appeared as Pauline Deschappelles, her husband Robert Heir played her suitor Glavis, and Younge was ‘thoroughly at home in the part of Beauseant.’ It was also noted by The Age(31 July 1855), that ‘the play was admirably put upon the stage,’ and complemented Younge’s contribution to the remount:

We never saw the closing scene of the Fourth Act so powerfully wrought up to the culminating point of passionate expression, as it was last night; and there were two or three admirable bits of by-play introduced at the termination of the Fifth Act, which told immensely with the audience.

It was The Sydney Morning Herald (1 August 1855), however, who noted otherwise that Coppin’s Olympic faced ‘very serious competition from the Theatre Royal (then playing Romeo and Juliet).

Brooke’s repertoire over the following three weeks comprised revivals of Othello(Younge reprised his Iago, and gave a ‘superior performance’); A New Way to Pay Old Debts(Heir took over Wellborn while Younge played Marrall, ‘the representation of which,’ broadcast The Argus, ‘was perfect’); and The Stranger (as Charles Torrens).

Younge prepared the premieres of Morris Barnett’s comedy The Serious Family (1849), H.R. Bishop’s opera Clari; or, The Maid of Milan (1823) and Bayle Bernard’s farce His Last Legs (1839), all new repertoire. Brooke appeared as O’Callaghan in the latter but, playing on the same program, he surrendered his role in Thomas Morton’s Angel of the Attic (1843) to Younge (who ‘played with much spirit.’)

This theatre on the corner of Lonsdale and Exhibition [formerly Stephen] streets. The site was previously home to Rowe’s American Circus. Known as the Iron Pot, it was a prefabricated iron building commissioned from Manchester by George Coppin as his first Melbourne theatre. Unfortunately for Coppin, the Theatre Royal was more centrally located, and cooler in summer. It lasted only five years as a theatre, before being converted into Melbourne’s first Turkish baths in July 1860. It was partially destroyed by fire in 1866.

In Coppin’s attempt to provide diversity and build his audience, for two weeks from Monday 13 August, Brooke shared the program with Madame Kramar and Mademoiselle Marle, the Tyrolese vocalists.

The major new drawcard production in the season was Dion Boucicault’s adaptation of Dumas’s grand French drama La Vendetta; or, the Corsican Brothers (1852) with Brooke playing the twin dei Franchi brothers. It opened on Monday 20 August, ‘produced under the superintendence of Mr R. Younge’. Two problems arose, however that registered serious concern for both Coppin and Brooke: firstly, the Theatre Royal was running the same play concurrently; secondly, and of greater consequence, the role of Emilie de Lesperre, the principal female role in the play under Younge’s direction, was advertised on the day (clearly in haste) as Miss Glyndon.⁶ As it emerged, Mr and Mrs Heir, following their performance two days earlier, announced that they had seceded from Coppin’s Olympic company—and in doing so broke their contract with Brooke—poached by John Black at the Theatre Royal. Brooke filed a bill and obtained an injunction from His Honour the Chief Justice. It was served—‘by means of a slight ruse’—at her private apartment at the Australasian Hotel. Brooke sought to restrain Fanny Cathcart and Robert Heir ‘from transferring their services to the rival house’.

Brooke v. Heir, and others was heard in the Equity Court. The judge ordered Fanny to gaol for contempt; her solicitor argued that the public would be unfairly impacted, and said ‘he would undertake she should not appear … until the injunction was disposed of.’ The Heirs disregarded the order and made their debut at the Theatre Royal that evening.⁷

Younge’s work on The Corsican Brothers, meanwhile, appeared to please the critics (despite some deficiencies in the working of the stage machinery during the opening performance) and they were especially delighted by his staging of the masked ball scene. The Argus (21 August 1855), on the other hand, found the effects at the Theatre Royal ‘extraordinary’ and complimented the management who had ‘evidently spared no expense in preparing the piece for representation; and as a spectacle nothing approaching it has ever been produced in these colonies’. To add insult to injury, the same critic, in the same column, related that the appearance of Fanny Cathcart—as Maria Darlington in Thomas Morton’s A Roland for an Oliver (1839)—in her debut performance under Black, ‘was met with such a reception as has rarely been accorded to an actress. The whole audience … appeared to be of one mind, and the plaudits were universal’.

Both productions of The Corsican Brothers were afforded only ‘average’ houses, but Coppin ran the play every night for a week at the Olympic.

Charles Reade’s The Courier of Lyons (1854), Younge’s next new production that opened the following week, was ‘well mounted,’ and, according to The Age (28 August 1855), ‘the introduction of a real diligence, drawn by real horses, excited much applause’.

The changes of costume and situation were affected with an accuracy and rapidity really marvellous; and even those whom the successive representations of The Corsican Brothers [Brooke played yet another set of twins in The Courier of Lyons] had prepared for such feats, were completely taken by surprise last night.

A season of ten nights was arranged to feature and farewell Coppin stalwarts, Mr and Mrs Charles Young, previous to their planned departure from the colony. Younge staged Andrew Cherry’s The Soldier’s Daughter (1804) and Bulwer Lytton’s Money (1840). He made a cameo appearance in the latter and it was acknowledged in The Age (6 September 1855) that as Benjamin Stout, ‘that cross between a radical churchwarden and a noisy vestryman of Marylebone, found an efficient representative in Mr R. Younge’. The Argus discovered Younge’s characterisation ‘a surprise’.

He was admirably made-up, and looked the character so completely that a reference to the bill was necessary in order to recognise him. His voice, his walk, the whole man, was the bustling, dogmatical, political economist.

Shakespeare’s Katherine and Petruchio was introduced on Saturday 8 September, with Brooke as Petruchio, alongside Mrs C. Young as the shrew.

Now into week seven of the Melbourne season, Younge’s dramaturgical and staging responsibilities increased dramatically and his appearances were less frequent, taking on occasion, only minor but featured roles. He remounted Virginius and The Lady of Lyons, and prepared G.W. Lovell’s Love’s Sacrifice (in which he played Lafont, growing his reputation in ‘villain’ roles) for its premiere on Wednesday 12 September.

 The Age (11 September 1855) took general notice of Younge’s creative impact on the mis en scene, his meticulous attention to detail and the enhanced quality of Coppin’s Olympic productions:

Virginius, as produced and performed last night at the Olympic, is an honour to the colonial stage. Costume, scenery, appointments, and all the other adjuncts, synchronised perfectly with the date of the story. They exhibited artistic fitness, as the general performance demonstrated professional skill.

The Argus (18 September 1855) was equally as effusive following the relaunch of Brooke’s Macbeth:

The efforts of the stage-manager and decorator demand the highest praise. Mr R. Younge must have laboured hard and displayed great tact to bring his corps of supernumeraries into a state of efficiency such as they manifested last evening. Mr Pitt has also been indefatigable; and both of those gentlemen must have been gratified at the triumphant success of their arduous exertions.

Younge was called before the curtain, after Brooke and Mrs Young. The Sydney Morning Herald (19 September 1955) observed at this time that, ‘though [Coppin’s] company has lost much in losing Miss Cathcart, the acting of Mr Brooke and Mr R. Younge abundantly gratifies the admirers of histrionic excellence’.

Over the remainder of winter and into the spring, Coppin’s Olympic Theatre staged the revival of  16 plays from their repertoire (with refurbished remounts of King Lear and Richard III), and presented a similar number of new, more popular works (including opera, burlesque and dance), all of which were under the direction of Richard Younge.

At the end of September, Henry Deering, who had the lease of the old Queen’s Theatre, began a ticket-price war, reducing his costs of admission considerably. Coppin responded in kind, but this was yet another blow: he was still suffering the effects of Fanny and Robert Heir’s defection when another senior player, J.P. Hydes, followed them to the Theatre Royal; this, on the back of the announcement that Mr and Mrs Charles Young were still intent on returning to London; then, Coppin had to contend with the arrival of the infamous Lola Montez, who drew big houses playing in the Follies of a Night and Antony and Cleopatra at the Theatre Royal, both featuring her infamous ‘Spider Dance’.

Perhaps fearing further defections, Coppin gave Younge a benefit, under the patronage of the Melbourne Garrick Club, on Tuesday 16 October at the second performance of James Robinson Planché’s comedy The Pride of the Market (1847). In his display ads, Coppin publicly acknowledged ‘the industry, perseverance, and talent of my stage manager, Mr R. Younge, more particularly in the production of the grand works of Shakespeare’.

