Early days

The Beefsteak Room was a dining area within the Lyceum Theatre where the great actor-manager, Henry Irving, would entertain his friends and distinguished guests. Irving was the foremost actor of his day, inspiring and thrilling audiences and fellow actors alike with his originality and panache. He devoted his zestful energy to raising the profile of the acting profession from what had been seen by “polite society” as disreputable to acceptable. He received a knighthood from Queen Victoria in 1895, the first actor ever to achieve the accolade.

Irving invited Charles Wyndham, J. L. Toole and Squire Bancroft, together with other prominent members of the theatrical profession, to dine with him one evening in the Beefsteak Room, and it was on their collective initiative that a decision was made to found a charity to be known as the Actors’ Benevolent Fund.

This first committee meeting of the fledgling charity took place on the 4th May 1882.

Bram Stoker, Irving’s business partner in the management of the Lyceum and the person later to be the author of Dracula, acting as temporary secretary recorded the initial objective of the Fund to be “the relief of distressed and decayed actors”, an unfortunate description soon to be changed; also recorded was a proposal to levy “a tax of one penny in the pound upon all salaries of actors to be paid into the fund”. Four days later at the next meeting both the unhappy wording and the tax idea were abandoned as unpopular!

To raise money, special all-star matinees were staged, with Irving and his acting partner Ellen Terry often appearing in scenes from their theatrical successes. The first of these matinees was given at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1883. It was a varied programme, opening with “A Grotesque Dance” performed by Fred Storey and the Girards, followed by a selection from “Iolanthe”, with George Grossmith as the Lord Chancellor; and then a scene from “The Merchant of Venice”, with Irving as Shylock and Ellen Terry as Portia. William Terriss, a name that in a few years’ time would feature tragically in the history of the Fund, played the part of Bassanio.

These regular matinees continued raising money for the Fund, with many of the most famous personalities of the day taking part, and on at least one occasion the renowned French actress Sarah Bernhardt was billed to appear.