In the story of magician Signor Recanati (1855), his performances came to an abrupt halt because the lessee of the theatre, Augustus Leopoldt, had gone into insolvency.

While researching this circumstance, I found considerable difficulty in locating information on two main themes: Firstly the insolvency issue, of which I have found no mention in any of the standard reference works on Sydney Theatre. Secondly, the question of exactly where the Royal Lyceum Theatre was located; while its general position somewhere between King and Market Streets was frequently noted, it took a lot of digging in order to establish the full detail. While it may be that these things have been noted previously (and I would be glad to be corrected on any errors), they have been found only with some difficulty; so it is hoped that these notes, while rather over-detailed and pedantic, will add something to the published, very complicated, history of this Hotel/Theatre.

For the purposes of the story, the heading, “Royal Lyceum Theatre” has been chosen because it relates to Signor Recanati. In fact, it should be taken to encompass all the circuses, hotels and theatres which belonged to the site.

The new name of the hotel was the Adelphi Hotel, York-street, Sydney.

This same announcement mentions the Livery Stables for upwards of twenty horses, large inclosed yard for the accommodation of country drays, capacious stores, wool sheds etc., and comfortable apartments for servants at the lowest charges. Clearly this was a sizeable property.

The fact that the hotel, and the theatres which were later attached to it, were mutually dependent makes it difficult on occasion to separate the licensee of the hotel’s operations from someone who may have been the lessee of the theatrical venture. Various histories, for example, state that John Malcom had  “the licence” for the Adelphi as early as 1850, yet official records for the hotel (2) say that the licensee was Thomas Murphy; leaving Malcom as the “Sole Proprietor”, the title he used in advertising;  certainly as an important figure in the Adelphi’s history.  Malcom’s official listing as licensee comes on May 5, 1855.

There is also a disconnect between what was officially recorded as the Hotel name (2) and the name being advertised for the theatre; for example in 1855 the Theatre was advertising as the “Royal Lyceum” while publican’s licences were still recorded under “Adelphi Hotel” until 1856.

We find a tongue-in-cheek article concerning the Donnybrook, in The Australian October 17, 1839:-

SIGNS OF THE TIMES. - Perhaps there is no place in the world where the limner's art is carried to such perfection in the way of sign painting as in Sydney. This may arise from the fact that in no place is the art so much patronised. The signs of Sydney may challenge critical examination, and even invite illustration. Now as we have

no Royal Academy at present, and it is the custom for literary reviews to descant on the merits, characteristics and tendencies of the painting at Somerset House, why should not this Magazine bring out the beauties of the annual, monthly and daily exhibition in the streets of the metropolis? The first, as coming fresh from the hand of the artist, and the last to arrest the attention of the passenger, is Donnybrook Fair. It flaunts in York-street, over the house of Mrs Bridget McLaughlin; it exhibits the talent of a Mulready; and the friends, both of temperance and intemperance may learn a good lesson by a quarter of an hour's study of this racy performance. But they must study both sides of the sign - they must "Look first on this picture and then on that."

I have endeavoured to interpret the meaning of the intent of mine hostess; and as I certainly cannot read it as an invitation to drink, I conclude the kind intention of the fair landlady must be to warn people who do not know how to be moderate, and behave genteelly never to enter her door. My rhymes may not come up to your poetic standard, but if you do not place them in poet's corner, you my perhaps grant them a niche elsewhere.

In York-street, in Sydney, there is I declare

A sign to the lift of famed Donnybrook Fair,

There if Pat with shillelagh and shamrock so green,

With his holiday clothes on all dacent and clean,

And the zeal of his soul you may read from afar,

It is Erin mavourneen, or Erin go bragh:

You learn from his looks he has plenty of money,

And the twink of his eye says "I'll trate you, my honey."

But walk a few steps and you soon shift the scene,

Poor Pat has grown wild with a draught of poteen,

His had, and his shamrock, have gone to the winds;

His arm is upraised with the fury of fiends;

One twirl of shillelagh has laid his friend low,

Fro the friend he had "trated" he "trates" with a blow.

Now, would your believe it? This picture is hung,

O'er the door of a dram shop; as if it were swung,

For a warning to tipplers to pay off their score,

Pass the threshold in leaving, and cross it no more.

JEKYLL - Temp. Mag.