My appreciation of his genius as an actor, and the honourable manner in which he is fulfilling an engagement made in England, notwithstanding three times the amount of salary being offered to leave me. Feeling perfectly satisfied that the public of Melbourne estimate Mr Younge’s exertions I may express a hope that a bumper house will reward such isolated and manly conduct.—G. Coppin.

At the curtain, Brooke presented Younge with a gold watch ‘to mark the hundredth night [sic] of their playing together … as a token of his regard and esteem for his colleague’. (The Age, 12 October 1855) ‘This respect for Mr R. Younge, and admiration of his genius’, pronounced The Sydney Morning Herald (15 October 1855), ‘is universal in Melbourne; and although it may appear a little strange to compliment a gentleman with a benefit for being true to his engagements in despite of tempting offers, recent events has shown that such conduct is not to be reckoned on in “the profession”’.

Soon after the court case returned Fanny and Robert Heir to Brooke’s company at the Olympic (‘the reunion’ taking place on 23 October with a performance of Sheridan Knowles’s The Hunchback), John Black surrendered to Coppin, and gave up his lease of the Royal (and sequestered his estate). The subsequent insolvency proceedings put his Victoria Theatre (along with the Royal Hotel, and two adjoining shops) up for sale. After a short period managing the Princess’s Theatre and Opera House (previously Astley’s Amphitheatre) from  April 1857, Black disappeared to north Queensland but, in the meantime, the receivers put in a manager at the Victoria.

The highlights of the final weeks of the Olympic season, however, were Shakespeare: Macbeth, Hamlet, Katherine and Petruchio, Othello and Colley Cibber’s version of Richard III. The Age (19 November 1855) suggested that the latter production afforded ‘fine scope worthy for the display of energetic acting, and of that beauty, completeness, and accuracy of scenery, costume and properties, which it seems to be the laudable pride of the Olympic management to exhibit in connection with every Shakespearean revival, as with the masterpieces of other dramatic writing’.

… The costumes and appointments likewise accurately synchronised with the period of the drama, and were very creditable to the taste and skill of Messrs Matthews and Brogden, and to the superintending and directing judgement of Mr Richard Younge. … The house … was crowded, and at the fall of the curtain there was a general call for Mr Brooke and Mr Younge.

Brooke took his farewell benefit with Love’s Sacrifice on Saturday 1 December (advertised as his 123rd performance in Melbourne), but his presumptive ‘final’ appearance was two weeks later, when he played in  John Tobin’s The Honeymoon (1835) for Coppin’s benefit.

In the new year (1856), Brooke made guest appearances in Ballarat and Geelong before being lured back to the Olympic for Fanny and Robert Heir’s benefit on 17 January 1856.⁸ Brooke attended another benefit held for Richard Younge on Saturday 26 January with Anna Cora Mowatt’s Armand; or, The Peer and the Peasant (1851) at which he receive a testimonial, consisting of a statuette of Shakespeare in Ballarat-gold on a pedestal of Victorian quartz; Younge made the grandiloquent occasional address in Brooke’s honour, suggesting

that it was not only by members of the profession, but by all admirers of the Drama, that [Brooke’s performances in] these colonies, have elevated and refined the taste for the Drama, implanted a love for intellectual amusements in the hearts of the youths of Australia, and aroused a feeling (of which ought to exist in the minds of all thinking men) of the Drama’s importance as a moral agent; for a well-governed Stage is an ornament to any country, and a school where all the principles of honour are taught, if truly followed.—The Age, 28 January 1856

Coppin’s Summer Season at his Olympic Theatre opened ten days later on Monday 28 January with Julius Caesar(Younge played Cassius, to Brooke’s Brutus and Heir’s Antony) and featured Mr and Mrs Young (who had been convinced to delay their return to England).⁹ Celebrating their one year anniversary in the colony on Tuesday 26 February, Brooke appeared as the Duke Aranza in The Honeymoon, and the Heirs featured on the same program ‘to advantage’ in the domestic drama Married Unmarried (1837).

Complementing a number of repertoire revivals over the next four months, new productions staged by Younge included Shakespeare’s As You like It (Brooke as Jacques, Younge as Touchstone); Henry V; or, The Battle of Agincourt; Much Ado About Nothing; and Henry IV Part One (Younge gave his Falstaff); along with more contemporary offerings: Tom Taylor’s Still Waters Run Deep (1800); R.B. Sheridan’s The Rivals (1775); George Colman’s Kate Kearney; or, The Lakes of Killarney (1836); Dion Boucicault’s Azael; or, The Prodigal Son (1851); and—another work from a rare female writer and actress—Mrs Susannah Centlivre’s comedy The Wonder; or, A Woman Keeps a Secret (1714). The benefit for Brooke—Richelieu; or, The Conspiracy—held on Friday 25 April was advertised as ‘positively the last night but one of his appearances previous to his departure, en route, for California’. The season closed with Brooke starring in ‘positively his last appearance’ as Petruchio (and Pierce o’Hara) in Katherine and Petruchio (with The Irish Attorney) on Saturday 26 April. The Geelong Advertiser (28 April 1856) provided a transcript of Brooke’s farewell speech that he made from the stage:

… My great object has been to establish, if possible, in this new country, a knowledge and appreciation of the works of our immortal Bard and a love of the legitimate drama. This little theatre, the public will bear me out, has done good service in the cause, for, with the aid of a liberal manager, a good stage manager in every sense of the word, and excellent artist, and a talented corps dramatique we have, we flatter ourselves, made an excellent commencement, and I trust that the success attendant on our exertions may stimulate future managers and actors in these colonies to elevate an art the duties of whose professors is to enlarge your human character, to extend the dominion of the mind over the body, and to foster a taste for all that is true and beautiful in art.

Younge could take much of the credit for his own ‘good service in the cause’.

Brooke, with Fanny and Robert Heir, proceeded to take a week of more ‘farewell performances’ in Geelong. Then, ‘passing through Melbourne’ en route to Bendigo, Brooke and Coppin contributed to Younge’s benefit: Love’s Sacrifice was given on Thursday 8 May ‘that played to an overflowing house’ at the Olympic. Following the performance, in their next edition, The Argus reported that ‘Mr Younge, in the course of a clever and characteristic [curtain] speech, informed the audience that Mr Coppin had that day concluded the purchase of the Theatre Royal’. Apparently, the announcement ‘was received with deafening applause’. The obvious questions raised in Younge’s mind, however must have been: what about the Olympic?; what about Brooke? … what about me?

In the first instance, Coppin looked to sell the Olympic (‘with fittings’). Brooke, meanwhile, was in Hobart and then progressed to Sydney’s Lyceum Theatre (under the management of Craven and Stevens) from 14 July; his press notices still confirming he and the Heirs could ‘positively take their departure from Sydney on Saturday’ 16 August; clearly California was still on!

British North America-born American tragedian James Stark c.1850Richard Younge, albeit anxiously, remained resident at Coppin’s Olympic Theatre in Melbourne, managing a range of entertainments including hosting, amongst others, Madame Anna Bishop and the handsome American couple, James and Sarah Kirby Stark¹⁰. Between May and the end of July, Younge curated, and occasionally staged, a catholic assortment of comedies, burlesques and melodramas, the stand-outs included George Coleman’s John Bull; or, An Englishman’s Fireside (1803), John Banim’s The Sergeant’s Wife (1855), Ira Aldridge’s translation of Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois’ racially charged melodrama Le Docteur Noir (The Black Doctor) (1846), and Maria Ann Lovell’s Ingomar the Barbarian (1851) for one or two nights each; the turnover was staggering and highlighted the thirst for new and varied product.

The only Shakespeare offered to Melbourne audiences from this platform was the first performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor and James Stark giving his Hamlet (his wife played Gertrude, and Younge appeared as the Ghost), Othello and Petruchio. Younge no doubt was afforded a rare insight into the contrast of Brooke’s traditional acting technique (on the wane) and the emerging ‘artificial’ American style (not withstanding the Starks’ ‘uneven characterisations’ and ‘the offensive and revolting nature’ of their staging of Victor Hugo’s Lucrezia Borgia; or, The Poisoner (1833)!).

