In the days of the Patent Theatres, the actors who fretted their hour on the boards of Drury Lane had the distinctive title of “Their Majesty’s Servants.” It was with “servants” in another sense, of His Majesty George III, that the drama had its first start in Australia. It is set down in the records that, on June 4, 1789, some prisoners were permitted to celebrate the King’s birthday by a performance of Farquhar’s comedy of The Recruiting Officer.
The chronicles are silent as to the names of those privileged pioneers of the “youngest of the sister arts” in this country. Imagination is left to pierce, as best it can, “through the blanket of the dark” which muffles them from the gaze of the curious inquirer of the present day. It may be presumed, at all events, that the representative of Farquhar’s hero, Captain Plume, was dressed appropriately for the occasion. One of the military gentlemen would doubtless have furnished a cast-off uniform for the use of the gallant officer in the play. An obliging non-com. would probably have seen to the proper get-up of Plume’s subordinate brother-in-arms, Sergeant Kite. The Recruiting Officer was a popular piece all through the eighteenth century; but its production in Sydney must decidedly be regarded as a unique event in the annals of the British stage. A faithful picture of actors and audience, had there been an artist present to sketch it, would at least have had a human interest such as has rarely attached to a “first night” since “Roscius was an actor in Rome.”
The Recruiting Officer, performed by prisoners
4 June 1789 – The First Dramatic Performance In Australia.
After a lapse of six years, there was a regular attempt made to give the drama a local habitation and a name in New South Wales. It was due, as it was proudly stated at the time, entirely to private enterprise; though also, of course, dependent on Government patronage. Fortunately, some particulars have been preserved as to this effort to contribute to the amusements of the people who were dwellers on the shores of Sydney Cove. About that time the population of the settlement had been added to by the arrival of three political prisoners from Scotland—Messrs. Muir, Margaret and Palmer—since known by the title of the “Scottish Martyrs.” They had been allowed to fix their residences in the neighbourhood of Hunter’s Hill. The three friends paid occasional visits to the town, no restriction being placed on their movements in that respect. One day they noticed a bill posted on the palings which shut off the Tank Stream from stray animals that might pollute its waters.
To their no small astonishment it was actually a play-bill! They learned from it that Saturday evening, the 16th of January, 1796, by permission of His Excellency, and under the management of James Sparrow, would be produced, for the first time in the colony, Dr. Young’s beautiful tragedy of The Revenge, to be followed by that highly amusing piece, The Hotel.
Looking round for the building which was to be the scene of this histrionic “new birth,” they fell in with a certain Mr. Sidaway, who soon introduced himself as the promoter of the scheme. They entered the building and saw what one of them described in a letter to a friend in the old country as a miniature resemblance of a country theatre at “Home.” There was a stage, there were scenes fitted to it, there were footlights, there was a pit and a gallery, and there were side boxes in which the Sydney “quality” might take their ease. They noticed that the gallery was much larger than any other part of the theatre. Mr. Sidaway was a man of means, and he had found the money for the erection of the theatre.
The financial backer of Manager Sparrow followed the calling of a baker, and was, in fact, baker to the Government. He was reputed to have disposed of his batches so profitably, and to have been otherwise so successful in turning an honest penny, as to be worth nearly £8,000. The now prosperous baker had qualified for a free passage to New South Wales by figuring as a burglar, but he had established so good a character in his new home that he had been granted a warrant of emancipation.
In the course of his conversation with the three exiled Scots, the baker gave them to understand that, as regards the fulfilment of the promise which the bill held forth, he and Sparrow had not reckoned without their host. They could boast of having actors and actresses worthy of the discerning public that were expected to muster on the evening of the 16th. Sidaway gave the names of some of them, and a sketch of their history.
There were two gentlemen and three ladies, all of whom were referred to as having had “more or less experience in different lines,” which eulogium of their merits had the advantage of being sufficiently suggestive and comprehensive. But Sidaway did not confine himself to vague generalities as to the abilities of the troupe that Sparrow had gathered under his wing.
