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The history of theTheatre Royal, Edinburgh involves two sites. The first building, onPrinces Street, opened 1769 and was rebuilt in 1830 byThomas Hosmer Shepherd. The second site was on Broughton Street.
The first Theatre Royal was in Shakespeare Square, at the east end ofPrinces Street.[1] Following the granting of letters patent for the theatre by theEdinburgh (Improvements) Act 1766 (7 Geo. 3. c. 27), it was opened 9 December 1769 by actor-managerDavid Ross.Mary Bulkley performed here during the 1780s.[2] In July 1792Harriet Pye Esten became the theatre manager when she purchased the lease. The theatre had been run byStephen Kemble but he lost the rights to perform which were withdrawn by Esten's loverDouglas Hamilton, 8th Duke of Hamilton. In 1794 Esten returned the rights to Stephen Kemble to perform inEdinburgh in exchange for £200 a year.[3]
In 1809 the theatre was taken over bySarah Siddons's actor son,Henry Siddons. It went into a period of decline under his control, but following his death in 1815 was revived by his wife,Harriet Siddons who took a 21-year lease from 1809 until 1830, then becoming outright owner and leasing to her brotherWilliam Henry Murray from 1830 until 1851.[4]
The first theatre was closed in 1859 to make way for the building of the General Post Office (which survives but is converted to office use)[5] whose foundation was laid by Prince Albert in October 1861.[6]
The theatre was taken over byR. H. Wyndham around 1860. The royal patent and title was then transferred to the Queen's Theatre and Operetta House in a site in Broughton Street, on an earlier Circus (previously the Adelphi Theatre). The manager of the theatre wasRobert Henry Wyndham. It burned down and was rebuilt in 1865, 1875, and 1884, each time retaining the patent. The last architect wasCharles Phipps when in 1884 it was leased to Cecil Beryl of the Princess's Theatre, Glasgow.[7] This Theatre Royal became part ofHoward & Wyndham Ltd formed in Glasgow in 1895. From the 1920sHoward & Wyndham leased it out to Fred Collins, lessee of Glasgow'sPavilion Theatre, as the Theatre Royal Varieties, with the Collins family establishing its wardrobe and production centre adjacent.[8] It was destroyed by fire in 1946 and not rebuilt only due to post-war shortages of building materials.[9]
Edmund John Eyre's dramatic adaptation ofWalter Scott's narrative poemThe Lady of the Lake (1810) was staged at the Theatre Royal in 1811.[10]
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