Early success

Under Daly's management the redecorated Smock Alley Theatre opened in November 1780 with a prelude bearing the title "Smock Alley Secrets" (written by Rev. Peter Le Fanu, a fashionable Dublin clergyman) followed by Richard Cumberland's comedy The West Indian and Isaac Bickerstaffe's farce The Sultan, Daly and his wife playing in the first two of these.^[22] A week later they appeared in a production of The School for Scandal, in which Daly's performance was reckoned by the critic for the Hibernian Journal to be "all the Author intended or the Audience could wish. He is a most promising young Actor and receives the Applause his Merit justly Claims".^[23] In the following month the couple featured in the first Irish production of Hannah Cowley's The Belle's Stratagem, which had been the major success of that year's London theatre season and was staged by Daly "with magnificence not at all inferior to Covent Garden.^[24]

Daly's management of Smock Alley was quickly rewarded with commercial success: "he not only had the best company Ireland could then produce but engaged the principal London stars and got up the most celebrated pieces as soon as they were established in London".^[25] To increase interest in his productions he sometimes reversed gender in comedies and light opera, having men play female characters and vice versa^[26] – though when he cast his wife in male roles she refused to wear men's clothing.^[27]

Early members of his company included the actress Sarah Hitchcock and her husband Robert (the later historian of Irish theatre) who became prompter and afterward deputy manager at Smock Alley. Robert Hitchcock recruited others to the troupe^[28] and was instrumental in the engagement (at the "star" salary of £5 per week) of John Philip Kemble who, in 1781, made his first appearance for Daly in the role of Hamlet.^[29] When subsequently miscast as Sir George Touchwood in The Belle's Stratagem, Kemble's "negligent delivery and heaviness of deportment" resulted in Daly urging him to exert himself more; Kemble took offence and refused to continue in the part until Daly apologised.^[30] However, Kemble's "wonderful strength" in the title-role of Robert Jephson's The Count of Narbonne won much acclaim; in this he was supported by Daly in the character of Theodore, while "Miss Francis" (who was to become the celebrated Mrs Jordan) played the part of Adelaide. Jephson himself attended rehearsals; the play ran for thirty very profitable nights, and Daly was praised as a "rising theatrical genius".^[31]

Elizabeth Inchbald performed for Daly in 1782^[32] and in the following January he brought Elizabeth Fitzhenry out of retirement to reprise six of her best-known portrayals "prior to taking her final leave of the stage".^[33] In February he travelled to London and engaged Sarah Siddons for a limited number of performances in the summer, when she duly appeared at Smock Alley alongside her brother John Kemble and sister Elizabeth Whitlock (whom the Dublin press dismissed as "Mrs Siddons's appendage").^[34] The theatre was "crowded to suffocation" to see Siddons in the title role in Isabella (an adaptation by David Garrick of Thomas Southerne's The Fatal Marriage, in which she had been the sensation of Drury Lane's previous season), and she afterwards appeared as Belvidera in Thomas Otway's Venice Preserv'd, and as Jane Shore in Nicholas Rowe's tragedy of that name. Her engagement was sufficiently successful that Daly renewed it for the following season, for a reported fee of one thousand guineas.^[35] Also in 1784 he engaged John Henderson, Alexander Pope, Elizabeth Younge (the future Mrs Pope) and Joseph George Holman, and he had Kemble, Henderson, Pope and Holman play Hamlet on alternate nights in the same week.^[36]

First opera productions

In 1783 he began to intersperse the usual dramatic fare at Smock Alley with major operatic productions, Giusto Fernando Tenducci arranging and performing in Thomas Arne's Artaxerxes and William Bates's Pharnaces.^[37] In January 1784, Tenducci and Elizabeth Billington sang the title-roles in Christoph Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice^[38] and, during their joint season, they received "uncommon bursts of applause from the most brilliant and crowded audiences that ever honoured a theatre". The musicians included Billington's husband on double-bass and were led by her brother, the violinist Charles Weichsel,^[39] and the scenery, "in a new style", was the work of the landscape painter Thomas Walmsley whose employment at the theatre "did infinite credit to Mr Daly's judgment". The scenery and costumes cost Daly £1,200 and the Hibernian Journal praised "the unsparing Liberality of a Manager whose only Avarice seems to centre in promoting public Gratification".^[40]