He assigned the place of honour to Harry Green. Green was referred to as probably their “best all round performer.” He had been a regular attendant for years at Drury Lane Theatre. He might have been so still, added the sympathetic ex-burglar, if he had not taken it into his head one night to pick pockets in the Lane. George Hughes was next in order, and was characterised as “a decent young fellow of whom his Honour, the Judge, had a very high opinion.” A passionate love for the stage had, as Sidaway observed, dominated Hughes ever since the date of his first visit to a penny-gaff on the Surrey side of the Thames. To gratify his taste in that way, he had made free with his master’s till, and so got booked for “Botany Bay.”
The ladies who were to support the venture were described by Sidaway as “three capital actresses.” They were Mrs. Davies, Mrs. Greville, and Mrs. Radley. They all claimed to have been on the English stage. Their professional achievements were not enumerated by the baker; but he gave a fragment from the biography of one of them, which was not without interest. Mrs. Radley, he observed, had been sent out for ‘‘telling fibs” at the trial of her husband for burglary. Mrs. Radley had, in fact, vainly tried to prove an alibi, and so had to make the journey to the Antipodes. That mishap, seemingly, did not weigh too heavily on Mrs. Radley’s spirits. Mr. Sidaway pronounced her as ‘‘real good in light comedy.” It was on her that the management chiefly relied for the comic relief of the after-piece.
Of the antecedents of the manager, Sparrow, no account is extant. It may be supposed that he had had some connection with theatrical matters in his native land. Sidaway, in the confidences which he bestowed on the visitors from Hunter’s Hill, dwelt solely on Sparrow’s business tact.
Visitors to the gallery could pay in provisions, if they were short of coin. A shilling’s worth of flour, meat or rum would be as welcome as the shilling itself to the janitor at the door. Sparrow was warranted to have a hawk’s eye in gauging the exact value of any such commodities.
“Visitors to the gallery could pay in provisions, if they were short of coin.”
It is not difficult to construct a mental picture of the Sydney in which the first Australian players made their bow. One can see the little town as it must have looked on that evening when Sparrow’s company had assembled for the important event. The track which is one day to be known as George-street extends but a short distance westward till it meets what is still the bush. The houses which flank it at wide intervals at either side are for the most part mere huts built of wood. A few more pretentious edifices of brick, which rise in all the majesty of two storeys, are identified with the Government service.
Away on the rising ground which fronts the right-hand corner of the Cove, stands the cottage which is dignified with the name of Government House, with the garden stretching down towards the water. The figure of the red-coated sentry, with his three cornered hat, hair in queue, pipe-clayed knee breeches and black gaiters, is a conspicuous object as he paces to and fro. The heavy “Brown Bess’’ he shoulders doubtless feels heavier and hotter under the rays of the mid-summer sun. Probably, as he glances towards the town, he thinks of the entertainment with which it is to be enlivened, and wishes he could be there. Possibly his ear catches bits of the conversation that is going on among a group of military gentlemen on the verandah, whom His Excellency has invited to dinner; and who, for want of a better subject, are discussing the prospects of the new dramatic experiment. The Governor himself does not purpose to honour the performance with his presence; but authority, as otherwise officially represented, will not disdain to lend its patronage.
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View of Governor's residence, Rose Hill, c.1798 (unknown artist) - Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales
Anyhow, it will be a break in the monotony of life as it is in the settlement that has not yet celebrated its eighth birthday. Perhaps an officer or two, or mayhap a captain from one of the transport ships lying in the Cove—three of them had arrived with convicts in December, 1795—may drop in to see the show.
As boats from the vessels pull shoreward, the question as to whether they are bearing any intending patrons of the drama, will naturally be debated by the small knots of gossipers that muster here and there, in costumes which proclaim them as “Government men.’’ Individuals privileged to wear the civic dress of the period, with no distinctive badge hinting either of enforced or voluntary engagements to reside in New South Wales, are in a very trifling minority.
