Joseph Harker

Joseph Cunningham Harker (17 October 1855 – 15 April 1927) was an English scene painter and theatrical designer.

Bram Stoker co-opted his surname for the character of Jonathan Harker in his Gothic horror novel Dracula .

Career Harker was born in Levenshulme, Manchester, Lancashire on 17 October 1855 to Maria (née O'Connor) and William Pierpont Harker. Maria was from an Irish theatre family, and the couple were at the time performing at the Theatre Royal in Manchester.

Harker played child parts, including Fleance in William Shakespeare's Macbeth, before being apprenticed to his uncle's trade of scenery painting. Harker subsequently became a scene painter for a number of major English theatres.

While best known for his work at the Lyceum Theatre alongside Hawes Craven and William Telbin (1846–1931), he was also responsible for the complete scenery for Richard Wagner's Parsifal at Covent Garden; for A Life of Pleasure performed at the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane in September 1893 and then at the Prince's Theatre, Bristol, later in that same year, as well as for the musical Chu Chin Chow, which ran for a record-breaking five years in London's West End from 1916.

Harker died at the age of 71 on 15 April 1927 in Hampstead, north London, and was interred at Golders Green Crematorium. These were still being used by artists such as Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey to create artworks. as an important and rare surviving example of a theatrical scene-painting workshop, the Southwark Council in early 2017 granted permission for the studios to be redeveloped into six luxury flats and an office unit. Prior to this decision the ground floor had been occupied by the trade counter for Flints Theatrical Chandlers, which sold paints, brushes and all of the other material required for the scenic arts.

Personal life Harker married Sarah Elizabeth Hall (1856–1927). Their son Gordon Harker, who was born in 1885, became a theatre and film character actor.

Joseph and Sarah's great-granddaughter Polly Adams was an actress, while three of their great-great-granddaughters, Nelly Harker, Susannah Harker and Caroline Harker, also became actresses.

Harker was depicted as an enigmatic secondary character in Joseph O'Connor's 2019 novel Shadowplay. In the novel, Harker was a young woman who had disguised herself as a man in order to obtain the position of scene painter at the Lyceum Theatre.