Development of relationship with Robert Jephson

In February 1783 Daly staged the first performance of Robert Houlton's comic opera The Contract,^[41] and in May that year and in January 1784, respectively, he presented the premieres of Robert Jephson's The Hotel, or the Servant with Two Masters and The Campaign, or Love in the East Indies.^[42] Jephson, apart from being a playwright, was a Member of the Irish House of Commons, Comptroller of the Lord Lieutenant's Household, and Master of the Horse in Ireland, and as such was a useful conduit for Daly to the administration at Dublin Castle.^[43] In addition to practising as a doctor, Robert Houlton was a columnist for Francis Higgins, publisher of The Freeman's Journal. The Journal was the unofficial organ of the Dublin government, for which Higgins became chief spymaster.^[44]

More musical success, and courting Charles Macklin

In 1785 Daly commissioned the composer Charles Dibdin to provide him with musical scores^{[note 4]} and lured his old mentor Charles Macklin, then aged about eighty-six (but popularly believed to be much older), to play at Smock Alley by agreeing to pay him £50 per night.^[45] Such a rate was considerable by contemporary standards but the revenue a popular performer could generate may be judged from the death-bed confession to Daly by a ticket agent who, during the course of a brief engagement of Thomas King at Smock Alley, had succeeded with others in misappropriating £600 of Daly's ticket money.^[46]

Macklin's residence at Smock Alley did not go entirely to plan. During a rehearsal of his play The Man of the World, he delivered such harsh criticism of Daly's performance as Egerton Macsycophant that Daly resigned the role in favour of William Macready the Elder, whose triumph in the part brought new momentum to his career.^[47] Widespread delight at Macklin's own performance (his first in Dublin for ten years) prompted the Dublin Evening Post to declare that Daly "is honoured with a much larger share of public favour and patronage than any other manager in this kingdom ever experienced and is justly entitled to that universal encouragement which has so distinguished his management".^[48]

Rivalries

Among the seasoned actors who joined Daly when he established his own company at Smock Alley in 1780 was Robert Owenson. According to Owenson's daughter, the novelist Lady Morgan (at whose christening Daly was present), the pair entered into some form of partnership and Owenson acted as Daly's deputy.^[63] However, they soon quarrelled and, having terminated the partnership, Owenson took a 99-years lease of the Music Hall in Dublin's Fishamble Street. He reopened this as The City Theatre and staged his first production there in December 1784.^[64]

On Daly obtaining the Royal patent, Owenson sought to recover from him the investment rendered futile by loss of the City Theatre's licence. The claim was referred to arbitration, resulting in an agreement whereby Daly would pay Owenson £300 annually for ten years conditional upon no paid actor or actress performing at the City Theatre. Owenson afterwards engaged in the wine trade but also acted for Daly.^[65]

In 1788 Philip Astley was granted a patent under the Dublin Stage Regulation Act to stage performances of horsemanship, musical pieces, dancing, tumbling and pantomime but excluding tragedy, comedy, opera, plays and farce. Daly petitioned the Lord Chancellor to withhold the Great Seal from the grant, claiming that his own patent gave him a monopoly of performance-based entertainment in Dublin. The claim failed and, despite Daly securing rights over most of the vacant plots in the city that were large enough to accommodate a circus, Astley's Amphitheatre opened in Peter Street in January 1789.^[66]

Legal wrangles

Daly had himself diversified the fare at Smock Alley and Crow Street with occasional tableau presentations, rope-dancing and other acts in the circus tradition, and in 1784 he introduced dancing dogs (Signor Castelli's "Learned Dogs of Paris") to complete his evening's bill. The latter novelty reportedly "materially injured his popularity"^[67] and he was "greatly astonished" by the widespread pleasure and support which greeted the Amphitheatre's presentations. When these strayed beyond the terms of Astley's patent he successfully sued.^[68]

In 1788 he initiated proceedings against a Dublin lottery-office keeper who had failed to make payment on his winning tickets. This action seems to have kindled personal hostility towards Daly on the part of John Magee who was the publisher of the Dublin Evening Post and a lottery broker on a major scale. Magee was already at loggerheads with his rival in newsprint, Francis Higgins, and from June 1789 onwards he published accusations that Daly, Higgins and Robert Houlton had perpetrated a lottery "swindle" devised by an allegedly suicidal Daly to recoup his supposed gambling losses.^{[69][note 8]}