1844 - Martin Gill was licensee at the Donnybrook Hotel

1845-1853 - Thomas Murphy took over the license, renaming the hotel as the Adelphi Hotel. (3)

1850 - October – (4) Publican John Malcom opened the Royal Australian Equestrian Circus, performances directed by John Jones and Edward La Rosiere in the rear yards of the existing Adelphi Hotel. Malcom had spent a considerable sum, though the arena was roofless and the neighbourhood regarded as “not of the sweetest.” Horsemanship, tumbling and rope dancing were the entertainments licenced for display, in one of Sydney’s formative circus venues, and probably the most important and successful uses of the site.

1851 - A more complete  amphitheatre was completed, named Malcom’s Royal Australian Circus. It was capable of seating 1000 people, being  54 feet long by 30 feet wide, with an interior roof height of forty one feet, with a new roof, side boxes and a pit.

1852 – The theatre, now named Malcom’s Royal Australian Amphitheatre, had a dress circle, pit, and stage.

1853 (to 1855) - John Malcom now listed (3) as licensee of the Adelphi Hotel, though he was clearly active with the Amphitheatre prior to this date.

The theatre now had three circles of boxes,  and backstage dressing rooms.

1854 – From April through June (5), Jon Malcom advertised, separately, both the Adelphi Hotel and the Amphitheatre for sale, along with the stud of horses, the reason being given as “protracted ill health”.

1855-1856 - Edward Harrison listed as licensee of the Adelphi Hotel . There is no mention of Augustus Leopoldt in the records, but see (2) for confirmation that Malcom’s licence had been officially transferred to Leopoldt.

December 26, 1855 – Royal Lyceum Theatre announced to reopen, with “extensive alterations and improvements”.

1856 - Margaret Canavan listed as licensee of the Adelphi Hotel at April 15. (3)

1856 (to1858) - At September 2,  Isaac Solomon listed as the licensee of the “Lyceum Hotel” or “Our Lyceum Hotel” (3)

“...will speedily attain an eminent position in the list of our places of entertainment, and at once dispel the prejudice which somehow unaccountably exists as to its locality.” This is did not do, despite a brief surge of interest in the dramatic season given by famed Irish tragedian Gustavus Vaughan Brooke, then at the peak of his career. The venue again carried on against poor attendance. To add to the confusing swamp of names, advertising in the Sydney Morning Herald for November 1857 mentions the name “Olympic Circus, Our Lyceum.”

1867 - Alexander Habbe and W. J. Wilson converted the theatre into a ballroom, but by 1869 had reverted to usage as a theatre which, to confuse the issue further, they briefly named The Adelphi.

Up until 1873 the theatre was again used on occasion as a circus, and also as a “Café Chatant”, literally a ‘singing café’, or a venue mid-way between a cabaret and a music hall. (2)

1873 - Actor W. B. Gill took over the lease, renovating and renaming the theatre as the Queen’s Theatre, which name, thankfully, it kept through to 1881. The renovations left the theatre with just one circle and the stalls, though with a higher roof.

1874 – Actor Edmund Holloway took over the theatre for a short time. On September 29 an explosion of the gas used in the lime lighting caused the cancellation of a performance, and the audience “wreaked their vengeance by breaking up some of the pit fittings , tearing down the gas-pipes and seats, and creating wild disturbances” . (7) Their reward for this was to be given free tickets for the next night!

The next lessee was Samuel Lazar, who brought the iconic James Cassius Williamson and Maggie Moore to Sydney for the first time, with their hit show, “Struck Oil.”

1875 - After triumphs in the South, J. C. Williamson had sailed for Sydney in February 1875 to show under the management of Samuel Lazar at the Queen’s Theatre. Lazar, arriving in Sydney, discovered that refurbishments he had promised to the theatre had not been started.  (8) Lazar wrote,

The renovations and star attractions did not make the Queen’s into a viable venue, however, and it continued to struggle with intermittent usage. Some histories state that the name “Royal Albert” was used, but no evidence of this can be found, most references being a mis-reading of the Royal Albert in Tasmania, or a possible “Albert Hall” located in Market Street Sydney.

1882 - due to growing concerns about the disastrous safety record of theatres, (9) particularly in relation to fire,  a Royal Commission of Inquiry was established ‘into the Construction of Theatres, Public Halls, and Other Places of Public Amusement or Concourse’.  As part of that inquiry, the Queen’s Theatre was declared unsafe, and its fate was sealed with immediate effect.

Sydney Morning Herald, August 2 1882 - “The closing of the Queen's Theatre on Monday night appeared to come with a somewhat painful abruptness to those immediately concerned, and yet it is an act that had been long pending, and had been regarded by those best qualified to judge as of urgent necessity. The place was ready for a conflagration or a collapse at any moment. It was in fact tinsel and trappings upon rottenness, unhealthy and unsafe, and only useful as a means of making money at the risk of a terrible disaster. .... The old Queen's Theatre stands condemned because it must be pulled down. It has gone too far for repairs.”

