for himself before going to the theatre. At sixteen he made the acquaintance of a member of Phelps's company, William Hoskins, who gave him tuition in acting, and later introduced him to Phelps, who offered him an engagement. Brodribb had, however, determined to begin his career in the provinces: he continued to read, to study plays, to learn fencing and dancing, and to carry on his office work until, in 1856, Hoskins introduced him to E. D. Davis, who engaged him for the stock company at the Lyceum Theatre, Sunderland.
At this theatre, under the name of Henry Irving, Brodribb made his first public appearance on the stage on 18 Sept. 1856, he being between eighteen and nineteen years old. His part was Gaston, Duke of Orleans, in Lytton's ‘Richelieu.’ On one occasion he broke down in the part of Cleomenes in ‘The Winter's Tale,’ because the religious notions imbibed at Halsetown prevented him from learning the part on a Sunday. This was said to be the only time in his career in which he failed for lack of previous study. He received no salary for the first month, and 25s. a week during the remainder of his engagement, and out of this he contributed to the support of his parents. In Feb. 1857, when just nineteen, he left Sunderland for Edinburgh, where he remained two and a half years under the management of R. H. Wyndham. Among the parts he played there were Horatio, Banquo, Macduff, Catesby, Pisanio (to the Imogen of Helen Faucit) and Claudius in ‘Hamlet’; while he appeared with success also in pantomime and burlesque. His reception by the Edinburgh public and press was by no means altogether favourable. From the outset he was praised for his ‘gentlemanly’ air, his earnestness, and the care he took over his costume and ‘make-up’; but he was often taken to task for the mannerisms of which much was to be heard later.
From Edinburgh Irving passed to his first engagement in London. On 24 Sept. 1859 he appeared in a small part in Oxenford's ‘Ivy Hall,’ produced by Augustus Harris, the elder, at the Princess's Theatre, Oxford Street. The parts allotted him being beneath his ambition, he obtained a release from his contract. Readings of ‘The Lady of Lyons’ and ‘Virginius’ at Crosby Hall in the following winter and spring led to a four weeks' engagement at the Queen's Theatre, Dublin, which began in March 1860. Replacing a popular actor who had just been dismissed, Irving was received by a section of the audience with three weeks of active hostility. When the nightly disturbances had at last been stopped, his Laertes, Florizel, and other performances won him general favour. From Dublin he went to Glasgow and Greenock, and in Sept. 1860 obtained an engagement at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, under Charles Calvert.
In Manchester Irving spent nearly five years. His progress was slow and disheartening. Calvert, however, was a staunch friend and adviser, and in time the good qualities of Irving's acting—his earnestness, his intelligence, and the effort to be natural—made themselves felt. It was at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, that he first appeared as Hamlet. In April 1864 he had impersonated Hamlet (or rather J. P. Kemble as Hamlet) in one of a series of tableaux illustrating a reading by Calvert. On 20 June following he chose the part for his benefit. For his ‘make-up’ on this occasion he copied that of Fechter and wore a fair wig. Lack of physical and vocal power were the chief faults urged by the critics. The periods during which the theatre was closed Irving spent in giving readings in various places, and the vacation of 1864 was spent at Oxford, where he acted Hamlet and other parts. In October 1864 Calvert moved from the Theatre Royal to the new Prince's Theatre. Irving remained at the Theatre Royal, playing unimportant parts, till the early part of 1865. In February of that year he and two others gave in public halls in Manchester an entertainment burlesquing the spiritualistic séances of the Davenport Brothers; and his refusal to demean (as he considered) the leading theatre by repeating this entertainment on its stage was the ostensible reason for the termination of his engagement. For a few weeks he played under Calvert at the Prince's, and then returned to Edinburgh. Between April and Dec. 1865 he acted at Edinburgh, Bury, Oxford, and Birmingham. Having received and refused an offer to join Fechter's company at the Lyceum Theatre, London, he began in Dec. 1865 an engagement at Liverpool. In the summer of 1866 he went touring with his lifelong friend, John Lawrence Toole [q. v. Suppl. II], whom he had first met at Edinburgh in 1857, and in July 1866 he created at Prince's Theatre, Manchester, the part of Rawdon Scudamore, the villain in Boucicault's drama ‘The Two Lives of Mary Leigh,’ afterwards called ‘Hunted Down.’ His arrangement with Boucicault