Younge recreated his turn as Ford in The Merry Wives’ premiere—having already played the role during his season at the Theatre Royal, Liverpool in December 1851. The Argus (13 May 1856) thought it ‘a somewhat mutilated version,’ but found Mr Rogers’s, heavily padded as Falstaff—who had joined the Olympic Company in January—

was doubtful and hesitating in his own conception of the part, and that this doubt and hesitation naturally communicate itself to his rendering of it; so that there was a want of consistency and uniformity throughout. Nevertheless there was great ability displayed. … Mr Younge’s Master Ford was too slow and solemn at times for the irritable and suspicious husband—a fault which disappeared in the more exciting portions of the dialogue.

Younge was nonetheless clearly pleased with his company and took them all to supper after premiere where ‘a few hours were passed away most agreeably’.

The health of the founder of the feast was proposed by Mr Edwards, and received in a manner which must have convinced Mr Younge of the esteem which is entertained for him by his fellow-professionals.—The Argus, 17 May 1856

In John Bull, the following week, Younge appeared to redeem himself: ‘The comedy was judiciously cast’, observed The Argus(20 May 1856), ‘and the result was that it was admirably played’.

The Job Thornbury of Mr R. Younge will rank with that careful actor’s best performances. The character was evidently a favourite with the author, for he has invested it with an interest to which the of the whole plot is subservient.

Younge was given some clarity on his future, when it was publicly announced in The Argus (9 May 1856) that George Coppin had settled the purchase of the lease of the Theatre Royal (with hotel attached, and covering half an acre of land) for £21,000. Owing to this purchase it was agreed that Brooke (then in Bendigo en route to Hobart) remain a short time longer in the colony before he and Coppin sailed for California. It was also agreed that Younge would manage the inaugural season at the Theatre Royal, following the close of the current Olympic season.

Theatre Royal, 236 Bourke Street, Melbourne (c.1869) erected by John Melton Black in 1855—engraving by Samuel Calvert (1823–1913)

In the meantime, Younge produced Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer(1773) for Coppin’s first production at his new Theatre Royal¹¹ on Monday 9 June. The evening also included a Grand Concert featuring the English soprano Anna Bishop (still in mourning following the death of her lover, harpist Nicolas-Charles Bochsa in January). When the 37 year old Coppin appeared before the curtain, ‘in compliance with the vociferous demands of the audience’, he was in celebratory mode: apart from now monopolising theatre audiences in Melbourne (Henry Coleman’s Lyceum—late The Queen’s Theatre—his only real competition, coincidentally, re-opened on the same night); he was also a new father (Harriet had given birth two weeks earlier to their daughter Polly Bishop Coppin, named for Brooke’s wife—Harriet’s sister—and Madame Bishop). ‘I think I may be allowed to point with some degree of pride and satisfaction’, Coppin told ‘the bumper house’,

to my past career as manager for the last twelve years in the Australian colonies, and of the Iron Pot in another street. I spared neither pains nor expense to keep that boiling and, as you all know, I was sometimes gratified by seeing it overflow.

In conclusion, he was happy to officially announce that his ‘friend Mr G.V. Brooke will perform a round of his Shakespearian characters previous to sailing for California’.¹² Brooke had privately completely abandoned any idea of an early return to Europe (via California or otherwise) and confirmed (in a letter to his sister, quoted in Bagot) that ‘we now have the Theatre Royal, the Olympic, Astley’s Amphitheatre, Cremorne Gardens and four very large hotels. All in full swing’. Strategically, Coppin and Brooke were now business partners. Brooke added, somewhat prophetically to his sister, ‘It is a great speculation but with every certainty of success’. By this time, his contract with Fanny and Robert Heir was also due to expire.

Younge was stretched professionally, and literally had one foot in each of Coppin’s theatres: he played Young Marlow to Coppin’s Tony Lumpkin in She Stoops to Conquer; this ran concurrently with his oversight of the Scottish legendary drama, William Barrymore’s Gilderoy; or, The Bonnie Boy(1822) playing at Coppin’s Olympic on the same night. The contrasting repertoire immediately setting the agenda, in the public’s mind at least, for both venues.

The season at the Olympic drew to a close with a benefit for Richard Younge on Monday 28 July 1856. Under the patronage of the Committee of the Widow and Orphans’ Fund (in connection with the Manchester Unity Order of Oddfellows) the drama The Discarded Son; or, The Lancers was given; this was followed by Cupid; or, Life in the Clouds(in which George Coppin played Cupid and introduced his celebrated ‘Spider Dance’—an homage to Lola Montez). The Argus (29 July 1856) niggardly questioned Younge’s critical judgement, suggesting that it was ‘not upon a par with his histrionic ability. … Nobody who was present’, it went on,

felt any inclination to adopt The Discarded Son, or cared one star about any incident or character in the whole piece; and if it had terminated at the close of the second act the audience would have felt very thankful—for they would have been spared the inflation of the third.

At the curtain, however, ‘Mr Hayward, on behalf of the Odd Fellows, presented Mr R. Younge with a signet ring, accompanied by a eulogistic address, engrossed on vellum; which elicited a suitable reply’.

Younge’s final appearance at the Iron Pot, before taking residence at the Theatre Royal, was playing a six night run of Planche’s The Brigand, in which he took on the bravura triple roles. On the same program, that opened on 11 August, was included the ‘feats and stunts’ of aerialist and tightrope walker Madame Anna Dalle Casse; Melbourne audiences, were spared, however, the opportunity of seeing her ‘grand leap over 12 soldiers and their 12 bayonets’! And so, at least for the time being, the curtain fell on Younge’s association with Coppin’s Olympic Theatre (that, Younge was under the impression Coppin still intended to sell).

The public face of Coppin’s theatrical empire was made concrete with the call by The Argus (20 August 1856) to attend the studios of Mr Heald, at 110 Lonsdale Street East, to inspect the recently executed busts of the triumvirate of G.V. Brooke, George Coppin and Richard Younge sculpted by William Lorando Jones;¹³ they were ‘in every sense of the word depicted “true to life” the physiognomy of these well known artistes’.¹⁴

Much was made in the press of Younge’s appointment at the Theatre Royal. The new company of 27 players under Younge’s charge was a mix of the old and the new: Brooke continued his association with Robert and Fanny Heir and stalwarts, like Mr and Mrs Charles Younge, were re-contracted; Coppin made himself available for guest appearances.¹⁵

The Spring season opened on Monday 25 August 1856 with Love’s Sacrifice, but as already announced, Coppin intended to feature the Bard, and ‘Brooke’s Shakespeare Season’ began the week later.

There were a number of revivals scheduled: Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, Richard III and As You Like it. Presumably because of his workload, Younge chose his roles, judiciously limiting his appearances to Macduff, Iago, Cassius and Touchstone (where, according to The Age (3 October 1856), ‘he played the fool so well, that “motley should be his only wear”’).

The two major new productions were The Winter’s Tale and Cymbeline, both stage managed by Younge (but given the scale of the productions, he was absent from the cast lists).

Winter’s Tale was much anticipated, especially on the larger stage of the Royal, and it was mounted in grand style by Younge with ‘fifty supernumeraries’. Brooke gave his Leontes (he had debuted in the role in Dublin a decade earlier) and the production opened on Monday 1 September 1856, ‘with new scenery, appointments, and a cast of characters unequalled in the World’. Of his performance, The Argus (2 September 1856) found that Brooke’s ‘Leontes was a forcible picture of a character too despicable to command much sympathy from any audience’. Of Younge’s contribution:

Following Mr Charles Kean’s example¹⁶, the manager of the Royal has adopted Bithynia as the locale of so much of the action as Shakespeare has assigned to Bohemia, and the period is consequently removed far backward—all the costumes and properties being those of the most classic times of Greece; and though the appointments are not of that sumptuous character which have rendered the Princess’s Theatre a sort of temple of upholstery, the scenery, costumes, and groupings las night were admirable evidences of liberality on the part of the management, and the taste and ability on the part of the various artists employed.

The opening was also advertised as ‘the last week but one of Mrs Heir’s Engagement with Mr G.V. Brooke’. Fanny played Hermione.

The inclemency of the weather was blamed for ‘the paucity of the attendance’ and Winter’s Tale was replaced after four performances to make way for Cymbeline, ‘for the first time in this colony’, on Monday 8 September. Mrs Heir was seen in the part of Imogen and  her ‘impersonation of the character was worthy of her established reputation’. The same paper, The Argus (9 September) thought that the part of Leonatus Posthumus (again, debuted by Brooke in Dublin at the Theatre Royal in 1846) ‘does not afford much scope for the exhibition of Mr Brooke’s powers, but he made the most of the character and elevated it to a prominence to which none but an accomplished actor could have lifted it’. The lack of an audience was still an issue, the press noting that ‘while the pit and gallery appeared to be full, and the stalls and upper circle nearly so, there were not more than five-and-twenty-in the dress circle!’ Cymbelineplayed for two nights.

