HAROLD NELSON: THE EARLY YEARS (c. 1865-1905) ^*

Douglas Arrell

In his 1909 article, 'The Romance of the Theatre in Canada,' Robson Black (Frederic Robson) surveyed the history and current situation of the Canadian theatre. He found room to refer to only one contemporary Canadian actor: Harold Nelson. He gives the following summary of Nelson's achievement:

Let credit be given where it is due. In this instance, the West owes a debt to a Canadian actor, Harold Nelson, as to a pioneer worker who struggled through eight years of bitter uphill work from Winnipeg to the coast, preaching the cause of clean drama, as no other in that field has ever, attempted. Mr. Nelson brought "The Merchant of Venice," "Hamlet" and "Richelieu" to towns and villages which saw very few stage representations the year round, and then only exceedingly poor ones. He preached Shakespeare to rough cow-punchers, and preached with intelligence and sympathy. He lectured to schools and to colleges on the drama, and incited owners of halls and 'op'rys' to build better ones.¹

Nelson may not have been the best Canadian actor of his time. He himself, in an interview in Calgary in 1903, proudly listed other successful Canadian-born actors: Franklyn McLeay ('the sacred memory of Canadian actors'), Julia Arthur, Clara Morris, Henry Miller, Andrew Robson, Viola Allen.² But the significant fact, which he does not draw attention to, is that none of these actors made a major contribution to the Canadian theatre. Harold Nelson was the only important actor of his generation who set out consciously to use his talent in the service of a vision of a specifically Canadian theatre.

Harold Nelson, whose real name was Harold Nelson Shaw, was born in Nova Scotia in the mid-eighteen-sixties. The precise date and place have not yet been established. Some sources give Boston as his birthplace, but the most authoritative source, an unusually well-written and accurate interview with Nelson, himself, that appeared in the Edmonton Bulletin in 1906, describes him as:

a native of Nova Scotia, a descendant of the Shaws of Prince Edward Island, and the Lawsons of Halifax and Charlottetown. That fact, to a resident of these provinces, quite places him as one who came into a goodly heritage of family worth and loyal citizenship.³

This context of Canadian patriotism and social respectability was an important factor in charting Nelson's unique career as an actor.

The Edmonton interview describes the next significant event in Nelson's life as follows:

He left home in his teens to go on the stage, a life of which his parents disapproved from many points of view. Before he listened to counsels to return home he had received in Boston an excellent start in the career he yearned for, by playing first minor and then more advanced parts in Edwin Booth's and Dion Bouccicault's [sic] companies. It is to these two classics of the stage that Harold Nelson attributes much of the formation of his stage ideals and traditions.⁴

Apparently having persuaded him to give up the stage, Nelson's family attempted to steer his dramatic talent towards the safer and more respectable career of a teacher of elocution. In an article in Saturday Night in 1893, we are told that he spent six years (apparently 1880-86) studying 'elocution, oratory and vocal music in New York and Boston.' ⁵ The most significant influence on Nelson's career at this point was Franklin Sargeant, with whom he studied 'Greek Art and the Classic Drama.' Sargeant (1856-1923) was a teacher of elocution at Harvard who became a New York stage-director. He was strongly influenced by Delsarte through his teacher, Steele MacKaye. In 1884, with MacKaye, and Gustave Frohman, he founded the Lyceum School of Acting, 'the first institution founded in America devoted exclusively to training for the professional stage'; ⁶ this later became the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, of which Sargeant was the first president. Sargeant became noted for his large-scale productions of Greek tragedy, often on university campuses, an idea which Nelson borrowed directly for his first dramatic work in Toronto. Nelson's career shows considerable similarity to Sargeant's; both were centrally concerned with bridging the gap between academic values and training on the one hand, and the professional theatre on the other.

Another significant influence at this time was Henry Hudson (1814-86), one of America's most prominent Shakespearian critics, from whom Nelson received instruction in Boston. Hudson's strongly moralistic interpretations of Shakespeare reappear in Nelson's lectures and no doubt also in his Shakespearian productions and character portrayals.⁷

In 1886 Nelson went to Acadia University, where he apparently taught elocution while working for his B.A. degree, which he obtained in 1891. After a further year's teaching there, he came to Toronto in the summer of 1892, to become principal of the School of Elocution attached to the Conservatory of Music where he remained until 1898. During this period he transformed the School of Elocution from a marginal adjunct of the music school to the first full-fledged acting school in Canada. A little over a year after his arrival, Saturday Night ran his picture on its front cover, and a story in the dramatic column that began:

Of late it has been remarked among professional people that the Conservatory School of Elocution is developing into something greater than its kind, and becoming one of the significant institutions of the city. During the past year the attendance has doubled and public and professional men have not hesitated to present themselves for voice training. That the school has won such sound repute with the most discerning is due almost entirely to the talents and well shaped energies of Mr. H. N. Shaw, B.A., the principal.⁸