The “popular’’ part of the theatre, we may be sure, would—as in later and very different days in Sydney—soon see its seats occupied. The galleryites, with respectful silence, may be imagined as watching the entrance of the gentlemen, and of such of the “society” ladies as the occasion attracted. At all events, it may well be supposed that the satirical wits of the gallery would take precious good care that their comments on the “superior persons” in the audience were not uttered in tones that were too audible. Whispers and expressive grins would have to serve instead of boisterous chaff at the expense of official importance. But the gallery would very likely be in a good humour, and not disposed to take any risks in that direction. It was bound to be on its best behaviour; for was it not known that His Excellency had threatened that, if anything unseemly occurred, the players would be sent to work at Toongabbie, with, perhaps, a choice selection of the audience to keep them company.
Among the official countenances that actually smiled on the entertainment, that of Lieutenant-Colonel Collins was presumably not wanting “in front.” While the spectators were waiting for the curtain to go up, their talk would turn on the celebrity to whom the first item was entrusted. For was it not known that Mr. George Barrington, now head constable at Rose Hill, but whose pick-pocketing exploits had once filled three kingdoms with his fame, was to speak the prologue!
The house was chock full. While admission to the popular part of the establishment was regulated on so accommodating a scale, the prices elsewhere were fixed at a becomingly “genteel” level. The pit was 2s. 6d., the side boxes 3s. 6d. [respectively 2 shillings & sixpence; 3 shillings & sixpence.] The treat afforded the audience was an early one, as estimated by modern standards. The door opened at half-past five, and the curtain rose at half-past six.
“The play” itself was not “the thing” which gave the opening of the first theatre in Sydney a celebrity which has lasted to our own day, and which will last for many a day to come. It was, as everybody knows, owing to that prologue already referred to, spoken by George Barrington, and containing the lines so often quoted since about the patriots who “left their country for their country’s good.” The “Prince of Pickpockets,” who, in the course of his remarkable adventures, had been a strolling player, was, no doubt, a valuable auxiliary for Sparrow to enlist in the service of the drama, if even for that occasion only, as it probably was. For there is no further mention of Barrington in connection with the performance of the company. No need to deal here with the vexed question as to whether Barrington was the author of the prologue or not. Doubtless he delivered it with plenty of point, and with that ease of manner—that bel air which, when he used to rub shoulders with the fine gentlemen at balls and masquerades with a view to relieving them of their watches, enabled him to pass so readily as one of themselves. One can imagine the lofty condescension with which so distinguished an expert in pocket-picking as George Barrington had been would receive the compliments of such a comparative amateur in that delicate profession as Harry Green. Whatever plaudits Green may have won as the central figure in Dr. Young’s tragedy, one may naturally suppose that he must have been conscious of shining with diminished glory beside the eminent exile who had spoken the prologue.
It is only proper to note, for the satisfaction of readers who object to the slightest peg being left on which a doubt may hang respecting an alleged fact, that the whole of the Barrington story in connection with the prologue has been declared apocryphal. It has been said that the prologue itself was never heard of till it appeared in a book published in London. It has been added, by the same sceptic, that the idea of associating it with Barrington’s name was, like the prologue itself, a literary hoax, and nothing more. This, however, is carrying random assertion a great deal too far. It is certain that, long after the prologue was printed, there were hundreds of persons living in New South Wales who could have contradicted a glaring mis-statement as to its origin. None of them spoke. They seemingly all accepted the Barrington tradition as authentic. It is so full of local colour and so appropriate to “time and the hour,” as well as to the man, that a later generation may accept it too.
George Barrington speaking the famous prologue:
"True Patriots all, for, be it understood,
We left our country for our country's good."