Notionally, Fanny and Robert Heir’s contract with Brooke concluded following the performance of Money on Saturday 13 September. But the couple continued their relationship with the tragedian until his return to Ireland five years later.

‘With such a combination of histrionic and artistic talent at Mr Coppin has now at his command’, forecast The Argus (1 September 1856), ‘he is enabled to gratify the lovers of first-class dramas and of first class acting, and to produce upon the colonial stage—with the utmost beauty of illustration—the most poetical and least hackneyed of Shakespeare’s plays’. Unfortunately, for Coppin, the ‘lovers of first-class dramas’ stayed away in droves. In their review of the revival of ‘the sublime tragedy of Julius Caesar’ on 8 October, The Age noted that the production ‘attracted … a tolerable audience, but by no means a sufficient one to remunerate Mr Coppin for his considerable nightly outlay’. It possibly didn’t help that The Lyceum offered similar Shakespeare repertoire (Othello, Much Ado) featuring the novelty of the American actress Mrs C.N. Sinclair¹⁷ with the young comedian Henry Sedley. Neither the marketing strategy highlighting Coppin’s appearance in various farces, nor another run of ads highlighting yet more ‘Farewell performances’ from Brooke rallied for the cause. Coppin was forced to admit defeat and replaced the Bard with more popular plays for the remainder of Brooke’s appearances at the Theatre Royal.¹⁸

Richard W. Younge’s signature on the title page of his ‘prepared’ text for Antony and Cleopatra that didn’t make it to the stage.

International Collection, University of Melbourne, LTC/9

The more contemporary repertoire Younge then launched also suffered mixed success. Samuel Lover’s Irish Drama Rory O’More, in which Brooke made his first appearance as Rory O’More, opened on 29 September. The Age (6 October 1856) dismissed the plot as ‘the most flimsy character … but the acting redeemed all defects. Mr Brooke’s Rory was especially good’. Lord Byron’s psycho-drama Werner; or, The Inheritance (premiered on 25 September¹⁹) was more positively received. ‘Mr Brooke’s delineation of the soul-sick and miserable nobleman, morbidly sensitive and with a mind full of sickly fancies,’ enthused The Argus (27 September 1856), ‘struggling in the toils of fate, a prey to remorse, an an abject believer in destiny, was worthy of this actor’s well-earned reputation’. As the Hungarian insurgent Bethlehem Gabor, ‘Younge was blunt and rugged … and gave a bold, free sketch of the character of that extremely mysterious and enigmatic character’.

The ‘Farewell performances of Mr G. V. Brooke … most positively the Last Night of the Shakespearian Company’ was posted on 11 October in The Argus and the tragedian took his departure with The Honeymoon—‘Most positively the Last Night’—on Friday 17 October. Brooke and the Heirs then progressed to Geelong, followed by another season in Sydney. Younge remained as the manager and resident stage manager at the Theatre Royal and, in the first instance, oversaw Madame Anna Bishop’s operatic season, flagged to launch with Daniel Auber’s Massaniello (La mute de Portici) (1830) and continued into the new year. This was all alien territory for Younge.

After Christmas, Brooke tested the limits of audience endurance with yet another ‘farewell season’ in Sydney and the goldfields, but was back in Melbourne by April. He advertised his departure date as September, but was now pilloried for his 'nauseous iteration of leave-takings’. Meanwhile—apart from a short tour to the goldfields himself— Younge remained committed to his managerial and production oversight of the Theatre Royal, including playing second-gentleman to American McKean Buchanan²⁰ (replicating much of Brooke’s repertoire).

Now referred to a ‘the veteran stage manager’, Younge oversaw a series of melodramas, and spectacles, including casting himself in Moncrieff’s grand spectacular drama The Cataract of the Ganges and the Burning Wood of Himalaya. ‘Younge, as Mokarra, the Chief of the Brahmins’, wrote The Age (17 March 1857) was ‘unusually effective in depicting the unscrupulous and designing priest, a class of characters to which he seems to have devoted his special attention and made entirely his own’. But Younge’s career otherwise in Australian from this time was marked more by the off-stage drama than on.

The population of Melbourne at this time was 91,000 and it became clear to Coppin that he needed an increased and more reliable supply of ‘artistes’ to fill his various entertainment venues than had been previously referred by John Hall Wilton (Brooke’s old agent). There was also the threat of more competition with John Black back in the picture at the Amphitheatre and James Simmonds (late of the Theatre Royal, Geelong) leasing the Olympic. Coppin sailed on the European for Southampton on 24 June and left Brooke, with Richard Younge as his manager, in control of their business interests. ‘Since he left’, Brooke wrote to his sister, ‘I have had my hands full in conducting our joint properties—The Theatre Royal, the Olympic Theatre, and Cremorne Gardens’. A month earlier, Mr and Mrs Charles Young finally made the move back to London having sensed the ominous change in the theatrical landscape.

Two productions of interest in Coppin’s six month absence were Brooke’s appearances as Cardinal Wolsey in Henry VIII—to Younge’s Buckingham—in August, and the eponymous lead in a lavish production of Byron’s tragedy of Sandanalapus in October.²¹ ‘The piece, which has been some time in preparation under the management of Richard Younge’, observed The Age (17 October 1857), ‘promises to be the finest spectacular work which has ever been produced at the Royal’. It was, however, an ‘insufferably long’ night in the theatre—the curtain coming down at 12.45am. That notwithstanding, it was hugely successful critically and at the box office and Younge was given some credit for overseeing the ‘magnificent’ production values where ‘no expense has been spared in order to place it properly upon the stage … and forms one of the most attractive and instructive spectacles which has ever been submitted to the Victorian public’. Brooke played the Assyrian Monarch and Fanny Heir played his wife Zarina. The response to Richard’s performance wasn’t as generous: ‘Mr R. Younge’s Salamenes is … ponderous, and forms such a preaching, prosy brother-in-law it was very natural that the King should take refuge in suicide’.

Coppin arrived back in January 1858, and was by his wife Harriet’s side for the birth of their daughter Blanche Brooke Coppin at the end of the month. Their lives were rocked, however, by the sudden death of daughter Polly three weeks later. This event appeared to drastically disrupt Coppin’s career trajectory.

Meanwhile, when in London, Coppin secured a number of new novelties and players, including Mrs Vickery (of Drury Lane), Miss Ellen Morton (leading lady of Theatre Royal Dublin), Mr E.B. Gaston, Mr Downey (of Mr S. Roxby’s Sunderland circuit) and Richard’s younger brother Frederick Younge (with his wife Emma).²²

Frederick—or Fred, as he was better known—was also a singer and, was engaged soon after his arrival; his debut it the colony was at the Theatre Royal on 15 February in the farce Whitebait at Greenwich (as John Small) with Mrs Vickery. Bell’s Life (20 February 1858) found Fred did ‘not treat the public to sallies of very broad humour, his vis comica being rather of a negative than positive kind; but ho, nevertheless, possesses sufficient talent to insure him.a high place in our list of comedians’.  On the same program, Richard played the title role in Fazio; or, The Italian Wife but, according to The Argus (16 February), he ‘was not “up” to the part… nor does he look the character and hence Mrs Vickery [in her antipodean debut] appeared under very disadvantageous circumstances’. Emma Younge made her first appearance on the following Wednesday, as Josephine, in the musical drama of the same name: ‘This lady will share the popular favour bestowed upon her husband, inasmuch as she presents most of the qualities necessary to the satisfactory impersonation of the class of characters of which Josephine may be regarded as the type.’ As it turned out, Emma was newly pregnant and confined her activity to  singing and pianoforte lessons for the remainder of the year. The brothers subsequently played regularly together.

Coppin appeared in a new extra-curricular role when he made his debut as a Councillor for Richmond Municipal Council in late April. Two months later, in a surprise announcement, he confirmed a farewell round of his theatrical characters prior to his retirement from the stage. In October he was elected as a member of the Legislative Council of Victoria (for the South-Western Province, by a majority of 22). There was little need to explain the cause and effect of his public decisions after the tragedy experienced early in the year. Coppin spent the months leading to Christmas attempting to rationalise his business interests, particularly his association with Brooke (whose behaviour was becoming noticeably more intemperate).

