Mr Walton of the Princess's Theatre

 

Work in progress!  

WALTON, Thomas James (b ?Barnsley ?1799; d Warren Street, Tottenham Court Row 17 July 1847)

 

A while back, one of the world’s top theatre historians asked me ‘who was this Mr Walton of the Princess’s Theatre?’ I could only answer, ‘well, he was Mr Walton of the Princess’s Theatre’. So I thought I had better find out more.

 

Tom Walton was apparently born in Yorkshire. Or somewhere up thataway. His death registration says it was in 1799, but other sources (including some alarmingly incorrect www family trees!) say anything back to 1793. On his early life I have no information, but I assumed that he was, at some stage, a provincial actor and singer. 

 

However, he makes a first appearance in any document, to me, at Leicester, 29 August 1822, when he married a Miss Sophia Hafford, of Hinckley. He was described, for the occasion, as a ‘commercial traveller of Barnsley’. So, the singing -- as a day job -- was not for just yet.

 

But it was soon. By May 1825 there he is at the Theatre Royal, York, stepping in for Bellamy in My Native Land. And then in August singing 'Friendship and Love' between the pieces 'in very spirited style' 'Mr Walton has a fine voice and only wants judicious teaching to attain a high rank in the profession'.

 

He went in pursuit of that rank in 1827. I see him sailing for America on the brig Billow, in the company of wife, infant son, and Henry James Finn, of the Boston Theatre. He had been engaged as singing gentleman for that house. Tom played several seasons in Boston – roles from Henry Bertram to Prince Felix --  and, over the next decade, left, as legacy, his name on a sheaf of songs and arrangements, often penned by local poets, ‘sung by Mr Walton at …’. 'O life hath its seasons' (Fdk S Hill), 'O welcome the moment' (Rufus Dawes), 'With a Helmet on his brow', 'Come brothers arouse', 'Some Love to Roam', 'The Regatta Boat Song' (Samuel F Glenn), 'A Hunter's Life', 'Mary of the Wild Moor', his own arrangements of 'A Sailor Returned from a Cruise' and of Rossini as 'Hark the Lovely Bugle Sings' and occasionally a borrowed hit from across the seas ...

 

In 1828, he seems to have appeared at Richmond Va, Rhode Island, at the Chatham Theatre (Zekiel Homespun in The Heir at Law), and later at the Sans Souci (Belleville in Rosina), at Castle Gardens ('Bound Prentice to a Waterman', 'The Bonnie Breast Knot', 'The Banner of Freedom') 

and the Bowery Theatre (Guy Mannering), and he acted and took part in the management of Philadelphia’s Arch Street Theatre and, subsequently, of the Baltimore Theatre and, briefly, Washington’s National Theatre.

Providence, RI 1828

 I spot him in Philadelphia as Figaro to Elizabeth Feron’s Rosina, Felix to her Cinderella and Adolf (!) to her Linda in Der Freischütz (1833), in Boston playing the title-role in John of Paris, teamed with Mr and Mrs Wood as Figaro, in Love in a Village and as Cedric in The Maid of Judah (1833), with Mrs Austin in The Beggar’s Opera, The Duenna, Cinderella, Abon Hasan, Music and Prejudice (1834) and with the Woods, once more, as Lorenzo in Fra Diavolo, in Der Freischütz, The Duenna et al.

 

He moved from comedy, to drama and to opera -- from Jabber in Second Thoughts to Colonel Jarvis in The Fall of the Alamo to The Mountain Sylph ... accompanying Miss Graddon (La Sonnambula, John of Paris), Caradori Allan (Don Giovanni, The Barber of Seville, Love in a Village, Cinderella, La Sonnambula) or, ultimately, Jane Shirreff and John Wilson (1839) … from New York's Park Theatre to Philadelphia's Chestnut Street Theatre, to Boston, Washington or the Holliday Street Theatre, Baltimore.

 

And then, after over a decade, in which he had established himself as one of the most useful operatic supporting players in America, and also as a popular singer and songwriter, he turned on his tracks and headed back to England.

 

He made his first appearance on his return 1 April 1839 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in Lodoiska, but I don’t confirmedly see him again (there are a few 'Mr Walton's about) until he turns up at the Surrey Theatre, in 1841-2, playing opera, burlesque (Adalgisa in Norma 'with Bellina's music') and comedy (Dick in My Spouse) and drama (Jack Junk in Jack Junk, Friberg in The Miller and his Men).

In 1843, however, he found his niche. Mr Maddox opened the new Princess’s Theatre as a home for English and foreign opera, and Mr Walton was engaged for the company. He opened in La Sonnambula (Alessio), played Lockhart in Lucia de Lammermoor, in the pantomime The Yellow Dwarf, the drama Duprez, returning to opera in Tancredi (Ruggiero), I Puritani (Walter Walton), Der Freischütz (Kilian), La Gazza Ladra, Geraldine (Lord Nottingham) as well as the musical plays The Swedish Ferryman, The Flower of Lucerne, Twice Killed and with Rebecca Isaacs, Paul Bedford and Mrs Grattan in the pantomime The Magic Mirror, or The Hall of Statues.

The Princess’s second year saw reprises of pieces such as Fra Diavolo and La Sonnambula, the production of Lucrezia Borgia (Gubetta) and the advent of Anna Thillon to play The Syren (Duke of Popoli). A play version of Don Caesar of Bazan was also mounted, in which Walton played King Charles II, and the year ended with Balfe’s Les Quatre Fils Aymon with Walton as the Baron de Beaumanoir.

In 1845, Le Duc d’Olonne (Mugnoz) was brought into the repertoire, and 1846 saw Richelieu, the spectacular masque The Ruins of Athens, The Merry Wives of Windsor (Justice Shallow), and The Welsh Girl (David) as prelude to Loder’s new opera The Night Dancers (Godfrey) and Rodwell’s The Seven Maids of Munich (Baron de Bristlebach).

Walton directed the masque, and I suspect that as stage manager and acting manager of the house, he may have been responsible for the mounting of others of their productions.

1847 started with more of the same. A production of Anne Boleyn (Rochefort) and the lighter The Barcarolle (Marquis di Felino), the play The King of the Brigands in which Walton sang a glee, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, more The Syren, King Lear (King of France), Werner, a musical drama The King and the Piper, and the inevitable Guy Mannering.

 

In July, Tom was off, ill, for a few days. And then he was dead. The official verdict was ‘died by poison improperly administered’. Just that. No details. Administered by whom? What poison? Well, a friend turned this paragraph up in an American newspaper: ‘The inquest found that Walton suffered from a painful disease, and to relieve the pain had taken large doses of opium and morphia. Mr Walton compelled his widow to buy and give him on two separate occasions double the quantity prescribed by his medical attendant. Mr Parker, a surgeon, said Walton took 16 and 1/2 grains of opium.  Parker had known people to be killed by 4 and 1/2 grains, and 6 to 10 grains were considered deadly poison. The verdict was suicide by overdose of laudanum taken to relieve the suffering caused by his disease.’.

 

Sophia remarried in 1854 (14 February) a chemist and druggist (!) by the name of George Fowke. A witness was Thomas James Walton. That was her son ..  The marriage ended in divorce. But the son lived till 1907 and bred freely, so I guess there are some Waltons around today ... 

 

And that is the story – or as much of it as I have been able to exhume -- of ‘Mr Walton of the Princess’s’. And a lot of other places.