The tragedy in which Mr. Sparrow’s company made their first bow has many a year since dropped out of all knowledge of the play-going public. Representations of it are merely traditional memories. Yet once it enjoyed extraordinary favour on the British boards. It had what the taste of its day regarded as strong situations. The agony was piled up with a liberal hand in the final ones where the vengeful Moor, Zanga, sees, as the result of his machinations, the death by their own hands of the noble Spaniard, Alonzo, and of Alonzo’s wife. Edmund Kean, by his powerful acting as the implacable Moor, gave the tragedy a new lease of life in the first quarter of the last century.
Southey, the poet, once, when sitting in the pit of Drury Lane—while Kean, as Zanga, strode exultingly over the dead body of Alonzo—was perfectly thrilled by the awful expression of the actor’s face. He thought Kean looked the very incarnation of the devil.
Kean was, perhaps, not yet born when the original Australian Zanga sailed for New South Wales. It is not unlikely, however, that before Harry Green’s fingers had played him false in the filching line he may have witnessed John Kemble in the character of the Moor. By the bye, it may be worth while to note, as attesting the esteem in which the now long forgotten tragedy was generally held at one time, that there is a reference to it in Byron’s works. The author of Childe Harold, in some early and immature poetical recollections of “Harrow, and the exhibitions on speech days” in which he took part, exclaims:
I once more view the room, with spectators surrounded,
Where as Zanga I trod on Alonzo o’erthrown;
While to swell my young pride, such applauses resounded,
I fancied that Mossop himself was outshone.
Mossop, the rival of Garrick, was a renowned Zanga.
Zanga overthrows Alonzo (c.1814)
Project Gutenberg
Mr. Green’s Zanga was doubtless acceptable enough to the not too fastidious taste of the audience by the Tank Stream. It is also to be hoped that the lady who bid for comic honours in the after-piece justified Mr. Sidaway’s good opinion of her. Anyhow, it is certain that the playhouse was not neglected, and that its patrons were regaled with other choice selections from the British drama, besides these with which their pulse was tried in the first instance. Like a judicious caterer, Mr. Sparrow knew how to vary the dramatic dishes which he served up. The light followed the heavy. On Saturday, July 16, 1796, comedy was wholly in the ascendant. Mrs Centlivre’s Busy Body was the first item on the bill, while the second was O’Keefe’s Poor Soldier, a piece which must have given many of the ladies and gentlemen of the company who happened to have singing voices a chance of charming the house. The Busy Body had a revival in Sydney so comparatively late as twenty odd years ago. It was played at the Opera House in York-street by the company of which Miss Marie de Gray was the leading lady and directress. As for The Poor Soldier, its tuneful melodies have not saved it from the grave in which nearly all the dramatic literature of the same period is buried.
When the company reverted to tragedy, The Fair Penitent of Nicholas Rowe was one of the productions on which they tried their mettle. The heroine of The Fair Penitent was one of the characters in which the genius of Mrs. Siddons was wont to be displayed in London at that time Mrs. Greville, the tragic lady, and Mr. Sparrow’s choice —or necessity—was interpreting it in Sydney.
New blood was added to the company, so far as the gentlemen were concerned. Messrs. Jones, Chapman and Evans are found bracketed with Green and Hughes in a cast specified in one of the later announcements. The three ladies who shone on the opening night, meanwhile, seem to have been associated with no other theatrical rivals of their own sex.
All was fair weather for the players at the beginning. The public took them to its generous heart. The authorities smiled on them, too. They indulged in the hope that the theatre had come to stay. The annalists, who tell us so very little about the theatre itself and the men and women who trod its boards, are more explicit as to the causes which brought about its downfall. It was alleged against it that, instead of exercising an effect for the better on the community, it was making them worse. The case of Mr. Sparrow’s leading man, as frankly related by the “co-operative” baker, had, it appears, become the case of a great number of the people who visited the theatre. When they had no money to pay for admission they laid their hands, it was averred, on anything portable which would be received as an equivalent. The moral wrath of Governor Hunter was aroused. He ordered the house to be closed. To what uses the ingenious artists who had constituted its attraction next applied their talent is a matter left to mere conjecture. Mayhap, like the English players under the Commonwealth, when Oliver and his Saints closed the theatres, they gave private exhibitions of their talent. The reward for that kind of thing would not, indeed, be very tempting in the straggling hamlet which represented Sydney eight or nine years after the settlement was founded. Besides, as all the ladies and gentlemen who had responded to the call of Sparrow were prisoners of the Crown, the command issued from Government House was one to be religiously obeyed.