Magee's allegations became increasingly extreme. They included claims that Daly had, while a student, murdered a billiard-table marker with the blow of a ball to the temple, and had recently "polluted the virtue" of the actress Harriet Esten.^[70] He also took to insulting members of Daly's company in print, declaring they were drawn from among "the cast-offs of Sadler's Wells, the refuse of Covent Garden and the outcasts of Drury Lane", and denouncing Andrew Cherry as "the lowest buffo of the stage".^[71] Such remarks were followed by outbreaks of riotous behaviour in the upper gallery of the Theatre Royal; these were suspected to be the work of Magee's hirelings and became an almost nightly occurrence.^[72]

Attendance at the theatre was adversely affected, partly due to public disapproval of Daly's alleged conduct and partly due to the risk of violence on the premises. Daly began to have difficulty recruiting and retaining players due to fears that Magee would smear their names and doubts as to Daly's continued solvency.^[73] Nevertheless, when he could field a strong cast, hundreds might be turned away from the theatre and ticket money could be eighty per cent of the revenue from an excellent night at Covent Garden.^[74]

Daly served a writ for libel on Magee in June 1789, claiming damages for injury to his reputation and business; he quantified his loss at £4,000 and obtained an order from Lord Clonmell, then Chief Justice of the King's Bench in Ireland (a close friend of Francis Higgins), requiring Magee to provide bail money in that amount. When Magee was unable to do so he was imprisoned.^[75] This triggered debate in the Irish House of Commons concerning the legality of requiring bail in defamation cases, an issue that was referred to a Grand Committee of the Courts of Justice where the Attorney-General frustrated its determination.^[76] The Whig Club, under the chairmanship of the Duke of Leinster, declared that if the order in Daly's case was properly made then "the liberty of the subject is in imminent danger".^[77] These events attracted considerable public attention and increased the prevailing unpopularity of the Irish administration.

Daly's claim for libel was tried in July 1790 when eleven barristers appeared to present his case, including John Philpot Curran, Henry Duquerry, John Egan and Jonas Greene. By this time he was seeking damages of £8,000 on account of further allegations made by Magee but, while his case succeeded, the jury awarded him only £200 in damages and sixpence towards his costs.^[78] An application, by Magee's brother, to have Magee declared a lunatic had been unsuccessful, but he was later made the subject of a lunacy order.^[79]

Imprisonment and scandal

Disturbances at the Theatre Royal did not cease with the outcome of the Magee case and when, in the autumn of 1791, Daly and his brother Cuthbert, a barrister, came to blows with an audience member, they were themselves convicted of aiding riot and assault. Daly was sentenced to six months' imprisonment (Cuthbert to twelve) and the Viceroy, Lord Westmorland, had to intervene to procure his release from Newgate.^[80]

While Daly was in prison there was published in London a lurid account of Elizabeth Billington's alleged adultery with him during her time at Smock Alley in early 1784, shortly after her marriage and when already pregnant.^[81] By 1792 Mrs Billington was the principal diva at Covent Garden and rumoured to have slept with a succession of Dukes and the Prince of Wales,^[82] and the publication created a minor sensation, selling out almost immediately.^[83] The Scots Magazine considered "the anecdotes of Messalina and Moll Flanders afford nothing more abominable that what we have here perused".^[84] Declaring her "greatest abhorrence and detestation" of what was alleged against her, Billington issued libel proceedings but these bore no fruit and the allegations soon reappeared in a publication that suggested other improprieties by Daly "who dies for every lady he brings forward".^[85]

At the time reports of his alleged adultery with Billington first surfaced in print, Daly was suing her for £250 on a wager made during her engagement for The Beggar's Opera, which he had staged in the previous summer^[86] when her celebrity was already so considerable that "at an early hour the avenues to the theatre were crowded in a manner only equalled on Mr Garrick quitting the stage".^[87] Although Dublin may have derived temporary titillation from the account of Billington's off-stage activities, by 1805 that account was dismissed as the work of "some needy scribbler" and "justly consigned to oblivion".^{[88][note 9]}

