in his profession when he appeared as Lay Brother Pelican in Chassaigne's Falka at the Comedy (October 1883), an exceedingly droll performance. A greater opportunity followed when he was chosen by (Sir) Charles Hawtrey to succeed (Sir) Herbert Beerbohm Tree in the title-rôle of The Private Secretary, when that play was transferred to the Globe Theatre in May 1884. He played this part for two years and firmly established his reputation. He remained with Hawtrey for some years at the Globe, at the Comedy, and at the Strand, appearing in many plays of varied merit. His long engagement with Hawtrey having terminated, Penley appeared at Terry's Theatre (1890) in New Lamps for Old and The Judge; the following January at Toole's Theatre in Our Regiment, and later at the Savoy Theatre in The Nautch Girl. In 1891 he returned to the Comedy Theatre for a short time.
Charley's Aunt by Brandon Thomas—the play with which Penley's name is chiefly associated—was produced on 29 February 1892 at Bury St. Edmunds. The humorous possibilities of the piece were only discovered a short time after its production. Gradually it was developed into the famous farce as produced at the Royalty Theatre on 21 December 1892. Penley's remarkable impersonation of the part of Lord Fancourt Babberley became the talk of the town, and the play, transferred to the Globe Theatre early in 1893, settled down to the longest run on record for any farce, being played continuously over a period of four years in 1,466 consecutive performances. Charley's Aunt has since been translated into several languages and played all over the world. In 1898 Penley produced in the provinces A Little Ray of Sunshine, and he re-opened at the Royalty Theatre with this play in December 1898. He then acquired the lease of the Novelty Theatre, which he re-named the Great Queen Street Theatre, and opened on 24 May 1900 with the same play. At this theatre he also revived The Private Secretary and Charley's Aunt, but without much success, and his acting career ended with the run of the last-mentioned play in 1901. He retired to Working, where he lived a quiet country life, until his death at St. Leonards-on-Sea 11 November 1912. Most of the large fortune which he had made from the success of Charley's Aunt was lost in later years.
Penley's face was his fortune. He had a great sense of humour; but it was the expression of his countenance and the dry, metallic quality of his voice which had such irresistible effect on his audience.
Penley was an active churchman, one of the proprietors of the Church Family Newspaper, and also a prominent freemason. He was the author of a little work, Penley on Himself, published in 1884. He married in 1880 Mary Ann, daughter of William Arthur Ricketts, of Cuckfield, Sussex, who survived him, together with three sons and three daughters.
[The Times, 12 November 1912; Daily Telegraph, 12 November 1912; private information; personal knowledge.]
. PERCIVAL, JOHN (1834–1918), schoolmaster and bishop, the son of William Percival, a Westmorland ‘statesman’ (that is, a farmer who owned his land), by his wife, Jane, daughter of William Langmire, of Bolton, Westmorland, was born at Brough Sowerby, Westmorland, 27 September 1834, and educated at Appleby grammar school. He had a strenuous boyhood, ‘trudging to and from school in his clogs, with a blue linen bag of books over his shoulder’, and, in his spare hours, working on the farm. To the end he retained a strong northern accent which suited well his grave and rather melancholy voice. In 1855 he went as an open scholar to Queen's College, Oxford, where he gained the Junior Mathematical scholarship and double first classes (classics and mathematics) both in moderations and in ‘greats’. Immediately after taking his degree he was elected a fellow of his college; but under the strain of spare living and hard work his health broke down temporarily and he was ordered abroad to Pau. There he first met his future wife, Louisa Holland, whom he married in 1862 and by whom he had six children. In 1860 he accepted a mastership at Rugby and, two years later, on Dr. Temple's recommendation, he was appointed first head master of Clifton College. His success was immediate and complete. In less than ten years Clifton had won a recognized place among the great public schools. He was a master builder and, like Dr. Arnold, whose views on education he largely shared, he set the stamp of his personality so deeply on the place that time has not effaced it. ‘One great centre’, wrote Canon J. M. Wilson, ‘from which his influence radiated was the chapel pulpit. His words, somehow, rang true in the ears of the not naturally religious boy and enlisted him on the side of right,
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