ABSTRACT
Ellen Terry and Henry Irving had a long and financially successful working relationship at the Lyceum Theatre, most memorably, perhaps, as partners in crime in Macbeth. Irving was known as the 'Vicar', the 'Chief' and the 'Governor'. This chapter explores some new insights into their working relationship during the Lyceum days. It considers Irving's impact on Terry and her children and Irving's place in the memorialisation of Terry at Smallhythe Place. When Laurence Irving described the relationship between Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in familial terms – 'They were at once each other's parent and child' – he was speaking with the authority of kinship with one half of the famous couple. If Irving was involved in a mutual parenting role towards Ellen Terry, as suggested by Laurence Irving, it might be assumed that their relationship was not sexual and that the asymmetrical power relationship of parent–child flowed between them.