Absence from performing

The Magee case caused Daly such "agitation of his mind as prevented him from attending his business",^[89] and neither he nor his wife appeared on the stage between June 1789 and January 1793. During the early part of the Dalys' absence from the stage Margaret Kennedy, Frances Abington, William Thomas Lewis, Charles Incledon, Rosemond Mountain, Frances Hodgkinson, Georgina George and Maria Ann Campion were among those whom Daly engaged, followed by Maria Bland, Elizabeth Farren, Charlotte Wattell, Charlotte Melmoth, Michael Kelly, Anna Maria Crouch, Tryphosa Jane Wallis, Gertrud Elisabeth Mara, John Henry Johnstone, Mary Ann Davenport, Laurence Clinch and Joseph Munden.^{[note 10]}

In order to compete with Astley's presentations, Daly increasingly diversified the Theatre Royal's repertoire, introducing elaborate ballets,^{[note 11]} pure spectacles (such as "Gallic Freedom", depicting the storming of the Bastille) and a variety of novelty items. Particular interest was captured by the Chevalier d'Eon's display of his or her (the audience was uncertain but fascinated on the point) fencing skills.^[90]

In some quarters these developments were, like Daly's earlier presentations of "dancing dogs and whistling men", deemed to "trample on the ornaments of drama",^[91] and in 1793 a group of wealthy young men leased Robert Owenson's City Theatre and fitted it up to "a degree of elegance hitherto unknown in Ireland".^[92] Amateur productions were staged there under the management of the Earl of Westmeath and Frederick Edward Jones and were glowingly reported in the pages of the Hibernian Journal.^[93] When professional actresses were engaged to play alongside the amateurs, Daly treated his annuity obligation to Owenson as discharged and Owenson lost the ensuing litigation.^[94]

Return, and difficulties

In January 1793 Saunders's News-Letter was at last able to "congratulate the lovers of the drama, on the return of their two greatest favourites, Mr and Mrs Daly, to that station in the theatric world, which they supported with such superior ability". Of the couple's appearance at the Theatre Royal, it claimed, "Never did any dramatic event accord more with the wishes of the public".^[95] Less than a fortnight later the same publication was lauding Richard Daly's performance in Benjamin Hoadly's The Suspicious Husband,^[96] and in early February, in reference to the couple's playing Mr and Mrs Oakley in George Colman the Elder's The Jealous Wife, it reported that "Mr and Mrs Daly are peculiarly capital".^{[97][note 12]}

In 1794 Jones procured a licence authorising dramatic performances on the Fishamble Street premises provided no male actors were paid to perform and admission was limited to membership of the organising group.^[98] This element of exclusivity stimulated a demand for membership which left the boxes of the Theatre Royal "quite deserted, it being deemed vulgar to be seen in them".^[99] By 1795 the theatre was, according to George Frederick Cooke, "at a low ebb; the performers were ill paid, and the house, scenes and dresses were very mean".^[100]

In early 1795 Daly's wife (who had last performed in the previous February) was terminally ill. Daly, who was "extravagantly fond" of her, broke down on stage when performing during her illness.^[101] She died in April, "endowed with every virtue that could grace the female breast… her death a brilliant example of Christian fortitude".^[102] In the same year Frederick Jones applied to the Lord Lieutenant, Earl Camden, for a full patent for staging theatrical entertainment; the application was accompanied by a memorial, signed by many of Dublin's fashionable figures, criticising both Daly's playbills and premises. Ordered to investigate the criticisms, the Irish Attorney-General judged them valid, and Camden intimated to Daly that he proposed to grant Jones a concurrent patent.^[103]

Retirement

Daly declared he would prefer to retire on fair remuneration rather than engage in what he believed would be ruinous competition and, with effect from 12 August 1797, he transferred his theatrical undertaking and the Crow Street premises to Jones in exchange for an annuity of £800 for his own life and thereafter of £400 for the joint lives of some of his children. At the same time Jones relieved Daly from responsibility for an annual payment of £232 assumed when acquiring Smock Alley, and agreed to give him an annual profit rent of £300 on the theatres in Cork and Limerick.^[104] With effect from November 1797 Daly was also granted an Irish Civil List pension of £100 per annum for the life of the survivor of his four daughters.^[105]

