Miss Marriott.
(From the biography of Edgar Wallace, by Margaret Lane.)

One of the earliest settlers in the province of Wellington, arriving in the ship Thomas Sparks in 1842, was James Henry Marriott, a man already in his forties and full of worldly experience. Marriott was by profession a maker of scientific and optical instruments; but he had also artistic tastes, and moved for many years in theatrical circles in London. He was a fine Shakespearian scholar and appeared, with some success, in a number of Shakespearian plays. He dabbled in art also, with pen and ink and brush, and he could turn his pen to verse, with a flair for topical doggerel which came in handy during the noisy politics of early Wellington.

Before he had been here long Marriott, with his friend Rowland Davis, took the lead in providing entertainment for the colonists. They erected the Britannia saloon and the Aurora tavern (which afterwards became the Lyceum Theatre), and in 1844 Marriott helped to design and build the Olympic Theatre. He carried out the decorations and scenery, and even manufactured from whale oil the gas for lighting the theatre. Later he was one of the founders of the Oddfellows' lodge and hall, also in company with Davis.

When provincial politics dominated the Colony, and every man was a villain or a paragon according to his political party, Marriott played his part well enough by writing verse on behalf of the Settlers' Constitutional Association. His “Constitutional Budget,” published in 1858, contained a good deal of this doggerel, some of it of quite high quality in its own field. Against the ruthless battle which Edward Jerningham Wakefield waged, with any weapon to his hand, against the high-minded Featherston, Marriott deserved well of the party he supported. So well that a few months later he was appointed by the Superintendent (Featherston) to be sergeant-at-arms to the Wellington Provincial Council.

(From “Early Wellington.”)
Reform Banquet held in the Theatre, Wellington, N.Z., 1849.
(From a copper plate engraving by Mr. J. H. Marriott, which appeared in the “Illustrated London News” of the period.)

Marriott continued to be a leader in the theatrical and social life of the province. At most public dinners he was employed in arranging the entertainment and decorating the hall. He even made sketches of such events. The Illustrated London News contains a number of his pictures, notably of the public dinners in Wellington, and the laying of the foundation stone of the provincial hall. I often wondered whether the public halls of Wellington really looked so substantial and seemly page 29 as they appear in Marriott's engravings in the Illustrated London News. It is said also that he made some of the blocks himself. That would, of course, be in his line as an instrument maker. In later life he was an inspector of weights and measures. Marriott died in 1886.

Polly Richards, about 1880
(From the biography of Edgar Wallace, by Margaret Lane.)

Alice Marriott, of Sadler's Wells Theatre.

In gathering for the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, these few facts about the life of this interesting early settler, I several times came across a statement that he was the father of the famous English actress, Alice Marriott. When he had been ten years in New Zealand he paid a visit to the Old Country, and amongst those whom he met on that occasion was his daughter Mrs. Robert Edgar, then proprietor of the Sadler's Wells Theatre. A few years later Robert Edgar died, and his death notice in the Wellington papers fully identified him as the son-in-law of James Henry Marriott. He was a useless creature whom Alice dignified with the title of manager. In fact she did everything about the theatre, even to counting out the salaries on Saturdays.

Alice Marriott was quite an institution on the English stage in the middle of the nineteenth century. A rather masculine woman, with a fine presence and considerable talent, a beautiful voice and a phenomenal memory, she was playing for over forty years, and she had an enormous repertoire of long and difficult parts. She had dramatic intensity to a degree, and as an emotional actress had a high reputation. Alice had a fondness for masculine doublet and hose, and for playing masculine parts, which not infrequently were entrusted to women in those inexplicable Victorian days. Her Hamlet was famous. She could do as she liked, since she had her own company, and was even for some years lessee of several theatres, including the Sadler's Wells and the Standard at Shoreditch. She played also in the provinces, and even took her own Hamlet to America in the ‘seventies.

There is no need to labour the talent of this daughter of James Henry Marriott, except to add that she made a great deal of money and would have been wealthy had she not married Robert Edgar, who was convinced that he knew the best way to invest it. He had a mania for buying up shop property at high prices and selling, generally, at a loss.

Richard Marriott and Polly Richards.

Like many successful actresses, Alice was as good-hearted as she was clever. Only one instance of this matters to this story. When she was playing at Liverpool once, she met a small-part actress and dancer, Mary Jane Blair, whose stage name was Polly Richards. Born in 1843, she was a ballet dancer in her early twenties, when she married a merchant service skipper. He died of an obscure malady on his next voyage and left her unprovided for and soon to have a child. Polly went back to the boards to support herself and the child. She had touched the depths of

(From ‘Early Wellington.’)
Entertainment to Maori Chiefs at the Pipitea Street Hospital, Wellington, in 1849, to celebrate the receipt from Earl Grey of a framed portrait of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.
(Reproduced from the original copper plate engraved by Mr. J. H. Marriott and used by the “Illustrated London News” in 1849.

Richard Horatio Edgar.
(From the biography of Edgar Wallace, by Margaret Lane.)

disillusionment and poverty, and was almost starving when she met Alice Marriott in Liverpool. Alice at once gave her employment, and for the rest of her life Polly Richards was a member of her company, combining the duties of small-part actress and dresser. Sometimes she had complete control of the tragedienne's wardrobe. She was a close friend of Alice Marriott's two daughters all their lives. She was also more friendly than they knew with the son, Richard Edgar, to whom the added name of Horatio had been given out of deference to Alice's partiality for Hamlet.

And so life went on. Polly Richards page 30 page 31 was almost a member of the Edgar household and always of the Edgar troupe.

In 1874 a tragedy fell upon her. While playing at the Old Greenwich Theatre in London Street she stayed at rather shabby lodgings in Ashburnham Grove. One night in December, 1874, “she let herself out and walked home to the lodging house to await—with little enough enthusiasm—the birth of her second child.” During recent months Polly Richards had assisted her employer to find a wife for her way-ward son, and she was the means of finding Richard a very satisfactory wife, a charming young actress named Jenny Taylor. With extraordinary loyalty and reserve, Polly did not even allow Alice Marriott to know of her own trouble. Alice died (in 1900) unaware that Polly had had a son, and therefore unaware of the existence of her own first grandchild. Polly does not even seem to have told the impeccable Richard what had happened. She hid her shame, had her child in secret and provided for it by the best means she could devise, without allowing the woman to whom she owed everything

(From a drawing by W. Le Couteur.)
One of the new “J” class (4–8–2) locomotives being built for service on the New Zealand Railways. The overall length of these locomotives is 66ft. 9 in.; total weight in working order, 108 1/4 tons; tractive effort, 24,960 lbs.; water capacity of tender, 4,000 gallons; fuel capacity, 6 tons.

in the world to know of its existence. This grandchild of Miss Marriott's was the great grandson of James Henry Marriott, of Wellington.

He was taken to a Catholic priest for baptism, and the name that Polly Richards gave to him was Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace. She gave the fictitious name of “Wallace Wallace, comedian,” as that of the father, and thus saved Richard Edgar and his mother any embarrassment.

When I read Margaret Lane's biography of the great novelist Edgar Wallace, I found myself putting two and two together from fragments of biographical information which had come to me in the compilation of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Here was the first confirmation of the statement which had appeared in some of our old Wellington newspapers that James Henry Marriott was the father of Alice Marriott, the Sadler's Wells actress.

The whole story appears in Miss Lane's fine biography. To which I might add that no doubt Edgar Wallace, the colourful author of our own time, drew some of his inspiration in letters and artistry from his great grandfather, just as he did some of his speculative tendencies from his unknown grand-father Robert Edgar.

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