This situation gave Richard Younge some major concern about his future. As a distraction, seemingly—and abandoning his status as ‘second gentleman’—he arranged for himself a full schedule of leading character roles for the remainder of the year (including in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Rule a Wife and Have a Wife (1624) (Leon); Dion Boucicault’s melodrama Janet Pride (1855) (Richard Pride); John H. Wilkins’s The Will and the Way; or, The Mystery of Carrow Abbey (1855) (Meeran Hafez); and, the historical drama by Charles Reade, Masks and Faces (1852) (Triplet)).²³

As far as Brooke was concerned, he had intended to sail to London on 22 November, but delayed  again due to the the sluggish negotiation with Coppin regarding an equitable separation (specifically the settlement of their joint properties). All came to a head in February 1859. An advertisement for a revival of  The Hunchback on Wednesday 2 February headlined:

Messrs COPPIN and BROOKE

In returning thanks for the very liberal patronage they have received during the last four years int he Australian colonies, beg to announce that they have arranged to dissolve partnership this month, February, up to which period Mr G.V. BROOKE will appear in a round of his most popular characters.

Younge subsequently remounted much of the old repertoire for Brooke (in which Fred Younge made noteworthy appearances) over the next three weeks: King Lear, The Lady of Lyon, Richelieu, The Stranger, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth,  The Rivals and A New Way to Pay Old Debts. A benefit for Younge was announced for Tuesday 22 February, and a testimonial was published in The Argus (21 February):

My Dear Younge—As Mr Coppin and myself are about to dissolve partnership on the 26 inst., I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without tendering to you, in its deepest sense, our sincere acknowledgement of the indefatigable zeal you have displayed during the last four years with regard to protecting and forwarding the interests of the Theatre Royal in the arduous capacity of Stage Manager …

Brooke continued, making the further announcement, that ‘We sincerely trust that you will continue your valuable services as director of the Theatre Royal under my sole proprietorship. Our acquaintance has been a long one, but I am happy to say of late years it has ripened into friendship; and that it may long continue so is the wish of Your sincere friend. G.V. Brooke.’ In the wash up of the partnership, Coppin retained control of the Cremorne Gardens and the Olympic Theatre, while Brooke assumed responsibility for both the Theatre Royal and adjoining Royal Hotel (notionally the cash-cow).

As fate would have it, that evening Brooke was indisposed and Younge replaced him in Richard III. According to Bell’s Life (26 February 1859), Younge ‘proved himself an able substitute, and, taking into consideration the short time he had to prepare the minutiae of the character, acquitted himself most admirably’. ‘In the tent scene’, the review went on, ‘he was loudly applauded, and on several occasions proved himself worthy of sustaining any part that might be entrusted to him’. Brooke was sufficiently recovered to play Shylock for Younge’s benefit the following night. Called before the curtain at the end of the performance, Younge acknowledged the significance of the date:

This day, ladies and gentlemen, the 22 of February, will always be to me a marked day in the calendar, for this very day four years ago I made my first appearance on the Australian shore; when I landed, I am proud, not ashamed to say, my capital consisted only of a cargo of good double-braced determination, some strong habits of industry, and a few parcels of old experience; and I am sure you will not without hold your congratulations from me when I tell you that I have disposed of my merchandise to very great advantage. I came here a poor man; I am glad to say that your kind appreciation of my services has qualified me to enter a firm that, happily, counts a large part of our thriving population as members—I mean the firm of ‘Easy and Co’—Bell’s Life, 22 February 1859

*****

Within three months Brooke and Younge had a falling out and Robert Heir, controversially, was appointed as General Manager of the Theatre Royal. Richard and his brother Frederick then took up the lease of the Olympic Theatre in direct competition, launching for a season on 20 June with a new comedy by Edmund Falconer, Extremes; or, Men of the Day. ‘The acting was extremely good’, observed The Age (21 June 1859), ‘the Brothers Younge were warmly welcomed. The comedy has been put upon the stage in a manner worthy of any theatre, and appeared to give exceeding pleasure to the audience.’

The general despair felt in the entertainment industry in Melbourne was articulated by Bell’s Life (24 September 1859):

Three theatres cannot be adequately supported in Melbourne, and that (apart from other considerations) the present competition will soon close the doors of one of them. We wish they could all do well, for we are amongst those who believe that this competition is int he best security to the community (next to the censorship of the Press) for the most healthy and legitimate variety of dramatic entertainment.

While Brooke’s star was in the decline—warned that ‘neither the public nor managers will much longer tolerate his eccentricities’—Robert Heir maintained a superiority in the market with a mixed repertoire and the benefit of the best actors in the colony at the Theatre Royal; John Drew was doing reasonable business at the Princess (with a catholic mix of old favourites); and the amateur Garrick Club were providing the Shakespeare revivals. The Younge Brothers, after the close of the Olympic season, diversified and over the next twelve months played seasons at the Pantheon Theatre (Cremorne Gardens), the new Prince of Wales Theatre and the Lyceum Theatre, Bendigo before 12 nights at the Royal Victoria Theatre in Sydney.

It was a bitter-sweet return to Sydney for Richard in October 1860, where he gave Jame Smith’s  Garibaldi; or, the Hero of Palermo. The production had premiered at the Prince of Wales a few weeks earlier. The scenery was by Alexander Habbe, ‘the machinery by Mr Wallace, the properties and barricades by Mr Winning, and the national music selected and arranged by Mr Charle Elgenschenck; the whole produced under the immediate direction of Richard Younge’. ‘The piece has been completely murdered here for want of a proper Garibaldi’, declared The Star (19 September 1860) ‘Mr Richard Younge is an excellent actor, a finished dramatist in very way—but he cannot look a hero in true stage style.’

By Easter 1861, Younge had reconciled with Brooke and reunited with the Heirs and George Coppin (again lessee at the Theatre Royal) for The Rivals, the conclusion of Sir William and Lady Don’s engagement at the venue. It was flagged at the time that Brooke was booked to sail for England on 30 May; he would be accompanied by Avonia Jones (Brooke’s new discovery, and already booked to appear with him at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane), Mr Farquharson and ‘probably Mr Richard Younge’.

Meanwhile, Younge toured with Brooke to Geelong and the goldfields before returning to Melbourne for a series of farewell performances—a last hurrah! At this time, Brooke was also in litigation with Henry Edwards (late manager of the Theatre Royal), the action taken for damages for break of agreement; the verdict of £235 damages was returned for the plaintiff.

Over four weeks, from Monday 22 April, Younge mounted, amongst other plays, Macbeth, As You Like It (on Shakespeare’s birthday), Hamlet, Henry IV Part One, The Merchant of Veniceand A Comedy of Errors and, ironically, A New Way to Pay Old Debts. ‘Positively the last appearance of Mr G.V. Brooke in the Australian Colonies’ took place on Thursday 23 May with Virginius. The  occasion was momentous: the front of the theatre in Bourke Street was virtually unapproachable for some time before the doors opened, and Brooke was enthusiastically cheered on his entrance and summoned before the curtain at the end of every act.

This was Richard Younge’s farewell too, but he had received his tributes in a benefit held on Friday 17 May with his performance as Clifford in The Hunchback, where he played ‘with all his usual ease and stage tact, and was very liberally rewarded with the plaudits of the house’. (The Age, 18 May 1861)

Younge sailed for home on board The Suffolk on Thursday 30 May. He had intended to leave on The Great Britain, but at last minute swapped cabins with Brooke (‘doing a runner’ to escaped his creditors and the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Victoria). Younge celebrated his 40th birthday while at sea in a luxury cabin paid for by Coppin!

Richard Younge arrived back in Australian on 6 October 1862. He found work as both stage manager and actor with James Simmonds. The following year he played Harry Kavanagh in Falconer’s drama  Peep o’ Day [pictured] at the Royal Haymarket Theatre, Melbourne (July 1863). He married Margaret Davis in Melbourne in the same year. He and his wife then moved to Queensland and ran the Royal Hotel, Queen Street, Brisbane (1864–1867). They returned to England and he pursued his theatrical career—as  lessee of the Tyne Theatre, Newcastle--until a few years before his death, aged 65, in June 1887.

‘Younge possessed an excellent knowledge of stage business’, it was recalled by The Argus (8 June 1887) ‘and had studied a wide range of characters’.

He was not adapted to shine as a star but was a careful, intelligent, safe and solid all-round actor, slow of study and deliberate, sometimes hesitating in delivery. Nothing came amiss to him on the boards, tragedy, comedy, farce or melodrama and he was always to be dependent upon. If there was one type of character in which he excelled it was that of villains and his Iago, his Paul Lafont and personages of that description he presented to the life.

