HENRY

See also:

• JAMES
• JAMES (Gr. 'IlrKw,l3or, the Heb. Ya`akob or Jacob)
• JAMES (JAMES FRANCIS EDWARD STUART) (1688-1766)
• JAMES, 2ND EARL OF DOUGLAS AND MAR(c. 1358–1388)
• JAMES, DAVID (1839-1893)
• JAMES, EPISTLE OF
• JAMES, GEORGE PAYNE RAINSFOP
• JAMES, HENRY (1843— )
• JAMES, JOHN ANGELL (1785-1859)
• JAMES, THOMAS (c. 1573–1629)
• JAMES, WILLIAM (1842–1910)
• JAMES, WILLIAM (d. 1827)

JAMES

See also:

• BYRON, GEORGE GORDON BYRON, 6TH BARON (1788-1824)
• HENRY JAMES BYRON (1834-1884)
• BYRON, HON
• BYRON, JOHN BYRON

BYRON (1834-1884)  , English playwright, son of Henry Byron, at one time British consul at Port-au-Prince, was born in Manchester in January 1834 . He entered the Middle Temple as a student in 1858, with the intention of devoting his time to play-writing . He soon ceased to make any pretence of legal study, and joined a provincial company as an actor . In this line he never made any real success; and, though he continued to act for years, chiefly in his own plays, he had neither originality nor charm . Meanwhile he wrote assiduously, and few men have produced so many pieces of so diverse a nature . He was the first editor of the weekly comic paper, Fun, and started the short-lived Comic Trials . His first successes were in burlesque; but in 1865 he joined Miss Marie Wilton (afterwards Lady Bancroft) in the management of the Prince of Wales's theatre, near Tottenham Court Road . Here several of his pieces, comedies and extravaganzas were produced with success; but, upon his severing the partnership two years later, and starting management on his own account in the provinces, he was financially unfortunate . The commercial success of his life was secured with Our Boys, which was played at the Vaudeville from January 1875 till April 1879—a then unprecedented " run." The Upper Crust, another of his successes, gave a congenial opportunity to Mr J . L . Toole for one of his inimitably broad character-sketches . During the last few years of his life Byron was in frail health; he died in Clapham on the firth of April 1884 .

H . J . Byron was the author of some of the most popular

stage pieces of his day . Yet his extravaganzas have no wit but that of violence; his rhyming couplets are without polish, and decorated only by forced and often pointless puns . His sentiment had T . W . Robertson's insipidity without its freshness, and restored an element of vulgarity which his predecessor had laboured to eradicate from theatrical tradition . He could draw a " Cockney " character with some fidelity, but his dramatis personae were usually mere puppets for the utterance of his jests . Byron was also the author of a novel, Paid in Full (1865), which appeared originally in Temple Bar . In his social relations he had many friends, among whom he was justly popular for geniality and imperturbable good temper .