Henry Edwards (27 August 1827 – 9 June 1891) was an English stage actor, writer and entomologist who gained fame in Australia, San Francisco and New York City for his theatre work.
Edwards was drawn to the theatre early in life, and he appeared in amateur productions in London. After sailing to Australia, Edwards appeared professionally in Shakespearean plays and light comedies primarily in Melbourne and Sydney. Throughout his childhood in England and his acting career in Australia, he was greatly interested in collecting insects, and the National Museum of Victoria used the results of his Australian fieldwork as part of the genesis of their collection.
In San Francisco, Edwards was a founding member of the Bohemian Club, and a gathering in Edwards's honour was the spark which began the club's traditional summer encampment at the Bohemian Grove.Garnett, 1908, p. 7. As well, Edwards cemented his reputation as a preeminent stage actor and theatre manager. After writing a series of influential studies on Pacific Coast butterflies and moths he was elected life member of the California Academy of Sciences. Relocating to the East Coast, Edwards spent a brief time in Boston theatre. This led to a connection to Wallack's Theatre and further renown in New York City. There, Edwards edited three volumes of the journal Papilio and published a major work about the life of the butterfly. His large collection of insect specimens served as the foundation of the American Museum of Natural History's butterfly and moth studies.
Edwards's wide-ranging studies and observations of insects brought him into contact with specimens not yet classified. Upon discovering previously unknown insects he would give them names, which led to a number of butterfly, moth and beetle species bearing "Hy. Edw." (for Henry Edwards) as an attribution. From his theatre interests to entomology, Edwards carried forward an appreciation of Shakespeare—in the designation of new insect species he favoured female character names from Shakespeare's plays.
Early career Henry Edwards was born to Hannah and Thomas Edwards (c. 1794–1857) at Brook House in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, England, on 27 August 1827, and was christened on 14 September.Brown-May and May 1997 From his older brother William, he picked up an interest in examining insects. He collected butterflies as a hobby, and studied them under the tutelage of Edward Doubleday. His solicitor father intended a law career for his son, but after a brief period of unsuccessful study, Edwards took a position at a counting house in London, and began acting in amateur theatre. He then journeyed to join his brother William who had settled in Australia, north-west of Melbourne along the bank of Merri Creek, a location then called Merrivale. Aboard the sailing ship Ganges from March to June 1853, he wrote descriptions of creatures such as the albatross that he encountered for the first time. After arriving in Melbourne, Edwards began collecting and cataloguing the insects he found on his brother's land, and further afield. Within two years, he had gathered 1,676 species of insects, shot and mounted 200 birds, and pressed some 200 botanical specimens. This collection and that of William Kershaw were purchased by Frederick McCoy to form the nucleus of the new National Museum of Victoria.
The first Australian stage appearance by Edwards was with George Selth Coppin's company at the Queen's Theatre in Melbourne. Later, he joined Gustavus Vaughan Brooke's theatrical group. The part of Petruchio, the male lead in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, was filled by Edwards at the Princess's Theatre in Sydney in November 1859, playing opposite tragedian Avonia Jones as Katharine. In December that year Brooke retired from management, yielding the reins of his company to the team of Edwards and George Fawcett Rowe, English actor and playwright. Brooke continued to act under Edwards and Rowe: his starring performance in April 1860 as Louis XI in Dion Boucicault's play of the same name was a stirring portrayal that Edwards, playing Jacques d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, recalled vividly for the rest of his life. Sharing the stage again in August, Brooke and Edwards were well received in their portrayal of twin brothers in a production of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors in Melbourne, the first Australian mounting of that work. As a twist to pique public interest, Edwards and Brooke exchanged roles after two weeks' run. However, not all of Edwards's performances were successful: his turn at Angelo in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure was called "invertebrate" by drama critic William John Lawrence; in Lawrence's estimation, Edwards and his fellow actors paled against the powerful performance of Avonia Jones as Isabella.
The renowned entomologist and collector William Sharp Macleay was sought out by Edwards whenever his stage appearances took him to Sydney. Beginning in 1858, Macleay mentored Edwards and encouraged him to search for more insect specimens when his theatre obligations allowed. Robust and adventuresome, Edwards occasionally trekked out into the wilds of Australia on the hunt for insects. While in Sydney, Edwards went up two times in a hot air balloon as a favour to George Coppin, narrowly avoiding severe injury or death in the first ascent. Edwards's further travels included New Zealand, Peru, Panama and Mexico in pursuit of insects and dramatic roles.
San Francisco In 1865, Edwards began a 12-year residence in San Francisco, California. At the 1870 United States census, Edwards reported himself as a non-voting foreign-born resident, a comedian by trade, living in a home worth $1,000.United States Census, 1870. San Francisco, 2d Precinct, 12th Ward, page 38. 14 June 1870. Edwards lived in San Francisco with a white woman listed in the census as "Mariana", born in England, age 40, and a 16-year-old Chinese servant named Heng Gim. The woman Mariana was likely Edwards's wife, the former Marianne Elizabeth Woolcott Bray who was born about 1822–1823 in New Street, Birmingham. In 1851 at the age of 28, Bray married Gustavus Vaughan Brooke, and the two went to Australia to manage Brooke's then-new theatre company. It was there that Edwards met Brooke and his wife, but after several years of the two men working together, Brooke remarried in February 1863, taking Avonia Jones (1836–1867) as his second wife. Brooke died in an accident at sea in January 1866, and Avonia Jones Brooke died in New York City the next year.Lawrence, 1892, pp. 274–77. Later reports spoke of Edwards marrying Brooke's widow, without naming her.