Part of the reason for his success was Nelson's approach to elocution which played down the rules and conventional techniques that gave it the reputation of being an archaic and pedantic discipline. In his discussions of verse-speaking, Nelson always laid great stress on the importance of understanding the meaning of the words; in an address to the Central School in Rossland, B.C. in 1903, he is reported as saying that

He believes in making the student first understand the true meaning and proper conception of a selection, and this accomplished, expression, gesture, and dramatic rendition will follow without minute regard to the hard and fast rules adopted by the old teachers.⁹

Another probable reason for Nelson's success as an elocution teacher was the increasing orientation of his program towards the professional stage. Here he had to tread very carefully, for there was a wide social gulf between the largely amateur accomplishment of elocutionary reading and the profession of acting; the parents of the young ladies who studied with Nelson would have been upset at the notion that their daughters were being prepared for the stage. It is significant that the 1893 story in Saturday Night makes no mention whatever of Nelson's stage experience. His star students are all described as going on to teach elocution at other institutions. As we shall see, only gradually could Nelson make explicit his orientation and that of the school towards the professional theatre.

Nelson's primary means of training himself and his students was a series of elaborate amateur productions, which got increasingly professional as the years went by. On 15 to 17 February 1894, he directed a production for University College of Antigone in Greek at the Academy of Music; he himself played the First Messenger at one performance. This initial venture into theatrical work was unlikely to raise many eyebrows, for this kind of highly academic production has traditionally been associated with elocution. The following year, however, Nelson went distinctly further. He produced Sophocles' Electra in English at the Grand Opera House (30, 31 May 1895), with pupils of the School of Elocution; the tragedy was preceded by the fifth act of The Merchant of Venice, Nelson himself played Orestes and Bassanio. 'Mack,' the dramatic critic of Saturday Night, gave the production extensive coverage, stating that Nelson's Orestes was 'full of passion and life and his art was delicate and perfect." ¹⁰

Nelson's successful Toronto teaching career was interrupted in the middle of 1895 by a characteristically ambitious and probably impulsive excursion. Nelson had studied singing as well as elocution, and he taught vocal music very successfully at the Conservatory. In the summer of 1894 he spent several months in Europe, where in addition to attending the Bayreuth Festival he studied with several leading singing teachers. In the summer of 1895 he again left for Europe, but this time he did not return until after Christmas; one has the impression that he had not taken official leave of absence from the school, for his return for the beginning of the session is confidently announced at the end of August.¹¹ He apparently studied with William Shakespeare, the famous voice teacher, in London, and in Paris with Jean de Reszke, the greatest tenor of his time. He also appeared in the Hedmont Opera Company's season at Covent Garden (12 October to 9 November); however, 'his health broke down and his voice was lost.' ¹² Nelson's obituary in the Vancouver Province tells us that 'On the suggestion of Sir Henry Irving he returned to Canada to give to a pioneer country the best procurable in the drama.' ¹³ This appears to be a pleasant fabrication, since Irving was absent in America throughout the period of Nelson's visit; however, Nelson saw 'many times' the production of Romeo and Juliet, with Forbes-Robertson and Mrs Patrick Campbell, that was playing at the Lyceum in Irving's absence. ¹⁴

On his return, Nelson showed no sign of discouragement. He directed what appears to have been an all-male production of Macbeth with students of St Michael's College in the college theatre on 16 April 1896, and Nelson himself played, apparently very successfully, Lady Macbeth. He continued to push his school in a theatrical direction by including more and more dramatic scenes and sketches in his pupils' recitals at the Conservatory. On 29 May 1896, for example, he presented an act of Tom Taylor's tragedy The Fool's Revenge, a favourite of Edwin Booth, at the closing concert of the school's season. He himself acted the leading role, and 'Mack' in Saturday Night commented: 'With a suitable role in a first class play his gifts should win him critical and popular approval on the professional boards.' ¹⁵

The following season (1896-97) for the first time Acting was listed among the items taught in the School of Elocution, along with Oratory, Recitation, Reading, Voice Culture, Orthoepy, Delsarte and Swedish Gymnastics, Greek Art, Statue Posing, and Literature. ¹⁶ The season was climaxed by performances of three full-length plays, John Banim's Damon and Pythias, Boucicault's The Colleen Bawn, and Doris, by Robert Drouet, on 7 and 8 May at Toronto's Grand Opera House. As usual Nelson played the leading roles.

