page_title: St James's Theatre
section_title: Five managements: 1858–1869
hierarchical_section_title: St James's Theatre / History / Five managements: 1858–1869
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Ruth Herbert
context_page_description: The St James's Theatre was in King Street, St James's, London. It opened in 1835 and was demolished in 1957. The theatre was conceived by and built for a popular singer, John Braham; it lost money and after three seasons he retired. A succession of managements over the next forty years also failed to make it a commercial success, and the St James's acquired a reputation as an unlucky theatre. It was not until 1879–1888, under the management of the actors John Hare and Madge and W. H. Kendal that the theatre began to prosper.
  The Hare-Kendal management was succeeded, after brief and disastrous attempts by other lessees, by that of the actor-manager George Alexander, who was in charge from 1891 until his death in 1918. Under Alexander the house gained a reputation for programming that was adventurous without going too far for the tastes of London society. Among the plays he presented were Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest, and A. W. Pinero's The Second Mrs Tanqueray.
  After Alexander's death the theatre came under the control of a succession of managements.
context_section_description: Following this the theatre had a succession of managements. F. B. Chatterton became the lessee for two years from 1858. He presented a season, mainly of Shakespeare, by the popular actor Barry Sullivan, and staged F. C. Burnand's first major play, a burlesque called Dido, which ran for 80 performances. Alfred Wigan, who had been a member of Braham's original company, briefly took over the house in 1860, and was succeeded, equally briefly, by George Vining (1824–1875).  Under Frank Matthews, who took over in December 1862, the theatre had its longest-running production thus far: Lady Audley's Secret, which ran for 104 nights. Matthews ended his tenancy in July 1863 and was followed by Benjamin Webster, who mounted a series of revivals and a few new burlesques and extravaganzas, which were financially unsuccessful.
  A member of Webster's company, Ruth Herbert, took over in 1864 and ran the theatre until 1868. She attracted much praise for presenting Henry Irving in his first important appearance on a London stage. His performance in Dion Boucicault's Hunted Down in November 1866 caused a sensation. The following month the theatre presented W. S. Gilbert's first burlesque, Dulcamara! or, The Little Duck and the Great Quack, a parody of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, which ran until Easter the following year. The Herbert management ended in April 1868. The theatre historian W. J. MacQueen-Pope writes:
  She had done nobly and had earned widespread praise. She had kept the theatre open and had brought at least two young people, both destined for greatness, to the notice of the London public – Henry Irving and Charles Wyndham. But the St James's had lost her a lot of money.
  The season after her departure was notable for two Offenbach productions in which Hortense Schneider starred, bringing the Prince of Wales and London society to the theatre in June 1868.
caption: Ruth Herbert, lessee 1864–1868
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