The Dublin Evening Post reported that Daly "has quitted the Dramatic Throne while in the plenitude of power and fullness of public encouragement".^[106] The timing of his retirement was well chosen, being promptly followed by the Irish Rebellion of 1798.^{[note 13]} Jones was granted a new theatrical patent for twenty-one years, but no sooner had he refurbished and reopened Crow Street than martial law was proclaimed, prohibiting citizens from appearing on the streets after 8 p.m.^[107] Jones's application for compensation failed to find sufficient support in Parliament, and further disturbances resulted in his theatre again being closed in 1803.^[108]

For "reasons of economy" Daly removed to the Isle of Man, where he built "an elegant mansion" and found himself a neighbour of Thomas "Jerusalem" Whaley, an Irish MP and notorious gambler. Whaley's brother-in-law was John Fitzgibbon who, as Irish Attorney-General, had validated the complaints concerning Daly's management of the Theatre Royal.^{[109][note 14]} In 1799, an altercation took place between Daly and Whaley, arising from which Whaley preferred charges against Daly. On appearing in court Daly used "intemperate expressions" and was sentenced to a month's imprisonment for contempt.^[110] The balance of his years seem to have passed quietly.

As actor

Throughout his years in theatre, the range and quality of Daly's skills as a player were enthusiastically applauded in the Dublin press. However, fairly soon after his retirement and in an otherwise sympathetic account of his career, the Thespian Dictionary or Dramatic Biography of the Present Age declared that his acting in tragedy was "contemptible" and in light comedy only "tolerable".^[111] This assessment may have come from the pen of W. C. Oulton,^{[note 15]} who would have seen Daly in action on many occasions. It was adopted by later commentators,^[112] yet was at odds with the opinion of others such as John O'Keeffe, who was familiar with the work of all the leading players of the period and remembered Daly as "an accomplished actor".^[113] Nevertheless, contemporary reservations about his ability in melodrama are evident from Sir Martin Archer Shee's remark after seeing his performance in Frederick Reynolds' dramatisation of The Sorrows of Young Werther: "Daly, though many degrees removed from excellence is, in my opinion, passable and much better than you would expect" (italics added).^{[114][note 16]}

His reputation as an actor may have suffered from his judgements as a manager and director. He attracted criticism for casting himself "in the foremost part in every play"^[115] and was said to "pique himself on his talent as a prologue speaker both as regards deportment and delivery".^[116] Mrs Siddons complained of his inclination to occupy the front of stage rather than a position best suited to the scene,^[117] and he was accused of insisting his costume should outshine all others in comedy productions.^{[note 17]}

As manager

The Thespian Dictionary acknowledged that, in management, Daly achieved greater success than any of his Dublin predecessors Thomas Sheridan, Spranger Barry, Henry Mossop, Henry Woodward and Thomas Ryder, all of whom had failed financially.^[118] Joseph Atkinson declared Daly rescued Dublin theatre from "neglect and degradation" and brought it to "the highest pitch of magnificence and respectability";^[119] the same was said by Robert Hitchcock,^[120] but neither was an entirely disinterested party and their opinions predate the overall decline of Daly's offering during the 1790s.

His "spirit" as a manager was widely praised, but his treatment of members of his company was described as "oppressive and tyrannical".^[121] The theatre historian Thomas Gilliland mentioned Charles Mathews as one who "suffered every misery under the management of Mr Daly",^[122] although Mathews' own contemporary account was less hostile. On joining the company in June 1794, he reported finding that Daly "is hated by all his performers scarcely any of whom can get any money from him" and "bears the worst of characters", but by July he considered such character was undeserved, and in August he rejoiced in his "very pleasant" situation and confirmed he had "not been fined a farthing".^{[123][note 18]}

The latter reference alluded to Daly's practice of fining members of his company for breaches of house discipline. In 1791-94 he employed a comic actor named Moss at a generous weekly rate that he reduced by allegedly arbitrary fines which Moss sued to recover "every week".^[124] Daly's pursuit of players to recover penalties due when they failed to honour the duration of their contracts has also been cited as an aspect of his "tyranny".^{[note 19]} However, his conduct on such occasions was not uniform: in 1794 he declined to pursue George Frederick Cooke for breach of his articles (Charles Mathews observing "he would not distress him for the world")^[125] and, when in 1788 Mary Wells appealed for release from her contract on account of domestic difficulties, Daly responded by tearing up the document in her presence.^[126]

