A Henry Irving Keepsake
Susan Wands
Sir Henry Irving was given many mementos and souvenirs celebrating his life’s work in the theatre. Among his collected treasures were swords belonging to Edmund Kean, possibly three of them, along with Kean’s russet boots and green silk purse. Other items included Edwin Forrest’s pocket watch, David Garrick’s ring, and an autographed letter from Sarah Siddons. But a surprising find was recently identified in New Zealand: a sterling silver matchbox celebrating Irving’s first success in The Bells.
Who gave Irving this souvenir? We cannot now know for certain. He was well known to be a smoker of both cigarettes and fine cigars, and many people would have thought a matchbox a suitable gift for him. Stories related to the actor’s smoking appear regularly in biographies. One of these, Walter Herries Pollock’s Impressions of Henry Irving, Gathered in Public and Private During a Friendship of Many Years, provides a telling anecdote. Published in 1908, three years after Irving’s death, the book discusses their friendship, numerous confidences and conversations, and the advice offered to the aspiring actor by the man of letters.
Pollock, best known as the editor of The Saturday Review from 1884 to 1894, met Irving in 1871 just before his triumph in the role of Mathias in The Bells. In the opening paragraphs of his book, Pollock describes how Irving had rushed from his dressing room at the Lyceum Theatre, then under the management of H L Bateman, to a restaurant to meet him and the writer Charles Hamilton Aidé. Pollock was struck by the fact that Irving had to dash back to the theatre for an evening rehearsal of The Bells. The actor told them he thought he had found a part that might be the way to a greater and higher career than he had as yet been able to achieve. ‘He was full of hope’, Pollock wrote, ‘and it was clear that he was devoted heart, soul and intellect to the venture … this was the first impression I ever got of what has often been called—and I do not know a more tersely descriptive phrase can be found—the magnetic personality of Henry Irving. At that meeting, as always afterwards, he made and left an enduring and vivid sense of this quality, and of another which is as rare—that of an absolute sincerity in heart, mind and speech.’ The play’s reception made Henry a star; indeed, as he himself said the morning after opening night, he woke to find himself famous.
In the final passages of his book, Pollock recounts his last meeting with Irving, which took place at Pollock’s home in Chawton. As they sat in the garden, Irving tried to retrieve a match from his pocket matchbox. The spring of the box proved difficult and Pollock handed him a ‘flaming vesta’. Irving had even more difficulty with that and muttered, ‘I don’t understand these fireworks’ before dropping it to the ground. He continued to wrestle with his own matchbox, eventually managing to open it and light his cigar. Did Pollock give Irving the matchbox recently found in New Zealand as a memento of his triumph in The Bells? It is of course possible but as yet there is no proof.
The New Zealand matchbox is a slim, sterling silver case with smoothly rounded corners. The top lid is marked with Irving’s initials and inside are engraved the words ‘To Mathias in remembrance of “The Bells”.’ It is in the possession of Adam West-Watson, a descendant of the English-Australian actor George Sutton Titheradge (1848–1916). So how did what seems to be Sir Henry Irving’s matchbox come to be with Mr West-Watson in New Zealand?
George Sutton Titheradge was a jobbing actor active between 1865 and 1914. There is no record of his having ever worked with Irving. There is, however, a very long record indeed of his professional and personal relationship with Ellen Terry.
In 1877, Terry returned to the stage after a six-year hiatus. She had been raising her two children and recovering from her disastrous first marriage to the painter George Frederic Watts away from the theatre world she knew as a child. The production, staged at the Court Theatre (later the Royal Court), was a partially finished work by Edward Bulwer-Lytton later finished by Charles Coghlan called The House of Darnley. Titheradge played Terry’s lover in his debut in London after years of touring the provinces with his actress wife, Isabella Maria Murdoch.
The House of Darnley received middling reviews but Terry was singled out for praise. Her success as Lady Juliet Darnley helped revived her career after the scandal of a failed marriage and two children born out of wedlock to the architect and designer Edward William Godwin. She and Titheradge later acted together again in Victims, a comedy by Tom Taylor produced at the Court Theatre. Then, in 1878, Ellen joined Irving at the Lyceum Theatre, where she would achieve lasting fame.
And what became of Titheradge? He joined a tour of India and became involved with an actress who was not his wife, Miss Alma Santon. By the time they arrived in Melbourne in 1879, they had married, despite Titheradge not having procured a divorce from his first wife, who was left in London with their three children. He began a new acting career in Australia and in 1882 undertook an American tour. Returning to England, he was divorced by his first wife for desertion. Two years later he legally married Alma and they returned to Australia. He had a successful career as a member of the Brough and Boucicault Comedy Company, playing more than 140 parts in ten years. He returned to London and continued to act there from 1899 to 1907. He made additional American tours, afterwards settling for good in Sydney. George was living in London in 1906 when the celebration of Terry’s 50 years on stage was held at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, but there is no record that Titheradge was part of the supporting cast.
In 1914, however, Ellen Terry toured Australia, and she was able to reunite with the actor who had been with her during her comeback decades earlier. Titheradge appeared as Shylock to Terry’s Portia in a benefit performance in Sydney that received much fanfare in the Australian press. Meanwhile, one of Titheradge’s daughters by Alma had become an actress of renown in London, Madge Titheradge (1887–1961). Madge had become close friends with Terry: they exchanged gifts, rings, and robes, some of which are on display at Terry’s country home, Smallhythe. Terry attended Madge’s wedding in 1910, along with several of her nieces and sisters-in-law.
In the spring of 1914, Henry Irving’s younger son, Laurence, drowned in the Empress of Ireland disaster. His eldest, HB, was making plans to abandon his own acting career to return to his first profession, law. As we know, Ellen Terry was at this time touring in Australia, acting with George Titheradge. Is it possible that Terry had acquired Irving’s matchbox from him or from his sons after his death, and then passed it on to Titheradge when he was in England or indeed, during this tour?
We may never know whether the matchbox was a gift from Pollock to Irving, or from Terry to Titheradge. But it is gratifying to know that Irving’s initial success, the one that led to so many later triumphs at the Lyceum, lives on in remembrance in a little engraved matchbox in New Zealand.
With thanks to Adam West-Watson for sharing his family’s history.
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