In 1868–1869 Edwards leased and managed the Metropolitan Theater, and he was a founding member of the acting company of the California Theatre, which opened in January 1869. The theatre was directed and managed by actor John McCullough, and among the more notable productions was As You Like It in May 1872, with McCullough playing Orlando and Edwards the banished Duke Senior. Walter M. Leman, who carried the part of Adam, opined in 1886 that "never since time was has Shakespeare's charming idyl been better put upon the stage."
Edwards was one of the founders and the first vice-president of the Bohemian Club, and served two terms as president, 1873–1875.Bohemian Club (1904). Constitution, By-laws, and Rules, Officers, Committees, and Members, pp. 19–20, 69. He hosted Shakespeare celebrations at the club in April 1873, 1875 and 1877, and a Bohemian Christmas celebration in December 1877: "The Feast of Reason and Flow of Soul".Garnett, 1908, p. 120. Edwards became a director of the San Francisco Art Association, and spoke for Lotta Crabtree at the dedication of Lotta's Fountain in September 1875.
Still very much interested in insects, Edwards spent his spare time at the California Academy of Sciences studying butterflies under Hans Hermann Behr, the academy's curator for Lepidoptera, the scientific order of moths and butterflies. Elected a member of the academy in 1867, he concentrated on describing the structure and habits of moths and butterflies on the Pacific coast from British Columbia to Baja California. He went to visit John Muir in Yosemite Valley in June 1871, with a letter of introduction from Jeanne Carr, the wife of California's chief geologist Ezra S. Carr. The letter described Edwards as "one of Nature's truest and most devoted disciples", a sojourner who "has the keys to the Kingdom". After the visit, Muir occasionally sent specimens from the Sierras to add to Edwards's collection, carried to San Francisco by men such as geologist and artist Clarence King who were returning from Yosemite field study. Edwards presented a series of papers to the academy entitled Pacific Coast Lepidoptera, and classified two species as new to science. He named one Gyros muiri for Muir, with "Hy. Edw." as the attribution. In 1872, Muir sent Edwards a letter, writing "You are now in constant remembrance, because every flying flower is branded with your name." In 1873, Edwards became the curator of entomology at the academy, and began to serve on the Publications Committee which produced the journal Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences. Beginning early that year, he befriended George Robert Crotch. Although it is sometimes claimed that he accompanied Crotch on his insect collecting tour of California, Oregon and British Columbia, Edwards was only aware of Crotch's travels as a correspondent. Edwards independently visited British Columbia in 1873, missing Crotch by several days at Vancouver Island. In 1874, Edwards began to serve as one of the academy's vice-presidents, and for the academy in late 1874 after Crotch's death from tuberculosis, he published a memorial tribute to the man. Edwards also wrote one of many tributes to academician Louis Agassiz at his death in late 1873. At the academy on 2 January 1877, Edwards was elected member for life.
Though successful in San Francisco, Edwards decided to head for Boston and New York City to see if his career as an actor could benefit from appearances in the eastern United States. On 29 June 1878, somewhat fewer than 100 of his Bohemian friends gathered in the woods near Taylorville, California (present-day Samuel P. Taylor State Park), for a night-time send-off party in Edwards's honour.Garnett, 1908, p. 6. Bohemian Club historian Porter Garnett later wrote that the men at the "nocturnal picnic" were "provided with blankets to keep them warm and a generous supply of liquor for the same purpose". Japanese lanterns were used for illumination and decoration. This festive gathering was repeated without Edwards by club members the next year, and every year thereafter, eventually evolving and expanding into the club's annual summer encampment at the Bohemian Grove, famous (or infamous) for the casual commingling of top politicians and powerful captains of industry in attendance.Weiss, Philip (November 1989). "Masters of the Universe Go to Camp: Inside the Bohemian Grove." Spy Magazine, pp. 59–76. Hosted by University of California, Santa Cruz, Sociology Department, Professor G. William Domhoff. Retrieved 15 January 2010.
Boston to New York
In late 1878, Edwards joined a theatre company in Boston, replacing another actor as "Schelm, Chief of Police" at a revival of the spectacle The Exiles at the Boston Theatre on Washington Street.Tompkins, 1908, p. 258. After a four-week run, he performed in other productions at the theatre through the 1879–1880 season.Tompkins, 1908, p. 266. In June, Edwards answered the 1880 census to report himself an England-born actor living with his English wife "Marian" and his Chinese servant, Gim Hing.United States Census, 1880. Boston, Massachusetts, Enumeration District 772, Supervisor's District 60, page 29. 8 June 1880.