In his private life he was known for his ‘sprightliness and sincerity, his unassuming manners, his simple kindly disposition and the flow of theatrical anecdote with which he could enliven a conversation’. He’d made many friends in the colonies, and after he arrive back in England he received by mail a testimonial—in the substantial form of a nugget of pure gold—from his friends and admirers (‘many of our most influential citizens’) in Melbourne, organised by William Pitt.

Rich in pathos, pure in power,
Younge’s acting is from shore to shore,
Oft hath he woke the bosom throe
Until fond pearls did over-flow
No spell want we his name to keep
Greatness true will never sleep
Earth’s vigils will it watch and keep.

H.T. Dwight, Australian Celebrities or Personal Portraits, Melbourne, 1965

Endnotes

1. Englishman William Pitt (1819–1879), already an experienced scenic artist (late of the Lyceum Theatre, London) when he arrived in Melbourne aged 34 in 1853. He was employed by Coppin to refurbish and decorate Geelong’s Theatre Royal earlier in the year. He was described by The Argus as ‘the most accomplished scenic artist in the colonies’.

2. The son of an Edinburg physician, Black arrived in Australia looking for gold, but he ultimately accumulated considerable wealth in the carrying business. After he sold the Royal he upgraded and managed Astley’s Amphitheatre (renamed Princess’s Theatre and Opera House) in 1857. He was bankrupted by the enterprise, however, and by 1861 he moved to north Queensland where he took up pastoral land at Bowen (Fanning Station) and later became the first Mayor of Townsville.

3. Deering, late of the Queen’s Theatre, Tottenham Court Road, London, arrived in Sydney in 1843; he spent time in Launceston and Hobart before taking the lease on the Theatre Royal, Geelong in 1851. Deering was also a scenic artist and was credited with painting the moving diorama introduced into the pantomime he produced at the Theatre Royal. He died suddenly at Ballarat in April 1856. His son was the comedian Olly Deering.

4. Jacobs had arrived with Brooke and his party on the steamer Pacific on 22 February, contracted by Coppin in London the previous year. He had since played seasons in Sydney and Hobart.

5. Astley’s Amphitheatre was constructed by Tom Mooney in 1854; English circus performer and entrepreneur George Lewis was the first lessee. George Coppin took over the lease in February 1856. The building was entirely remodelled and redecorate with gas lighting installed. Under Coppin it was known as the Royal Amphitheatre.

6. Miss Glyndon joined the Olympic company at the start of the season; her debut role was playing alongside Coppin and Younge in the farce To Oblige Benson on 31 July. While her publicity suggests that she was late of Sadlers’ Wells, she does not appear in their program in the previous 12 months. Her last appearances appear to be in the provinces. A problem arose while she was playing a season at The Theatre, Kent. She gave Pauline, opposite Mr De Vere, in The Lady of Lyons on Friday 28 August, and was highly praised for her performance by the Kentish Independent. Apparently she was to have performed Juliet opposite Mr Tindell as Romeo the following Monday, as well as other characters, in which the critic from the Kentish Independent suggests ‘we should certainly not have expected to see her announced’. She then suddenly disappeared. In October she resurfaced momentarily at the Theatre Royal, Woolwich, as Desdemona and Lady Macbeth, amongst other leading roles, opposite Henry Grant. Then she disappears again … until she turns up in Melbourne two years later.

7. The Equity Division of the Supreme Court of the Colony of Victoria heard the case over two days beginning on Thursday 30 August 1955.

8. In the most public act of contrition, the following appeared in The Age on the day of the Benefit: ‘For the Joint Benefit of Miss Fanny Cathcart and Mr Heir, the celebrated tragedian, Mr G.V. Brooke has given his gratuitous services. Mr and Mrs Heir, in announcing their benefit, beg most respectfully to acknowledge the kindness and liberality of Mr G.V. Brooke and Mr Coppin, in thus affording them an opportunity of relieving themselves from the difficulties in which their late ill-advised proceedings have placed them; more particularly as they now deeply feel the condition that they are not entitled to this generous consideration, either by their letter of engagement, or by having allowed themselves, through misrepresentations, to have been seduced from the performance of a contract which they were bound in honour and law to have fulfilled.’

9. The Olympic Theatre Company included ‘Mdes Heir, C. Young, Brougham, Hill , Rogers, Vincent and Avins and Messrs R. Younge, G.H. Rogers, C. Young, R. Heir, Leslie, Hill, Murray, Edwards, Webster,  Robins,  Wheeler,  Sefton,  Lester,  Percy,  Fawcett and George Coppin. As well as ‘the magic brush of The Wizard Pitt’.

10. Well known for the eponymous roles in both Richelieu and Hamlet, James Stark (1819–1875) began his career with the Richmond Theatre in Virginia before seasons in New York from 1846, including  with Charles Kean, James Robert Anderson and J.W. Wallack Jr. Together with his wife Sarah, shared much of Brooke’s repertoire (including The Lady of Lyons, Richelieu, Othello, Hamlet, The Robbers, Ingomar, Pizarro, Katherine and Petruchio and The Stranger).

11. Coppin undertook extensive renovations on the venue, the chief of these was the construction of a new proscenium. There were also improvements to the fly-tower and other back stage facilities (coal gas was introduced and the box-lights relocated to improve sight-lines).

12. Coppin had negotiated this extension of his contract while they were on tour in Hobart earlier in the month.

13. Welsh born stone mason and sculptor William Lorando Jones (1819–1893) arrived in Australia in 1854. In 1857 he was represented in the first exhibition of the Victorian Society of Fine Arts with busts of Mr Clough and Mr and Mrs Charles Young and a portrait medallion of John Pascoe Fawkner. He then moved to Sydney where, in 1871, his reputation was damaged when he was convicted for blasphemy.

14. These are not to be confused with the bust of G.V. Brooke sculpted by Charles Summers unveiled at the Melbourne Public Library in February 1869.

15. Other members of the company were Messrs. Burford, Edwards, Evans, Gordon, Harloze, Hoskins, Leslie, Nelson, Rogers and Sefton Webster; Mesdames Avins, Cosby, Phillips, Rogers, Thomson; with Misses Earls, Green Herbert, A. Nelson, C. Nelson; Fred Coppin was leader of the Orchestra; William Pitt, with his protege’s John Hennings and William Wilson (both 26 years old), and young Milanese artist Signor F. Arregoni (according to Hennings, Arregoni ‘painted very slowly but very well’) appointed resident scenic artists (all also employed by Coppin on his Grand Gala opening of the Cremorne Gardens in October 1856); James Brogden and Mr Trotter, as Property Master and assistant; and J. Moyle as the mechanist.

16. The reviewer references the recent notorious revival by Charles Kean and the Princess’s Theatre, London. ‘The attention of the audience’,wrote The Illustrated London News, 26 April 1856—amid a number of conflicting opinions— ‘is entirely withdrawn from the play to the decorations, and Shakespeare is smothered under extravagant poem and paraphernalia. … the whole applause was showered on the carpenters.’

17. Catherine Norton Sinclair (1817–1891) arrived in New York with her actor husband Edwin Forrest in 1837 and toured extensively until he charged her with infidelity in a much publicised scandal. Prior to her arrival in Australia she was actress-manager at the Metropolitan Theatre in San Francisco and for Edwin Booth at Sacramento and Forrest Theatres, Sacramento.

18. It is highly likely that one of the new productions planned to be shown, but abandoned, was Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. After Julius Caesar, another ‘Roman Play’ would make sense to amortise the production values. The University of Melbourne holds a rather unique version of the play that purports to be a prepared text that was edited for Brooke and Fanny Cathcart (their debut in the roles of Mark Antony and the Queen of the Nile). The bound volume came to the University of Melbourne Library from the Collection of John M. Chapman FRNS, one of the foremost collectors of Australiana of the 20th Century. Dr. Chapman, a former dental specialist, was a member and former president of the NAV, a Fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society and a foundation member of the Numismatic Association of Australia (NAA). It is a remarkable document that gives us a rare insight into the dramaturgical methodology of ‘the stage manager’ and the role in the early Victorian theatre (as it evolved in the antipodes); the document is autographed by ‘R.W. Younge’ (twice) with ‘Theatre Royal, Melbourne Feby 1856’ inscribed in the same hand as the many notes, stage directions and annotations made throughout the script. Antony and Cleopatra is amongst Shakespeare’s longest plays at 3573 lines (Cymbeline 3753; The Tempest 2275). For this version, Younge removed 644 lines (a reduction of almost a fifth of the total length) and his edits include the adjustment to Act and Scene divisions; a redistribution of minor roles; excision of single lines, major speeches, plot development and entire scenes; as well as the inclusion  of pageantry and other embellishments. Younge annotates words and passages; includes scene change cues [‘W’—whistle to the flyman]; and provides numerous small sketches for furniture placement or tableau.

