Garrick Club (Adelaide)

The Garrick Club was the name which could apply to several South Australian amateur theatrical groups, perhaps tenuously related, the most successful being the incarnation which operated from 1892 to 1899.

On 13 March 1850 a company of theatre enthusiasts (Nicholson, Dibold, Goodrich and Bonney) calling themselves the "Dramatic Amateurs" or "Amateur Dramatic Society", put on several plays at the New Queen's Theatre, then changed their name to Adelaide Garrick Club. The New Queen's Theatre closed its doors shortly afterwards and following productions were put on in the Victoria Theatre. Was this the same as the Royal Victoria Theatre (the remodelled Queen's Theatre)?

The Garrick Cricket Club was formed in 1875, which staged several successful annual entertainments at White's Rooms, that of 1876 including Breaking the Spell (an operetta by Offenbach) with W. R. Pybus on piano.

In 1889 the Garrick Club was re-formed or its name revived, with Misses Beddome, Schrader, Dora Moulden, and Nelson, and Messrs. Angel, Guy Boothby, Cook, G. V. S. Dunn, C. M. Gribble, R. Herbert, H. R. Holder, M. Marcus, A. L. Parker, and Lewes Wicksteed as prominent members. Their productions included an operetta written in South Australia.

In 1892 the Garrick Dramatic Club was founded by Edward Reeves and John Henry Lyons. Membership was invited from the city's elocutionists: E. Reeves, C. Morgan, Benjamin H. Gillman, E. H. Shaw, H. T. Sparrow, R. A. C. Herbert, A. Norton, C. C. Paltridge, J. H. Lyons, Miss Wadham, Aileen Bancroft and Miss Pizey and soon reached a high standard of performance, with critics enthusiastic rather than generous. Later members included Walter Bentley, E. H. Shaw, Mary Bancroft, Beatrice Gordon, Marion Woodcock, Charles Morgan, Richard Herbert, J. D. Furlonge, Frank Seaton, Fairfax Kendal, Tom Potts, Kate Shirley, Marian Daniels and Alexander Cochrane. The club appears to have folded after a triumphant 1899 season which ended anticlimactically with a poorly-attended finale at the Theatre Royal.

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