Horniman, Annie Elizabeth Fredericka

Horniman, Annie Elizabeth Fredericka (1860–1937), theatre patron and manager, one of the seminal influences in the Irish and English theatres at the beginning of the 20th century. The daughter of a wealthy Victorian tea-merchant, she had no connections with the theatre, but from her travels abroad came to realize the importance of subsidized repertory theatres. She therefore made funds available in 1894 for a repertory season at the Avenue Theatre (later the Playhouse) which included Arms and the Man, the first play by Shaw to be seen in the commercial theatre, and The Land of Heart's Desire, the first play by Yeats to be seen in London. Her Introduction to Yeats through this season led her to take an interest in the new Irish Literary Theatre, which in turn led her to build the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1904. In 1908 she bought and refurbished the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester, where from 1908 to 1917 she maintained an excellent repertory company, putting on more than 200 plays, at least half of which were new works, among them the plays of the so-called ‘Manchester School’ (see MANCHESTER) and an early play by St John Ervine, Jane Clegg (1913). Most of the productions were directed by Lewis Casson, who married a member of the company, Sybil Thorndike. The venture was not a success financially and the company was disbanded in 1917, the building becoming a cinema in 1921. Miss Horniman lived long enough, however, to see her pioneer work bear fruit with the spread of the repertory theatre movement.