At the beginning of the following season (1897-98), Nelson took another step in the direction of a full acting program; according to Saturday Night on 9 October,

A novelty has been introduced at the Conservatory School of Elocution, Mr. Shaw, the principal, having had fitted up a recital hall containing stage, drop curtain, scenery, etc., so that the pupils may have proper accessories in training for platform and stage work. This is a remarkably good idea.¹⁷

On 13 and 14 December at St Michael's College Nelson made his first appearance in a part with which he was to be strongly identified throughout his career, the title role in Bulwer-Lytton's Richelieu; he then appears to have taken the production 'on tour' to other Ontario centres.¹⁸ After Christmas, Richelieu, Romeo and Juliet, and James Albery's Duty were announced to appear at the Grand Opera House on 14, 15 and 16 February at the height of the Toronto theatre season. On 12 February Saturday Night revealed that 'Mr. Shaw, although now principal of the Conservatory School of Elocution, is not an amateur, but a professional actor of considerable experience.' ¹⁹ His cast, made up of students and fellow faculty-members, becomes increasingly referred to as his 'company.' The Saturday Night review of Richelieu includes the following;

Mr. Shaw made an excellent Richelieu, as I have said - severe, intellectual, deep and with a zealot's faith in himself. There was no ranting and no excess of elocutionary effort or effect, but a fidelity to a clearly conceived character.... In fact, we have in Mr. Shaw an actor of the first merit, who has heretofore been misunderstood through his connection with classical and academical productions like Antigone.²⁰

In the course of the next few months, Nelson made a crucial decision. He took a leave of absence from the Conservatory. He persuaded one of the members of his Richelieu cast, J. H. Proctor, to invest in the fitting out of a dramatic company; to this he added his own savings, or such as had not already been spent on the lavish costumes used in Richelieu and Romeo and Juliet. He got together a largely Canadian cast, and after a brief tour in Ontario, he arrived in Winnipeg in September, 1898, to take over the little Grand Opera House as actor-manager of a resident stock company presenting two different plays a week at popular prices.²¹ There he adopted the stage name of Harold Nelson.

In his years at the Conservatory Nelson had built up an enviable reputation as a teacher. He had a wife and at least two children, and was possibly supporting his mother in Toronto as well.²² His passion for acting must have been remarkably strong to induce him to give up the comforts and security of his Toronto career, for the grinding hard work, financial insecurity and comparative social ignominy of running a second-string theatre in Winnipeg. Charles H. Wheeler, the critic of the Winnipeg Tribune who was to cause Nelson a great deal of anguish in the years ahead, wrote of him in 1912 after all their quarrels had been forgotten: 'the lure of the stage overmastered him to such an extent that it eventually engrossed his entire attention .... he had a taste which could not be controlled for the practical, roving life of a Thespian.' ²³

It should be noted that to many in the theatre in 1898, resident stock companies appeared on the verge of a major revival. The Cummings Stock Company in Toronto, for example, had been such a success at the Princess Theatre that year that there was talk of the touring attractions at the Toronto Grand Opera House suffering from the competition. Saturday Night ran two articles on what it referred to as the 'theatrical crisis,' which suggested that touring companies were being squeezed out of the market all over North America by the cheaper non-touring stock companies.²⁴ And of course the Toronto papers carried frequent reports about the 'opening up' of the west. To Nelson and Proctor in 1898 a Winnipeg stock company must have seemed a more solid business proposition than it turned out to be.

There was another factor motivating Nelson's adventurous change of career. In the 1906 Edmonton interview he stated that one of his main aims in his work in the west was 'to give the ambitious young Canadian an opportunity to develop talent in Canada.' ²⁵ That this idea was with him from the beginning is suggested by a statement in Winnipeg's equivalent of Saturday Night, Town Topics, edited by CW. Handscomb, in October, 1898: 'There are those who happen to know that Mr. Nelson in his praiseworthy desire to establish in Canada a market for Canadian talent, is sacrificing comforts and lucrative position.' ²⁶ The same idea is repeated again in the 1903 Calgary interview:

"When I found in New York and London," said he, "that there was a prejudice against Canadians, I decided to make a market for Canadian artists myself." ²⁷

However, it was not only aspiring Canadian actors that concerned Nelson, but Canadian culture as a whole. The late eighteen-nineties marked the beginning of a period of intensified nationalism in Canada - a development exemplified by the establishment of Empire Day in 1898.²⁸ Most of the interviews and editorials that appeared about Nelson in the early 1900's used him as part of a boost for Canadian patriotism; thus the Calgary interview begins:

Harold Nelson is, first of all, a Canadian. If we in Canada have developed a type, and we surely have, Harold Nelson can be said to be one of the better examples of that class. The dominant features, perhaps, of this Canadian individuality are fearlessness, patriotism and originality, and it is to be hoped too, that to this may be added a belief in high ideals and a love of culture.²⁹

Nelson was enough of a showman to know how to capitalize on this new public mood; but he was enough of a Canadian to share it as well, and it is impossible to doubt the sincerity of his commitment to Canadian culture. Few of his public utterances lack references to his strong sense of Canadian identity; in his speeches before the curtain at the end of his performances, he often, as he did in Regina in 1889, referred to the 'pride which he felt as a Canadian in being able to form such a company of Canadian actors and actresses to present legitimate drama in Canada.' ³⁰