19. Werner was playing concurrently at Our Lyceum in Sydney with Kemble Mason as Lord Byron’s hero.

20. Philadelphia born McKean Buchanan (1823–1872) served in the United States Vavvy as midshipman before making his New York debut as Hamlet in 1850.

21. The reconsistituted company at the Theatre Royal included Mr Harlowe, Miss F. Morgan, Mr Edwards, Miss Quinn, Mr and Mrs Hoskins, Mr Lambert, Miss Mortimer, Miss Morgan, Mrs Gladstone and Mrs Vickery.

22. Younge married the Irish singer Emma Jane Corri in Dublin on 19 December 1852.

23. It was during the opening night of this production—William Pitt’s benefit—that the curtain came down after a few minutes; Younge stepped forward to apologise for ‘the untoward circumstances.’ One of the actors was discovered to be in a severe state of intoxication and could not proceed; Richard announced that his brother Fred would read the part and ‘after a brief delay the curtain rose, and the play commenced anew’.

The comedy’slong but broken entertainment history can be dated from 29 June 1852 when Joseph A. Rowe opened Rowe’s American Circus on this prominent corner. Arriving from California just as the first bounties of the gold-rush were flooding into Melbourne, Rowe is said to have made a fortune in the two years his circus stood here. Reputedly laden with cash and treasure, he returned to California in February 1854 and an advertisement in The Melbourne Morning Herald on the following 14 October by his wife Eliza, announced the closure of the circus and the auction of the buildings, horses and theatrical properties.

Joseph Andrew Rowe

Museum of Performance & Design, San Francisco

Andrew Rowe with one of his performing horses

From California’s Pioneer Circus by Joseph Andrew Rowe, edited by Albert Dressler, 1926, p.29

The circus was housed in a permanent wooden amphitheatre with seating in a dress circle, boxes and pit. After Rowe’s departure the building was occasionally used by concert artistes or minstrel troupes such as Rainer’s Ethiopian Serenaders. Shortly after this, the foundation stone for the first ‘legitimate’ theatre to be built here was laid on the corner of Lonsdale and Stephen (now Exhibition) Streets.

This theatre was made up almost entirely of cast iron. prefabricated in England and shipped out in individually numbered pieces for assembly on site. It was built for George Coppin, the energetic English born actor and entrepreneur who, when touring his homeland in 1854, had commissioned its design from Fox & Henderson of Birmingham and its fabrication from E. & T. Bellhouse of Manchester. Coppin had signed up the Irish tragedian Gustavus Vaughan Brooke to tour Australia and, according to Alec Bagot’s biography, Coppin the Great, although he considered Sydney’s theatres adequate for such an important engagement, he thought the Queen’s—at that time Melbourne’s only existing playhouse—‘a wretched hole’.

Coppin’s Olympic Theatre – ‘The Iron Pot’- 1855

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

The foundation stone for the as yet unnamed theatre, which was laid by Brooke, with Coppin and other members of his company and the press in attendance on 18 April 1855, recorded that the architect for the building was C.H. Ohlfsen Bagge and the builders George Cornwell and Company. The theatre was eventually christened the Olympic in honour of Brooke who had had his first success as Othello at London’s Olympic theatre. Coppin’s competitors immediately derided it as ‘the Iron Pot’, however, the name by which it was soon popularly known.

Some six weeks after the cast iron components had arrived on site the Olympic was close enough to completion to be opened for the first public performance on 11 June 1855. This was by the Wizard Jacobs, ‘conjurer, ventriloquist, acrobat, rated as the world’s best one man entertainer’.

The Olympic, whose entrance faced into Lonsdale Street, was described thus in The Argus of 11 June 1855: ‘The iron walls are for the most part cased with brick …’ while the interior presented a ‘light and exceedingly elegant appearance … The arch of the proscenium is broad and flattened; it has a span of thirty-three feet … surmounting the proscenium is an elegant casting in papier mâché of the royal arms, and the arch is supported by six Corinthian pillars, the flutings and capitals of which, being gilded, have an exceedingly rich effect. The ceiling... has been judiciously painted a blue white and spangled with gold stars.’

Coppin’s Olympic Theatre. Photo by Walter Bentley Woodbury.

Victoria & Albert Museum, London

The decorations by William Pitt Sr (whose son later became the foremost Australian theatre architect of his day) were in green, pink and French white. Seating capacity was variously estimated at between 1150 and 1500 in pit, stalls, dress circle and a variety of boxes. What seems to be the sole surviving photograph of the Olympic’s exterior was taken by visiting English photographer Walter Woodbury about 1855 or 1856.

An ‘Old Playgoer’, reminiscing in The Australasian of 14 August 1886, recalled the Olympic as ‘hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Internally it resembled a chapel, with a rectangular gallery for a dress circle; and the adjacent bar was nearly half as large as the theatre itself. But it was the custom in those days for the greater portion of the male part of the audience to rush out for “refreshment” at the end of each act, and a nobbler of brandy was regarded as the cement of friendship.’

The official opening of the Olympic took place on 30 July 1855 when a proper stage had been installed for the first dramatic season. Despite torrential rain and the streets being ‘ankle-deep in mud’ the house was ‘crowded in every part’, according to The Age of 31 July. After a much applauded prologue declaimed by Brooke, there was a ‘renewal of the applause, and to vociferous calls for “Coppin”, who, however, did not make his appearance’, The Argus of the same date reported. Without further delay, the first act of the opening play, Bulwer Lytton’s The Lady of Lyons proceeded.

Gustavus Vaughan Brooke, c.1861

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Fanny Cathcart with her husband Robert Heir, c.1860

State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

Brooke’s leading lady was 22-year-old Fanny Cathcart, who later became one of the most popular and versatile local players. She had signed an onerous two-year contract with Brooke in England, and her fiancé, English actor Robert Heir, was also a member of Brooke's company. Heir soon became dissatisfied with the secondary roles he was given, however, and persuaded his wife to beak her contract so that they could star together under the rival management of John Black at the Theatre Royal. Although a court case ensued which Cathcart lost, Brooke eventually agreed to alter her contract to more favourable terms and the couple returned to his company in October 1855.  

The Olympic was immediately thrown into direct competition with the Theatre Royal which had opened only two weeks earlier. When that management reduced admission prices Coppin was forced to do likewise, although he publicly admitted that by doing so he was running at a loss. Once, when Lola Montes was the rival attraction at the Royal, Coppin included a burlesque of her famous spider dance in his program: ‘after cavorting all over the stage in a ridiculous manner’, Coppin (according to Bagot), ‘withdrew from under an extremely scanty skirt an enormous animal resembling a spider’, and chased it across the boards. The people in the audience ‘literally rolled out of their seats with laughter... His imitation was a riot. saved from a charge of vulgarity only by the side-splitting roars of laughter it provoked.’

The partnership of Brooke, the brilliant tragedian, and Coppin, the popular comedian and shrewd showman, soon won over the majority of the audiences—even though the Royal was much bigger, more opulent and better placed. In spite of this hard won supremacy there was still unrelenting competition from too many theatres: the combined capacities of the Royal, the Olympic, Astley’s Amphitheatre and the Queen’s was close to 8000 people. In addition to these the Salle de Valentino, Cremorne Gardens, the Exhibition Building and numerous lesser halls and hotels all sapped a share of the potential audience from a population of only 70 000.

After tours of the goldfields and Tasmania, Brooke returned to the Olympic for a ‘farewell’ performance on 1 December 1855 and, prior to an announced departure for California, appeared before a crowded house. The departure was postponed however and Brooke was back for a fresh season on 28 January 1856 when he appeared as Brutus in Julius Caesar ‘for the first time in the colonies’. He also gave a first Australian performance of Henry V on 25 February. Brooke’s ‘most positively... last appearance’ was on 26 April and for once, as far as the Olympic was concerned, this was true.

