Lionel Robert Brough

Robert Brough (1857 – 21 April 1906) was born in England to a family prominent in literature and the theatre. He had a notable career as actor and manager in Australia.

History

Brough was born Lionel Barnabas Brough in England, son of Robert Barnabas Brough (1828–1860) journalist, poet and librettist, and Elizabeth Brough, nḗe Romer. Actress Fanny Brough was a sister. Brough was introduced to Florence Trevelyan when he started working with the D'Oyley Carte No. 2 Company, and shortly after they married he was put on a three-year contract at the Gaiety. There was no part for Mrs Brough, so she accepted a part in The Private Secretary, being staged by Frank Thornton at the Gaiety Theatre. They next reprised their Melbourne successes as the Lord Chancellor and Queen of the Fairies in Iolanthe.

In 1886 Brough and Dion Boucicault Jr. formed the Brough-Boucicault Comedy Company to play burlesques, then in 1888 began production of higher-class comedy, with G. S. Titheradge, who had also been playing with Williamson, Garner & Musgrove. The Bijou Theatre, Melbourne, had become their headquarters following the Majeroni's setbacks, but on 22 April 1889 the theatre was destroyed by fire with the loss of all their costumes, scenery, music and the rest, including much personal property which had been stowed there, none of it insured. Two volunteer firemen died fighting the blaze. They had been due to open with Betsy (F. C. Burnand's reworking of Bébé and did their best at the Hibernian Hall, but the Melbourne audience proved fickle, and stayed away. The company, with its new members Eille Norwood, Fanny Enson, Lilian Seccombe, and Percy Lyndal moved to the Criterion, Sydney for a year to recover.

In 1894, Boucicault returned to London, where he picked up new plays and actors, including Geraldine Cliffe, Beryl Faber and Arthur Elwood.

Boucicault left the partnership in 1896, and the Broughs pressed on, touring Australia, and later through China and India.

In 1900 he famously picked up Gregan McMahon, toured Australia and New Zealand, India and China again, then in 1902 disbanded. Among the plays produced was Wilde's An Ideal Husband in 1895, a bold move according to one historian, "at the height of his notoriety",

A cast iron three–tiered fountain was dedicated to Robert Brough by friends and Australasian theatre managers following his death. The fountain was announced in April 1907 and fabricated by the Coalbrookdale Iron Foundry, later unveiled by the Premier of NSW, Sir Charles Gregory Wade MLA on 18 November 1907. It is located inside the courtyard of the Sydney Hospital adjacent the Nightingale Wing and the North Block.

Appreciation In an interview by Beaumont Smith for the Adelaide Gadfly, Brough's late partner Herbert Flemming recounted how they first met some twenty years earlier, when Brough was playing for Williamson in Patience and about to join with Boucicault in The Magistrate at the Bijou. Flemming noted that beside his stagecraft, which was of the highest order, he was impressed with his thoroughness and generosity — "he lived for two things, his wife and his art"; his consideration and patience, with never a thought for himself — when convalescing in the Blue Mountains he apologised to Flemming for the trouble he was causing. And his wife was of the same ilk; after his death she supported the idea of a hospital bed in her husband's name, but refused any kind of benefit for herself — she would sooner "work to her dying day."