John Highfield Leigh papers

John Highfield Leigh (1859-1934) was the son of Henry Leigh of Eccles, Lancashire, England. He was educated in Manchester and at Oxford, and was called to the bar in 1886. Leigh was interested in the theatre, and gave public readings of Shakespeare. In 1899 he bought the lease of the Prince of Wales Theatre in order to enable John Martin Harvey to continue the performance of The Only Way, which Leigh had backed. Leigh then purchased the lease of the Court Theatre in 1903, in order to put on a series of "Shakespeare Representations", beginning with The Tempest on October 26. In this production Leigh played Caliban and his wife Thyrza Norman, whom he had married in 1898, played Miranda. For the third play, Two Gentlemen of Verona, which opened April 8, 1904, Leigh secured Harley Granville-Barker to produce and act in it. For Shakespeare's birthday on April 23 a special matinee was produced, of scenes from the plays. Barker also arranged to put on matinees of Shaw's Candida, beginning April 26, while Two Gentlemen was still running. The last production at the Court was Timon of Athens, which opened May 14, with Leigh playing Timon. The 1903-04 season at the Royal Court Theatre introduced Harley Granville-Barker to Leigh's business manager, J.E. Vedrenne, and resulted in the Barker-Vedrenne Management, which produced the plays of Shaw, Euripides, Ibsen, Yeats, Barker, Maeterlinck, and many other uncommercial playwrights.