Coppin and Brooke had become business partners and early in June 1856 they took control of the Theatre Royal, left in charge of the Official Receiver after the bankruptcy of its owner, John Black. From this time on the Olympic went into a sudden, irreversible decline, opening only sporadically for imported players and concert and vaudeville artistes of (mostly) the second rank.

Madame Anna Bishop, 1850s. Engraving by Daniel John Pound, after a photograph by John Jabez Edwin Mayall.

National Portrait Gallery, London

American actor James Stark, c.1850. Photographer unknown.

The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

There was nothing second rate about Madame Anna Bishop however; apart from being the estranged wife of the English composer Sir Henry Bishop, she was an internationally renowned soprano and probably the most widely travelled and adventurous opera singer of her day. Madame Bishop began a month long series of concerts at the Olympic on 13 May 1856. Mr. and Mrs. James Stark, ‘celebrated American artistes’, starred in a month-long season of drama, beginning on 18 June in Richelieu. By 20 October, however, with Coppin and Brooke now firmly established at the Royal, the Olympic was housing such attractions as ‘The Siege of Sebastopol’, a ‘Grand Exhibition of Mechanical figures, Model Scenes and Theatre of Arts… for one week only’.

Anna Bishop returned for ‘one night only’ on 8 January 1857 and four nights later came the actress Marie Duret in a season of plays. Duret had once been Brooke’s mistress and according to his biographer, W.J. Lawrence, ‘after feathering her nest for years... without a word of warning, she ran off to America…’ Duret was evidently a versatile actress with a penchant for male roles for she first appeared as the highwayman Jack Sheppard then as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. She also played ‘three different characters’ in A Duel in the Dark and The French Spy and essayed as many as eight parts in Winning a Husband. Appearing in two plays per night, on some nights Duret portrayed as many as eleven separate characters! Energy and versatility notwithstanding, her season, although originally announced for 24 nights, was terminated half way through and The Argus of 26 January noted that ‘Mademoiselle Duret has been playing … with very equivocal success...’

It soon became clear that the Olympic was no longer viable as a theatre and, after the closure of a short-lived ‘Polytechnic Exhibition’, it was reopened on 11 May 1857 as ‘The Argyle Assembly Rooms’ for ‘Terpsichorean pastimes’. The building remained a dance hall until 30 November 1857 when it was briefly reopened as ‘Coppin’s Olympic’ for a return season by the Wizard Jacobs. Another minstrel troupe began a season there on 1 February 1858 but by 22 May it had been converted back to the ‘Argyle Rooms’ where a ‘Full Dress Ball’ was held two nights later.

A fresh novelty was advertised in the Melbourne press in November 1858: ‘Great Pedestrian Feat. 1000 miles in 1000 hours. Alan McKean who so successfully accomplished this trial of strength, endurance and perseverance at Ballaarat, will walk his first mile in Melbourne on Tuesday 23 November at Seven O’clock in the evening at the Olympic Theatre and terminate the undertaking (D.V.) 3rd January 1859. Hours of walking, a quarter before and one minute after each even hour. Tickets for the 1000 hours £1.1s.’

In February 1859 Coppin and Brooke dissolved their partnership and sole ownership of the Olympic reverted to Coppin. Bagot reasons that Coppin retained the Olympic (which cost £200 per week to run and was mostly running at a loss) in favour of the profit-making Royal on sentimental grounds: ‘the building was so much his own conception that no thought of relinquishing it seems seriously to have entered his mind!’

An address delivered by Mr. Fred. Younge, on the occasion of the opening of the Olympic Theatre, Melbourne, June 20, 1859

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

George Coppin as Paul Pry, one of the many characters he played at the Olympic between 1856 and 1859. Hand coloured photograph, c.1870.

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Coppin had been elected an MLC in the Victorian parliament in 1858 and, preoccupied as he was with a political career, he leased the Olympic to Frederick and Richard Younge who reopened it on 30 June 1859 with a program of comic plays. Coppin himself returned to the Olympic’s stage for two short seasons of charity performances—the first from 23 to 30 July and again from 24 August to 3 September. In spite of his good intentions, Coppin attracted criticism for this from a conservative element who considered it unseemly for an MLC to appear on stage. Coppin retorted that if other MLCs could practice their professions, why couldn’t he?—and very sensibly continued to perform.

The last quasi-theatrical attraction at the Olympic was a ‘Female Pedestrian Feat’ beginning on 4 January 1860 in which a Miss Howard and a Mrs. Douglas were matched to walk 1500 miles in 1000 hours, After this the theatre was advertised as ‘to let or for sale’. As there were no takers, Coppin himself eventually converted part of the building into ‘Australia’s first Turkish Baths’. He reminisced in an Argus interview of 10 April 1899: ‘The green-room became the first hot room, the property-room the second and a dressing room the third. The ground under the stage was made into a swimming bath, and there was also a shallow bath in the space occupied by the pit. Tents were pitched in rows in the dress circle to serve as dressing rooms... But I could not make any money at it.’

Fire destroyed the baths and most of the old theatre building early in the morning of 29 November 1866. All that remained were ‘the bare walls and iron fittings’, according to The Age of 30 November. But as late as 10 June 1933 a correspondent to the same paper reports that a portion of the ‘Iron Pot’ was still ‘working out its destiny’ as a wharfside shed at Hokitika in the South Island of New Zealand.

Madame Fillis, c.1893. Photographer unknown.

Gordon Ireland Scrapbook, State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Professor Fillis, c.1893. Photographer unknown.

Gordon Ireland Scrapbook, State Library Victoria, Melbourne

The baths were rebuilt, but replaced by a furniture warehouse in 1873 and this remained until 1891. After standing vacant for several years the site came full circle when The Australian Hippodrome was built here in 1894. An Argus advertisement on opening day, 25 August announced: ‘£1000 spent on the property £500 spent on new canvas £250 spent on timber £100 spent on chairs £300 spent on new costumes and uniforms £200 spent on electric and gas lighting £100 spent on upholstery, carpets and decorations £300 spent on advertising.’ The Argusof 27 August 1894 reported: ‘The hippodrome is surrounded by a high wall, and was specially prepared for the circus. A large new tent has been erected inside and is comfortably seated.’ Fillis’s Circus and Menagerie was the opening attraction and remained here until 29 September 1894. Other circuses occasionally used the Hippodrome over the next few years but it seems never to have been very popular—possibly because of the relatively small size of the site—and by 1903 Sands and McDougall’s Melbourne Directory lists the address as vacant once more.

E.I. Cole

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Program cover for Cole’s Bohemian Dramatic Company at the Hippodrome, 1907

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Edward I. Cole, a flamboyant tent showman who liked to dress up as famed American frontier scout, Buffalo Bill, with shoulder length hair, flowing moustache and wide sombrero, brought the site back to life in 1906. After successfully establishing a tent theatre in Sydney with a repertoire of melodramas that usually featured cowboys, Indians and horses as well as actors, Cole split his Bohemian Dramatic Company in two to set up a second base in Melbourne.

Cole had already commissioned plans for a ‘People’s Theatre and Circus Building’ from Sydney architects Parkes and Harrison which, while not specifically designed for the site, were at one stage submitted to the Melbourne City Council for approval. Now held in the council’s archives, and dated February 1905, these show a quite elaborately decorated iron roofed auditorium of brick and stucco with an arched and colonnaded facade enclosing both stage and circus ring. Unfortunately, no surviving detailed written or pictorial records of the site at this time have so far come to light but it seems unlikely that any part of this ‘People’s Theatre’ was ever built there. Cole probably renovated whatever remained of the earlier building and opened his season of ‘Drama Under Canvas’ at ‘The Hippodrome’ about 19 December 1906.

A four-act bushranger melodrama, King of the Road, was the first offering but on Christmas night a sacred concert and biograph entertainment replaced the cowboys and horses—this leading on, a year or so later, to a series of Sunday night charity concerts and film shows that became a regular fixture. Circus-melodrama remained the staple, however, and weekly change plays followed into the new year. Although the emphasis was on outdoor action, Cole’s repertoire also included such popular dramas as Boucicault’s The Octoroon and the perennial East Lynne and Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

The Bohemian Company’s first season closed in mid November 1907 and ‘Broncho George’s Team of Wild Australian Outlaws and Rough Riders’ was the attraction from 16 November until a fortnight before Cole’s return on 21 December. The Bohemians played several more Hippodrome seasons up to mid June 1909 although by now the company was appearing here only on Friday and Saturday nights and touring the suburbs the rest of the week.

To be continued