Nelson's clearest statement of his aims comes in the Edmonton interview; asked if he found it difficult to persuade talented Canadians to go on the stage, he replied:

"Yes, in some degree it has been difficult. There are many prejudices against the stage to be overcome. But I was ambitious - ." The eyes of the man, not the actor, flashed as he went on with spirit: - "I have hoped to bring out Canadian companies, excellent companies, and more than one, to play over Canadian territory, to make a national school of dramatic art with traditions and ideals of our own - and of the best." ³¹

Nelson's first year as an actor-manager in the professional theatre, (1898-9), turned into a remarkable saga, which is worth describing in some detail. In his first three months in Manitoba he gave at least fifteen different bills. Mainly the plays were familiar melodramas and comedies like Tom Taylor's The Ticket-of-Leave Man, H.J.Byron's Our Boys, T.W. Robertson's Caste, and Boucicault's The Colleen Bawn, but they included as well Richelieu and Romeo and Juliet. It was noted that the latter two 'legitimate' plays, which made by far the greatest demands on the company and the audience, were in fact the most popular; according to Town Topics their receipts 'greatly exceeded' those of the lighter plays in the repertoire.³² With such a heavy schedule it is not surprising that by early October, according to Town Topics, Nelson was 'feeling the strain.' ³³

In general, the productions were praised by the Winnipeg press for their attention to detail, good taste, and wholesomeness. Nelson seems to have been a great success among Winnipeg society, whose increasing attendance at the usually unfashionable Grand is frequently noted. Business, however, appears to have been only fair, and by the beginning of October we find references to the possibility of Nelson's engagement ending, and the company's undertaking 'a trip over the Canadian Pacific to the coast'; ³⁴ this tour, however, may have been part of Nelson's dream from the beginning.

As far as Nelson's own acting was concerned, responses were mixed. He was praised for his voice, for his intelligence, his originality; but he was not always successful in comedy, and he was handicapped in heroic roles by his short stature, which he tried to compensate for by wearing elevator shoes.³⁵ But the fundamental problem of his acting stemmed from his training. Probably Winnipeg's best drama critic was Mrs C.P. Walker, the wife of the manager of the Winnipeg Theatre, who began her pseudonymous dramatic column in Town Topics in October, 1898. She praised some aspects of Nelson's Romeo, but added: 'He was too studied, too elocutionary. We couldn't help feeling all the time that he was making love to "Juliet" that he was "acting."' ³⁶ This complaint that he was 'too elocutionary' continued to be heard throughout his career; his development as an actor consisted of a battle against his training, a fighting-off of the habits of quasi-acting which elocutionary study encouraged, and a search for greater emotional identification with his characters.

During the run of Romeo, Nelson's temperament and inexperience led him into a mistake which was to have serious consequences for his Winnipeg career; he got into a row with C.H. Wheeler. This was an easy thing to do; the Tribune critic was notorious for his use of his position to enhance his own ego, and the performer who failed to show him the proper respect could expect no mercy. Like most of his kind, Wheeler knew how to make his attacks really hurt by fixing on the genuine weaknesses of his victims. He was a dangerous enemy. From the beginning, his response to Nelson leaned to the negative side, largely no doubt because Handscomb, his rival at the Free Press, was favourable; according to Mrs Walker, it was well known in the city that Wheeler read the latter's review in the morning paper before producing his own for the evening - generally saying the opposite.³⁷ As it happens, Wheeler's review of Romeo and Juliet was moderately favourable; however, he commented that the text of the play was 'very much mutilated even from the modern acting copies.' ³⁸ This was too much for Nelson, who had taken great care with his text, basing it on Forbes-Robertson's 1895 version which he had seen in London and of which he had obtained a prompt copy. That night he made a curtain speech justifying his text; he also wrote to the Tribune explaining at great length his version of the play, avowing that 'To mutilate Shakespeare would be to my mind a sacrilege which could only be exceeded by the mutilation of the pages of "Holy Writ."' ³⁹ Wheeler replied at length, claiming that Booth's version of the play was 'authoritative' in America; he also described Nelson as a 'showman' seeking publicity, a 'comic opera hero, as well as something of a pirate' for having stolen Forbes-Robertson's version of the play, and referred to him as 'this manager of a company of strolling players.' ⁴⁰ Here Wheeler hit on a particularly sensitive spot, for Nelson was only too conscious of the low social status of his newly-chosen profession. That evening Nelson made another curtain speech in which he elaborately refrained from alluding to a 'personal matter,' stating that he was tired and that he 'might say something in that condition which would perhaps be misconstrued'; according to the account in the Winnipeg Telegramme, his reference to his 'personal matter' was greeted with loud applause by the audience.⁴¹ The following week he wrote a long and rather incoherent letter to the Tribune, complaining of Wheeler's descent to 'personal abuse' and affirming that 'Sneering at an actor on account of his profession is a reminiscence of literary ignorance and religious superstition.'⁴² Wheeler, of course, got the last word. His next Saturday's column included a number of snide remarks, and concluded with the statement: 'Mr. Nelson is a good elocutionist; give him his just dues, but where does his "acting" come in?' ⁴³ As a result of this incident, perhaps at Nelson's insistence, the Grand Theatre removed its advertisement from the Tribune for several months.

