III

When after his long illness in 1898–1899 the proposition of selling his interest in the Lyceum was made to Irving by the Lyceum Theatre Company—the parent Company—the terms suggested were these:

He was to convey to the Company his lease—of which some eighteen years were still to run, and all his furniture and fittings in the theatre. He was for five years—the duration of the contract—to play an annual engagement of at least a hundred performances at the Lyceum on terms which were mentioned and which were between 10 per cent. and 25 per cent. less than he was in the habit of receiving in any other theatre. He was to hand over to the Company one-fourth of all his profits made by acting elsewhere, he guaranteeing to play on tour at least four months in each year. He was to give the Company free use of such of his scenery and properties as were not in his own use. He was to pay all the expenses of production of plays in the first year, and in the others 60 per cent. of the same. For the first season he was to guarantee the Company a minimum of £100 for their share of each performance. He was to pay all the stage expenses, and half of the advertisements.

For this the Company were to pay him down £26,500 in cash and £12,500 in fully paid shares in proportion of the two classes, viz., £100,000 6 per cent. preference shares and £70,000 ordinary shares.

I protested to Irving against the terms. I had already worked out the figures of results, according to such data as were available, of this scheme and also of an alternative one, in case he wished to abandon or alter the one on which we had already decided. The difference was that according to the alternative scheme, he would at the end of five years, in addition to the total of profits realisable by the Company scheme, be still in possession of his theatre, scenery, and property of all kinds.

That I was correct has been shown by the unhappy result of the Company enterprise. The Company lost almost persistently except in the seasons when Irving played. The one exception was, I believe, when William Gillette played Sherlock Holmes, a piece which Irving recommended the directors to accept. I was present at its first night in New York, and saw at once its London possibilities.

The Company lasted from the beginning of 1899 till the end of the season of 1902. During this period of less than four years the total amount in cash accruing to the Company from Irving’s acting was roughly £29,000.

In estimating this amount I took as the basis of the Company’s expenses the cost of running the theatre in our own time for the number of weeks covering the time of Irving’s seasons with the Company. This allowed as liberal an amount as our own management, which was carried out on a much more generous scale. I excluded only the item of rental, which, as the Company was its own landlord, would be represented by the productiveness of the capital. The above amount would, roughly, have paid during each of the whole four years in which the contract lasted the preference shareholders their whole 6 per cent. and the ordinary shareholders over 1½ per cent. in each entire year, leaving seven whole months of each year, exclusive of summer holidays, for earning the 4 per cent. dividend on the £120,000 mortgage debentures, and increasing the dividend on the ordinary shares.

It will from the above figures be seen that the contract which Irving made with the Lyceum Company was not in any way a beneficial one for him, but an excellent one for them.

I am particular about giving these figures in detail, for at some of the meetings of the Company there was the usual angry “heckling” of the directorate regarding losses; and there were not lacking those who alleged that Irving was in some way to blame for the result. But I am bound to say that when, at the meeting in 1903, I thought it necessary to put a stop to such misconception and gave the rough figures showing the results of his playing during the time the contract existed, my statement was received even by the disappointed shareholders with loud and continuous cheers—the only cheers which I ever heard at a meeting of the Company. I honestly believe that there was not one person in the room who was not genuinely and heartily glad to be reassured from such an authoritative source as myself as to Irving’s position with the Company.

The cancellation of the contract between Irving and the Lyceum Theatre Company was in no way due to any fault or default of his. It became necessary solely because the Company was unable to fulfil its part. The London County Council, in accordance with some new regulations, called on the Company to make certain structural alterations in the theatre. The directors said they could not afford to make them as their funds were exhausted; and so the theatre had to remain closed. At that time Irving had already undertaken vast responsibilities with regard to the play of Dante, for which he had made contracts with painters and costumiers, and had engaged artists. It was vitally necessary that he should have a theatre wherein to play; and so there was no alternative but to annul the contract. Even as it was, he had to take on his own shoulders the whole of the vast cost of the production upon which he had entered as a joint concern.

In fine, Irving’s dealings with the Company may be thus summed up. He received in all for his property, lease, goodwill, fixtures, furniture, the use of his stock of scenery and properties, and a fourth of his profits elsewhere, £39,000 paid as follows: cash, £26,500; shares, £12,500. He repaid by his work £29,000 in cash. The shares he received proved valueless. [6] He gave, in fact, his property and £2500 for nothing;—and he lost about two years of his working life.

6. The preference shares at the break-up sold for, as well as I remember, seven pence for each fully paid share of one pound sterling. He would never sell his shares lest his doing so might injure the property of the Company. They were only parted with at the winding-up, when the Receiver sold, on his own authority, all unapplied-for shares.

I should like to say, on my own account, and for my own protection, inasmuch as I was Sir Henry Irving’s business manager, that from first to last I had absolutely no act or part in the formation of the Lyceum Theatre Company—in its promotion, flotation, or working. Even my knowledge of it was confined to matters touched on in the contract with Irving. From the first I had no information as to its purposes, scope or methods, outside the above. I did not take a single share till it began to look queer with regard to its future; I then bought from a friend five shares for which I paid par value. This I did in order that I might have a right to attend the meetings. Later, in 1903, when shares were selling at all sorts of prices I bought some in the open market. This was simply as a speculation, as I regarded the freehold of the Lyceum as a valuable property which might eventually realise a price which would make my investment at the prevailing figures a good one. These shares I protected on the winding-up and reconstruction of the Company with an assessment of 25 per cent. of their face value. But finally, seeing the conditions under which the new Company was about to work, I sold them in the usual way through my broker.

As a matter of fact I was on the Atlantic or in America at the time the parent company or syndicate—to whom it was that Irving had sold his property—was formed. When I arrived home this association had become merged in the Lyceum Theatre Company which had been floated, and of which the whole capital had been subscribed. Not for nearly a year afterwards did I even see a copy of the prospectus of the Company.