Henry Gartside Neville

Thomas Henry Gartside Neville (20 June 1837 – 19 June 1910) was an English actor, dramatist, teacher and theatre manager. He began his career playing dashing juvenile leads, later specialising in Shakespearean roles, modern comedy and melodrama. His most famous role was as Bob Brierley in Tom Taylor's The Ticket-of-Leave Man. As the manager of the Olympic Theatre from 1873 to 1879, he presented numerous successful productions. In later years, he became a respected character actor.

Neville was born in Manchester, England, son of John Garside Neville and his second wife Mary Anna, née Gartside (died 1895). He was the twentieth child of his father, an actor and the manager of Queen's Theatre, Spring Gardens, Manchester, who himself was the twentieth child of his father. Though Neville senior was in the theatre, there were strong military traditions on both sides of the family, and John Neville was opposed to his son's decision to pursue a theatrical rather than a military career and refused to help him. Neville had one brother, George (born c. 1839), one sister, Josaphine (c. 1838–1895), and nineteen half-brothers and sisters.

From 1857 to 1860 Neville acted in the English provinces and Scotland. When the tragedian John Vandenhoff made his farewell performance in 1858 at the Theatre Royal, Liverpool, Neville played Cromwell to Vandenhoff's Wolsey in Shakespeare's King Henry VIII. He made his London debut in 1860 as Percy Ardent in Dion Boucicault's The Irish Heiress at the Lyceum Theatre. The Observer said of his performance: "Mr Henry Neville, a new importation from Liverpool, was gentlemanly and easy, of good manners and dashing appearance; and he promises to fill a dreary gap in the London theatrical world – the line of jeunes premières." He attracted further good notices for his next role, in The Love Chase, receiving encouragement from The Times "as a representative of young men of something like rank and position." The same year, he played Victor Savignie in Arrienne at the Lyceum and, at the Olympic Theatre, he played Ivan in Serf and Valjean in an adaptation of Les Miserables.

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