On 14 November 1898 the company left Winnipeg for Rat Portage (now Kenora), to open the new Hilliard Opera House. Here they played a successful week, being declared 'the best company that have favoured this town for many a day.' ⁴⁴ From Rat Portage, they continued on a tour of Manitoba towns, preparatory to a journey to the west coast. Nelson's manager was F.W. Shipman, one of the three Shipman brothers who later became major Canadian producers and tour-managers.⁴⁵ In almost every town the local paper referred to the company as the best that had yet played there. Again it was Richelieu and Romeo and Juliet that created the greatest impression.⁴⁶ The company left Manitoba at the end of December, and played 5 to 7 January 1899 at the Regina Town Hall. According to the Regina Leader, 'Anything superior in the line of dramatic art has not been seen in Regina than Harold Nelson's portrayal of "Richelieu."' ⁴⁷ The company then went back to play Grenfell and Indian Head, but in the latter town Nelson's ambitious tour suddenly came to an end. There had been a 'lack of harmony' between Nelson and some of the members of the organization, notably Shipman. At Indian Head, Nelson was supposedly ill and failed to appear as Richelieu, causing the cancellation of the performance. Nelson said the company 'deserted' him there, ill in bed, and went on to play an engagement arranged by Shipman in Wapella, ignoring a return engagement booked by Nelson in Regina⁴⁸ According to Shipman, this latter engagement was made 'without the knowledge of the members of the company or their manager.' ⁴⁹ Nelson returned to Winnipeg, while the company regrouped in Brandon; J.H. Proctor was dispatched to Winnipeg where he bought Nelson's share of the company. F.W. Shipman was joined by his brother Ernest, and the two planned to continue touring the rest of the company as the 'Nelson Stock Co. (Re-organised).' It is impossible to establish now the rights and wrongs of this quarrel, but it is notable that the other actors appear to have sided with Shipman, not Nelson.

Nelson's goal of a western tour thus appeared to have ended in failure, and it was generally reported that Nelson would return to Toronto where his students and the Board of Directors of the Conservatory were getting increasingly restless at his prolonged absence. In the Tribune, Wheeler gloated:

The inevitable has happened and Mr. Harold Nelson has severed his connection with the dramatic company he organized last autumn. He will probably now return to Toronto, to those duties for which he is well fitted, a teacher of elocution.
The Tribune has never for one moment denied the cleverness of Mr. Nelson, as he chooses to call himself up in this section of Canada, but has nevertheless doubted his acting abilities. These are not strongly marked.⁵⁰

The Nelson Stock Co. (Re-organised) opened in Brandon on 20 January 1899, and was declared 'decidedly better in comedy than the original Harold Nelson Co.'⁵¹ Shipman announced ambitious plans, including a tour to the west coast and a production of Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac,⁵² both projects which Nelson had particularly cherished.

At this point, at the nadir of his fortunes, Nelson received an unexpected opportunity to redeem himself. He was approached by Mr Louis Hilliard of Rat Portage, whose new theatre had presented few attractions since Nelson's appearance there, offering to put up the money for a company that would make Rat Portage its base. By the end of January Nelson was on his way to Chicago to recruit an entirely new company; and two weeks later (14 February) he opened the new Harold Nelson Stock Company, declared 'the strongest and most efficient dramatic organization ever seen at Rat Portage.' ⁵³ On 27 February, he opened a week's engagement at the Fort William Town Hall, and the following week he played in Port Arthur. The repertoire was largely new, and included Camille (La Dame aux camélias by Dumas fils) as a vehicle for his new leading lady, Olive West. However Nelson's chief starring role continued to be Richelieu, and he played Romeo in Rat Portage (16 March) to the Juliet of Miss Crete Chadwick, the daughter of a local businessman. Nelson was always proud of his ability to discern in the course of his tours 'latent dramatic talent in the smaller towns;' ⁵⁴ it is not surprising to find Miss Chadwick reappearing as a permanent member of the company a few years later.

