John Lawrence Toole was an English comic actor, actor-manager and theatrical producer. He was famous for his roles in farce and in serio-comic melodramas, in a career that spanned more than four decades, and the first actor to have a West End theatre named after him.
John Lawrence Toole
Spy cartoon of Toole titled "A Spelling Bee" (1876)
Toole in The Butler at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
Toole in the title role in The Don (1888)
The St James's Theatre was in King Street, St James's, London. It opened in 1835 and was demolished in 1957. The theatre was conceived by and built for a popular singer, John Braham; it lost money and after three seasons he retired. A succession of managements over the next forty years also failed to make it a commercial success, and the St James's acquired a reputation as an unlucky theatre. It was not until 1879–1888, under the management of the actors John Hare and Madge and W. H. Kendal that the theatre began to prosper.
Façade of the theatre, 1836
Illustration of the interior by John Gregory Crace
Early managers: John Braham (top) and Alfred Bunn
Ruth Herbert, lessee 1864–1868