The True History of the Elephant Man by Peter Ford

Author:Peter Ford
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780749040499
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2011-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

‘Such a Gentle, Kindly Man, Poor Thing!’

Even during the early days following his admission to the London Hospital, the case of Joseph Merrick began to attract the attention of people who were in a position to bring social influence to bear on his behalf. Outstanding among these was the actress, Mrs Kendal, to whose actor husband, W. H. Kendal, Mr Wardell Cardew mentioned the fact of Joseph Merrick having been in Ostend. Wardell Cardew went on to suggest that Mr Kendal might care to go to the London Hospital to see the Elephant Man for himself, and so he did. In fact Kendal had studied medicine for a time before deciding to make his career in the theatre, and among his friends was John Bland-Sutton. He had made a point of keeping up his interest in medical topics.

When he returned home his wife asked him whether he had enjoyed himself amid all the medical activity. According to her memoirs, Dame Madge Kendal by Herself, he replied decisively:

‘No … I have not. I have seen the most fearful sight of my life.’

‘Don’t tell me about it,’ I replied.

‘The extraordinary thing,’ declared my husband, ‘is that out of the distorted frame came the most musical voice.’

The experience so affected him that he could hardly speak. When he recovered, he told me that Mr Cardew had said they would never allow Merrick to be in the hospital permanently, although he ought to be in there, as it was not fit that he should be seen in public.

‘Wouldn’t they let him remain in the hospital,’ I asked, ‘if the money was raised to pay for his keep?’

At this time Madge Kendal was appearing at the St James’s Theatre, Piccadilly, with her husband’s business partner in theatrical management, Mr John Hare, in The Hobby Horse, a new play by the rising young playwright Arthur Pinero. The fine cast also included Mrs Beerbohm Tree, and the drama critic of Punch said he really did not care in what Mrs Kendal and Mr Hare appeared, they excelled so in their playing. Evidently the play was not vintage Pinero, but Mrs Kendal had the rewarding and appropriate part of an irreproachable married woman whose one peculiarity was her philanthropic hobby of turning the family house into a refuge for waifs and strays, to her husband’s exasperation. It was a success with the theatre-going public, for whom Mrs Kendal was a star performer and could do no wrong.

Madge Kendal had been born into a family with strong theatrical antecedents, the Robertsons. Among her ancestors was James Robertson, an actor and playwright who was a contemporary of David Garrick and well known in the fashionable centres of Bath and York. Several generations of theatrical managers followed, and one of her elder brothers (there were twenty-two children in the family) was T. W. Robertson, the dramatist who had a decisive influence in introducing the new realism on to the Victorian stage. He saw this as a principle that would affect a production as a whole, from playscript to style of the acting and production details.

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