Meanwhile Nelson carried on a feud with Shipman. He 'deluged' the towns in which the latter's company played with handbills reading:

CAUTION
The Harold Nelson Stock company, headed by Mr. Harold Nelson, and under the management of Mr. Walter Hart, is at present playing an engagement at the Hilliard opera house, Rat Portage. All managers of opera houses and halls, also all societies are cautioned not to play any other organization using Harold Nelson's name, or advertising paper containing his name, under penalty of legal proceedings. Signed, Harold Nelson, Rat Portage, February 14, 1899.⁵⁵

These tactics eventually forced Shipman to rename his company the Lyceum Company. Shipman sued Nelson for $69.00 in back wages, and Nelson countersued for $260.00 for money and property taken from him and damages for the company's failure to fulfil engagements he had booked; the two appeared in a Winnipeg court on 20 March, the date of the opening of Nelson's new season at the Grand Opera House.⁵⁶ Unfortunately there is no report on the verdict. The Brandon Sun reported ominously that the members of the old company proposed attending the opening 'in a body,' ⁵⁷ though there is no report that they did so. Nelson's state of mind at this period is perhaps suggested by the following comment in Town Topics:

I cannot but admire Harold Nelson's pluck in pursuing his stage ambitions in the face of discouragements and adversity, which would drive a less earnest man out of business.... If Nelson will shake off the idea that the world is all against him, and the population conspiring to keep him down he will feel a good deal better and make more rapid advancement.⁵⁸

Nelson's second Winnipeg season continued until 15 April 1899; as before, the company presented two different bills a week. The highlight of the new season was intended to be Nelson's production of Rostand's Cyrano which had opened in Paris in 1897, and was undoubtedly the most talked-about play in North America during the 1898-99 season. Richard Mansfield scored a great success in the play, and almost every stock company on the continent was eager to imitate his production. Toronto, for example, saw two productions that season: the Cummings Stock Company 20 February to 4 March, and Mansfield's production 1 and 2 May. The play makes such enormous production demands that many smaller companies sank under their weight; Town Topics noted in February that twelve companies had failed with the play.⁵⁹ Shipman does not seem to have lived up to his threat to produce the play, but Nelson was obviously determined to do so, even though he had a company of only twelve with which to present the nearly 50 speaking parts.

The opening had to be postponed a day until 3 April and even then the actors 'were very shaky in their lines and made no bones about calling on the prompter.' ⁶⁰ It was said that Nelson learned the part in four days. The reviews in the Telegramme and the Free Press were kind: the Telegramme referred to the production as a 'laudable, though somewhat ambitious attempt,' while the Free Press credited Nelson with 'earnest effort to merit patronage.' ⁶¹Town Topics was probably giving Handscomb's genuine opinion when it stated that 'even the most friendly feeling towards the young actor will not stand the strain of treating this production seriously,' ⁶² while Mrs Walker stated forthrightly that 'The company was so wholly inadequate and incompetent as to render the presentation a burlesque of Rostand's beautiful play.' ⁶³ Astoundingly, Nelson's erstwhile enemy Wheeler gave the production a strongly positive review in the Tribune, calling it 'one of the best staged plays, admirably acted, of any stock company seen in Winnipeg for years past, as far as the limits of the stage allowed,' and calling Nelson's Cyrano 'wholly excellent' and 'the most pronounced artistic success so far in his career.'⁶⁴ One can only speculate on the reasons for this volte-face; perhaps Nelson was finally beginning to understand the importance of public relations, for Wheeler mentions casually in early February that Nelson has 'called' him , and after that his tone becomes markedly more positive towards the actor.⁶⁵

On 17 April, a week after Cyrano closed, having done poor business, the company left for Rat Portage, and then another provincial tour. About the middle of June, however, there was a split in the ranks. Olive West and a few others formed a separate concert party, while Nelson struggled on a few weeks longer with those remaining. Before the end of the month, the company disbanded; Nelson left his actors to find their way back to the United States, while he returned to Toronto, called there, according to the Rat Portage Miner, 'by the serious illness of his child.' ⁶⁶ Nelson himself was said to have only just recovered from a serious illness. The letter he wrote to Wheeler that summer from Toronto reveals how bitterly he felt the failure of his first year as an actor-manager:

Well, I am back here, and have accepted a position in the College of Music that I may attend to my little family. Although my boy is much better, it may take a year before he is fully recovered, and in the meantime I am going to pay off all my bills. But my affairs are very much tangled up.
What a long, bitter season (the tour) it was for me, and I am glad it is all over, even if it left me a much poorer man. Why is it that some succeed, and I failed, who worked so hard and tried to give the public artistic performances? Well, I mustn't complain; I have my little ones left to me, and my dear wife and mother.⁶⁷