A whole generation passed away before His Majesty’s representative was approached again with regard to a license for a theatre in Sydney. Sparrow was then most likely in his grave. But the names of those early workers in a field that has been so widely developed since in Australia are certainly worth remembering. Do their spirits, and those of the trio of fair ladies who shared their histrionic labours, ever revisit the glimpses of the footlights in the Sydney of the twentieth century?
The Lone Hand (Vol. 8, No. 44) – 1 December 1910, pp. 89–96
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Plays mentioned in the article:
The Recruiting Officer – 5-act comedy by George Farquhar; premiered in London at The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 8 April 1706; first play to be performed in Australia on 4 June 1789.
The Revenge – 5-act tragedy by Edward Young; premiered in London at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 18 April 1721; first Australian performance at Robert Sidaway’s Theatre, Sydney on 16 January 1796.
The Hotel; or, The Double Valet – Farce by Thomas Vaughan; premiered in London at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 21 November 1776; first Australian performance at Robert Sidaway’s Theatre, Sydney on 16 January 1796.
The Busy Body (aka The Busie Body) – 3-act comedy by Mrs. Susannah Centlivre; premiered in London at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 12 May 1709; first Australian performance at Robert Sidaway’s Theatre, Sydney on 23 July 1796. (Revived as The Busybody by the London Comedy Company headed by Miss Marie de Gray at the Opera House in York Street, Sydney on Saturday, 4 October 1884 for a season of five nights. The play was subsequently revived by the company at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne on 1 January 1885 for a season of three nights and on tour amongst its repertoire.)
The Poor Soldier – 1-act comic opera, text by John O’Keefe, music by William Shield; premiered in London at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden on 4 November 1783; first Australian performance at Robert Sidaway’s Theatre, Sydney on 23 July 1796.
The Fair Penitent – 5 act tragedy by Nicholas Rowe; premiered in London at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in May 1703; first Australian performance at Robert Sidaway’s Theatre, Sydney on 4 February 1796.
National Library of Australia, Canberra
Additional Sources
Eric Irvin, Dictionary of the Australian Theatre 1788–1914, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1985
Wikipedia.org
Ausstage.edu.au lists additional productions staged at Sidaway’s Theatre up to December 1803 and speculation on the actual location of the theatre in Sydney.
Further Reading:
The Prologue purported to have been delivered by George Barrington at the opening of the Theatre in 1796 is quoted in full in an article published by the Glen Innes Examiner and General Advertiser (NSW), on Tuesday, 15 November 1887, p.2 (under the heading of VARIETIES), as follows:
From distant lands, o'er wide spread seas we come,
But not with much eclat, or beat of drum,
True patriots all, for be it understood,
We left our country for our country's good:
No private views disgraced our generous zeal,
What urged our travels was our country's weal,
And none can doubt but that our emigration
Has proved most useful to the British nation.
He who to midnight ladders is no stranger
You'll own will make an admirable Ranger;
To seek Macheath we have not far to roam,
And sure in Filch I shall be quite at home.
Here light and easy Columbines are found,
And well-trained Harlequins with us abound;
From durance vile our precious selves to keep
We've often had to make a flying leap;
To a black face have sometimes owed escape,
And Hounslow Heath has proved the worthy of crape.
But how, you ask, can we e'er hope to soar
Above those scenes, and rise to tragic lore?