(2) Some dates from ‘Dictionary of the Australian Theatre 1788-1914’ by Eric Irvin, (Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, 1985)

(3) State Records NSW, searchable index of Publican’s Licenses

(4) “Circus”. An article of December 2010 for the online ‘Sydney Journal’ by circus historian Mark Valentine St Leon.

(5) Empire, May 29, 1854 and others

(6) Sydney Morning Herald, September 6, 1854, page 3

(7) Empire, September 30, 1874

(8) Quoted from ‘J.C.W. - A Short Biography of James Cassius Williamson’, by Ian G. Dicker, Elizabeth Tudor Press 1974. Dicker’s source material was “All About a Theatre”, a booklet published to mark the opening of Her Majesty’s Theatre, Sydney, 1903 p.10  and a letter from J.C.W. to Henry Edwards, February 13 1875.

(9) See http://www.rossthorne.com/downloads/Fires%20in%20Theatres%20duplicate.pdf regarding the appalling history of fire in theatres.

This area of York Street in the mid-1800s was fairly much on the edges of the Sydney township, and it was widely considered to be not the most salubrious of places. In 1851 the population of Sydney was around 39,000 growing rapidly to 200,000 in 1871 due to the influx of hopeful gold-diggers after 1852.

From Joseph Fowles’ detailed guide of “Sydney in 1848”:- “York Street is a short street, running north and south, parallel with George Street, extending from the south entrance of the Military Barracks [Barrack Lane today], to the old Burial Ground [where the Town Hall is today], and is intersected at right angles by King Street West and Market Street; from its central position it might be expected to possess more importance than it actually does; but when the contemplated improvements in the Barrack Square (the whole of which is about being laid out for sale) are completed, it will become a leading thoroughfare, and the value of property in this locality will be consequently much enhanced…. The remaining houses in this portion of York Street, are characterised by no remarkable architectural beauty, but occupied by a business-like class of persons diligently engaged in their several avocations.”

‘Bell’s Life’ of July 22, 1854 advertised the Constitution Hotel as ‘York-Street, Opposite Malcom’s Circus’. Sands Directory for 1858-59 shows the Constitution Hotel at 94 York Street.

Advertising in the Herald of September 13, 1854, P.G. Chisholm (Brass Worker and Gas Fitter) mentioned that his establishment at 62 York St was adjoining Malcom’s Royal Circus.

In a book published in 1862, “Or the Way of the World” by Frank Foster, is appended a Colonial Directory (1857?) which predates the beginnings of the ‘Sands’ city directories.  On page 365 is the reference “Hotels - Lyceum Hotel, 84 York-st”.

This leads us to confirm (5) in the City of Sydney archives for 1858 and 1861, 84 York Street was registered as a Public House under Isaac Solomon.

It cannot be assumed that modern-day street numbering is identical. Today’s 84 York Street seems not to exist amongst the shambolic and non-consecutive numbers marked on modern maps.  Google Maps places number 84 directly on the intersection of Market and York Streets. Looking at the image from “Dove’s Plans” of 1880 (below) indicates a street number of 54, not 84.

Turning to old city maps and street guides, there are a number of illustrations which give us the actual location of the site, on the Western side of York Street, closer to the corner of Market and York.

According to the description on the City of Sydney archives, this map was prepared in about 1880, but was based on an original map from the 1830s, and contained details as they were at that time. The McLaughlin tenancy of the site certainly ran from 1831-1844. The name Augustus Caesar is also recognised by circus historian, Mark St Leon.  Caesar lived from 1793-1870 and, through a complex series of family and friendships, connects to many other people in the circus world of later years. We are assuming here that the date shown, 0.0.29, might indicate Caesar’s occupation of the site prior to the McLaughlins.

From Joseph Fowles’ “Sydney in 1848” we are fortunate to have illustrations of York Street, clearly identifying the “Adelphi Hotel and Squatters Home” in the upper image.  To its left is “Hensley, fancy bread and biscuit baker”. Market Street is towards the left of this image, and on the corner of Market and York (lower left of this image) is the Harp & Shamrock tavern illustrated in the 1849 drawing below. In the next connecting illustration by Fowles, the Wesleyan Centenary Chapel is shown to be just three doors further down from the Adelphi, towards King Street.

City of Sydney Archives (Auction & Sale lithographs); full image at