Nelson had lost his position at the Conservatory, which asked for his resignation in February on the grounds that he had 'neglected and deserted the school.' ⁶⁸ But fortunately, the Conservatory's chief rival, the College of Music, was eager to make this popular teacher Principal of its School of Elocution, and by September he was successfully continuing his development of actor-training in Toronto. Among his new pupils was Catherine Proctor, who later became one of David Belasco's stars; in a 1922 interview in Maclean's she called Nelson an 'excellent teacher' and said of him, 'I never had to unlearn a single thing he taught me.' ⁶⁹ Another pupil at this time was Walter Huston, who later created Ephraim Cabot in O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms and had a distinguished stage and film career.⁷⁰ Nelson produced A Midsummer Night's Dream for University of Toronto students on 31 October 1899 at the Princess Theatre, with Proctor as Hermia and himself as Lysander; the elaborate production, with a 36-piece orchestra to play Mendelssohn's music, was almost drowned out by the unruly behaviour of students on a Hallowe'en spree. On 4 December Nelson presented an adaption of Ouida's novel Under Two Flags at the Horticultural Pavilion, again with Proctor, and repeated it at Richmond Hill on New Year's night for benefit of the Fire Brigade. Early in 1900 he appeared in Richelieu and Romeo and Juliet in Owen Sound; Catherine Proctor played Juliet. On 8 May she and Nelson appeared together in Richelieu at the Toronto Grand Opera House.

The following season was announced by an item in Saturday Night which suggested how far Nelson had moved in the direction of professional training in his seven seasons in Toronto; whereas in 1893 he boasted of the success of his pupils in obtaining appointments as teachers of elocution, now they are proudly described as being accepted into various theatrical companies, beginning with Catherine Proctor's engagement with the Maude Adams company.⁷¹ The school opened its 1900-01 season with an 'unusually large attendance.' ⁷² On Thanksgiving Day (22 October), Nelson and his advanced students performed in Oshawa in Richelieu and Our Regiment, a military comedy by Henry Hamilton. On 29 and 30 April and 1 May 1901, Nelson presented A Fool's Revenge, Our Regiment, and A Celebrated Case, a melodrama by Corman and D'Ennery, at Toronto's Grand Opera House. Walter Huston made his first stage appearances during this season.

In the autumn of 1901 Nelson played a brief professional engagement with the Clara Mathes company in Rat Portage and Winnipeg. Once again he received praise from Winnipeg critics for his Romeo.⁷³ He returned to the College of Music, and on 14 and 15 February 1902, he presented Antigone in English at Massey Hall, with himself as Creon. His last Toronto production appears to have been Paardeberg, a 'romantic military play' of unspecified authorship which glorified the Canadian participation in the Boer War; it was presented 10 to 12 March at the Princess Theatre under the auspices of the Royal Grenadiers, and Nelson himself gave a 'dashing' portrayal of the hero.⁷⁴ He also acted Richelieu at a matinee on 12 March.

At the end of the 1901-02 season he left the College of Music for good, once again gathered together a company, trained them in a largely new repertoire, and by the early summer was making his way through northern Ontario towards Winnipeg.⁷⁵

The new repertoire contained a large proportion of 'legitimate' works - that is, plays in blank verse and five acts demanding traditional acting techniques. The most important of these, of course, were by Shakespeare: Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet. In addition Nelson included a number of nineteenth-century plays which had served earlier generations of tragedians well, but which were becoming outdated: Richelieu (1839), Ingomar, The Barbarian (adapted by Mrs G. W. Lovell in 1851 from the German of F. Haim), and Damon and Pythias (John Banim, 1821). Nelson had learned from his previous tour, when Romeo and Juliet and Richelieu had been his most successful productions, that 'legitimate' plays were better at bringing out audiences in prairie towns than were modern farces and melodramas. And this continued to be the case during the 1901-02 tour. At Rat Portage, for example, it was noted that the least successful play was a farce, A Crazy Idea (by Maurice Hageman), a fact which according to the Rat Portage Miner, 'proves Mr. Nelson's contention viz: that the people of Rat Portage like the legitimate and especially the Shakespearian drama, better than the modern farce.' ⁷⁶ Astutely, Nelson frequently praised the West for its good taste in preferring the 'higher drama' which, he said, metropolitan audiences in the East could only be made to tolerate in conjunction with the greatest of stars and the most lavish of scenery.

In most western towns the local opera house had something of the atmosphere and reputation of the modern pool-hall - a male-dominated, morally dubious hang-out. The companies that played them were acceptable only to the least discriminating playgoer. Reviews of Nelson's first appearances in a town generally began with a statement like the following from the Lethbridge News:

After the considerable number of mediocre and inferior shows which have visited our town of late, it is a real pleasure to have a company of the Harold Nelson quality occupying the Opera House stage with plays of sterling merit and elevating tendency.⁷⁷

An editorial entitled 'Good Drama' in the Calgary Albertan probably defined as well as possible the average respectable westerner's views on the drama:

There is nothing like the good old time plays, like Richilieu, [sic], Hamlet, Faust, The Merchant of Venice, and such like and when mixed in with such beautiful modem plays as 'The Old Homestead', 'Shore Acres,' 'East Lynne' and that class, the theatre is a source of good, and no one can object to it. ⁷⁸

Thus Nelson's choice of repertoire, which might at first seem quixotic in its artistic aspirations, in fact made good commercial sense in the particular social context Nelson had to deal with. Shakespeare and the legitimate drama were powerful weapons in helping Nelson overcome the prejudice of most middle-class westerners against theatre-going.