For oft, alas! we've forced th' unwilling tear,
And petrified the heart with real fear.
Macbeth a harvest of applause will reap,
For some of us, I fear, have murdered sleep.
His lady, too, with grace and ease will talk —
Our ladies have been used at night to walk!
Sometimes, indeed, so various is our art,
An actor may improve and mend his part.
"Give me a horse!" bawls Richard, like a drone;
We'll find a man would help himself to one.
Grant us your favors, put us to the test;
To gain your smiles we'll do our very best;
And without dread of future turnkey Lockits,
Thus, in any honest way, still pick your pockets.
["Macheath" - the gentleman highwayman, "Filch" and "Lockit" - the gaoler, are all characters from John Gay's The Beggar's Opera of 1728, which would have been equally familiar to audiences of the period, in addition to the well-known Shakespearean roles.]
A letter written to the Editor of the Melbourne Argus by Edward A. Petherick of Streatham, England (dated April 23), was published in the issue for Saturday, 4 June 1904 on p.4 (which may be read at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/10322875/337273), in which he stated that: "none of the books bearing the name of George Barrington were of his writing" (including the History of New South Wales), and that "the celebrated 'prologue' was not of colonial origin" citing the book Original Poems and Translations chiefly by Susannah Watts, published in London in 1802, as its source. Petherick was also "inclined to believe" that the Prologue was written by John Carter of Leicester (citing other works that he had authored.)
Some three years later in 1907, Sydney book collector Alfred Lee also found the "original" version of the Prologue in Original Poems and Translations ..., chiefly by Susanna Watts (published by F. and C. Rivington of St. Paul’s Churchyard, London in 1802), which was reported in The Record (Emerald Hill, Vic.), on Saturday, 13 April 1907, p.3 under the heading TRUE PATRIOTS ALL and may be read at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/162257172 (as extracted from The Native Companion issued on 30 March 1907).
Alfred Lee’s discovery was reiterated in the article George Barrington: The Man and the Myth by J.H.M. Abbott, published in The World's News (Sydney), on Saturday, 9 January 1926, pp.10-11, which also claimed that the true authorship of the verse can be ascribed to Henry Carter (a friend of Susannah Watts), and details how it subsequently came to be spuriously credited to George Barrington (by implication) following its inclusion in the book History of New South Wales first published in London in 1802. The article, which also quotes Carter’s "true" version of the Prologue, may be read at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/131454230 (Additionally, a digitised copy of Susannah Watts' book may be viewed on the State Library of New South Wales website, with the Prologue "bookmarked" at https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/74VMyxKLkWdM/EzzA3p3KdgDlr)
However Arthur Jose asserted in his article The “Barrington” Prologue published in the Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Australian Historical Society - Vol. 13 Part 5 (1927), pp. 292-294 (which may be read at https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-598291576/view?sectionId=nla.obj-606044351) that while Henry Carter was its true author, the Prologue was indeed delivered by George Barrington and published prior to the “revised” version by Carter that subsequently appeared in Susannah Watts’ volume, as evidenced by its publication on pp.516-17 of the Annual Register for 1801, where it was noted as “PROLOGUE. By a Gentleman of Leicester. On opening the Theatre, at Sydney, Botany Bay, to be spoken by the celebrated Mr. Barrington.”
Finally, a detailed account of the life and times of George Barrington was serialised in the Sydney Truth published between 19 April to 9 May 1926 under the by-line “Old Sydney” (Told by "Old Chum"), the various instalments of which may be read at the following links:
- George Barrington – His Life and Love Affair – Sunday, 18 April 1926, p. 20 – https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/168725407
- More About George Barrington – Sunday, 25 April 1926, p.20 – https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/168728193
- How Barrington Foiled a Mutiny – Sunday, 2 May 1926, p.20 – https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/168726413
- The Life Story of George Barrington Concluded – Sunday, 9 May 1926, p.20 – https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/168719902