The quality of his relationship with his leading players varied: while Mrs Siddons complained he "adopted every means of vexation for me that he could possibly devise",^{[127][note 20]} Mrs Abington credited him with every endeavour "to make her situation in the theatre as agreeable as could possibly result from the most friendly and polite attention".^[128] Several players took space in Dublin newspapers^[129] or directly addressed audiences from the stage^[130] to vent complaints about their treatment by Daly. Their grievances sometimes grew from not being cast in the parts to which they aspired and, in Daly's defence, the Thespian Dictionary posited that occasional slander was the penalty every manager paid for "resisting the whims and caprices of his company". Where events led to a breakdown in relationship, there are instances of Daly taking pains to repair it.^{[note 21]} James Grant Raymond, a man of "excellent private character", was a player in Daly's company ^{[note 22]} and afterwards for Frederick Jones before himself becoming manager at Drury Lane. He spoke of Daly's relationship with him during the 1790s "in the highest terms".^[131]

If W. C. Oulton was indeed their author, two of the observations in the Thespian Dictionary may hold particular relevance when assessing Daly's management record.^{[note 23]} "If Mr Daly's conduct could not always be defended," wrote his biographer, "it was not always justly represented", adding that "theatrical enmity is well known to proceed from secret jealousy and theatrical friendship from secret interest".^[132]

As duellist and dissolute

Daly's reputation for duelling was magnified after his death. Described in 1866 as a "professed duellist" by "a dramatic writer of eminence",^[133] in 1908 he became a "professional duellist" under the pen of the historian W. J. Lawrence, the latter translating the suit in which the teenage Daly faced Jonah Barrington into his "regulation attire" for combat.^{[134][note 24]} Clare Jerrold (wife of Walter Jerrold) augmented but contradicted Barrington's recollection when, in her biography of Dorothea Jordan, she declared Daly was "a member of the Fire-eaters' Club",^[135] perhaps encouraging subsequent descriptions of Daly as a "frequent and ferocious" duellist.^[136] Although duelling was a fashionable resort in contemporary Irish society,^[137] evidence of Daly engaging in it in adulthood is sparse.^{[note 25]}

Daly's affair with Dorothea Jordan in 1782 seems to be the first recorded among the several carnal connections he is reputed to have had with his actresses. It is not apparent when that affair became widely known, but by January 1787 it was, though long spent, regarded as sufficiently substantial a relationship to justify inclusion of coupled portraits of "Mrs Tomboy" (Jordan, as Priscilla Tomboy in Bickerstaffe's The Romp) and "The Irish Manager" (Daly) in a series of engravings of celebrated lovers published in the Town and Country Magazine.^{[138][note 26]}

The purported letters of Elizabeth Billington confess she "made a cuckold of her husband by committing adultery with Mr Daly",^[139] and soon after their publication The Secret History of the Green Room alleged that Daly had physically forced himself upon an unwilling Mrs Jordan and had lusted for Miss Romanzini (later the wife of Mrs Jordan's brother George Bland).^{[140][note 27]} Allegations also emerged of Daly romancing Mrs Baddeley and Miss Tweedale, and propositioning Mrs Inchbald and Mrs Siddons.^[141] Some of the allegations seem based on slight or ambiguous foundation,^{[note 28]} but their cumulative effect provides support for the application to Daly by Oxberry's Dramatic Biography of the general assertion that "Managers are, in their theatres, little better than Turks in their seraglios; at least as far as the indigence or immorality of their female performers will allow them to be so".^[142]

In tandem with misconduct towards his players, Daly has been said to be "preoccupied with drinking and gambling"^[143] but, when alluding to his gambling, Clare Jerrold referred to it taking place during "his constant attendance at a Temperance Club where the only refreshment allowed was biscuits and water".^[144] In his suit against Magee, Daly took particular exception to the suggestion that he was a gambler, protesting this to be "false, scandalous and malicious",^[145] though there was later attributed to him "an extraordinary propensity for making wagers in reference to incidental matters, however unimportant". He has been credited with invention of the word "quiz" in consequence of one such wager.^{[146][note 29]}