As it had in the past, Nelson's gentlemanly manner and evangelical attitude also contributed strongly to overcoming prejudices. He managed to infuse the uncomfortable little halls in which he played with something of the atmosphere of a school or a church. He was quick to correct any breach of decorum on the part of the less respectful members of the audience, and was generally applauded for it; the Edmonton Bulletin, commenting on 'a sharp calling down' which Nelson gave some 'back benchers' who had disturbed the play, stated:

In taking the stand he did Mr. Nelson conferred a favor on all who attend.... His words and point of view showed the man behind the actor, and the man as good as the actor.⁷⁹

In his curtain speeches, and in the lectures which he gave at High Schools and Normal Institutes, he preached the cause of Shakespeare in the tones of a moral crusader:

'I consider the Shakespearian drama as important and grand a factor as the church is to-day,' said Mr. Nelson, 'and that the interest is keen in the support of it was shown me beyond the shadow of a doubt on my recent western trip. Men, ordinary lumber men and miners, came into town, a distance of from ten to twelve miles to witness our productions, when companies presenting the light opera attractions have failed to interest them. In the effete east the interest, I am sorry to say, in Shakespearian drama is on the wane; something light and entertaining for the moment is the order of the day, but I find the taste much different in what is called the wild and wooly west. The bustling, earnest men of the west want a softening, refining influence, and they are satisfied with Shakespeare's interpretation of culture and innate refinement.' ⁸⁰

In all this he contradicted the conventional prairie idea of what an actor was, and no doubt persuaded many westerners to reconsider their stand against theatre-going. His company, too, both on and off stage, impressed the towns with their genteel behaviour so unlike that of the conventional barnstorming troupe:

They were not the aggregation of freaks and has beens which frequently constitute a theatrical company appearing so far from the great centres. They were, or were made up to look like, and behaved like, a lot of well favoured, clean minded ladies and gentlemen.⁸¹

Frank Oliver, the editor of the Edmonton Bulletin and later Minister of the Interior in the Laurier cabinet, summed up the impression Nelson and his company made in an editorial which, Nelson said later, gave him 'new courage' at a time when he needed it:

he believes himself to be a man with a mission, and that mission is the elevation of the stage. His effort is to give it its rightful place as a refining and elevating instead of blunting and degrading influence. This is evidenced by his own speech, actions and methods; but still more by the character and ability of the company by which he is surrounded, the plays which he puts on and the manner in which they are put on; and still more by the daring venture of offering to audiences in small western towns such plays as no company would think of presenting in eastern towns of only equal population.⁸²

C.P. Walker was quick to take advantage of Nelson's positive moral publicity for the theatre, for the social acceptability of the stage was as much an issue in Winnipeg as it was in the smaller centres. He gave Nelson ten days at the Winnipeg Theatre in September 1902, and also booked him into two towns on his 'Bread Basket Circuit' in North Dakota and Minnesota.⁸³ Walker's chief ally, C.W. Handscomb, the critic of the Free Press, began at the same time mounting what amounted to a critical campaign in support of Nelson, trying as best he could to be Clement Scott to his Irving, or William Winter to his Booth⁸⁴

As to the quality of Nelson's acting in this period, perhaps it is again Mrs Walker who presents the most convincing picture. It is interesting to notice how her attitudes gradually change toward him. When his season is announced, she praises him as 'a studious and intellectual actor,' but hopes that 'he has managed to overcome certain of his mannerisms and amateurishness or rather elocutionary staginess.' ⁸⁵ On his first appearance as Ingomar she praises him, but mentions his 'attitudinizing' and suggests that he needs to improve his style by working with more experienced actors.⁸⁶ Undoubtedly it was his Hamlet that convinced her that Nelson really had arrived as an actor; although there was much to criticize in the production, she concluded in her review, 'I have seen "Hamlet" played many times, but never better, everything considered, than by Harold Nelson and his company.' ⁸⁷ In Hamlet, Nelson really did achieve the identification with his role and sincerity of emotion that some of his other portrayals lacked. Wheeler, who for the moment seemed to have subsided into a neutral attitude to Nelson, concluded after Nelson's September season:

there were times during his interpretations of "Hamlet" and "Richelieu" when he forgot himself in his part, when his intellectuality dominated the stage and dwarfed the efforts of the others by sheer mental force; a depiction so intensely earnest that carried the audience with him to the very end of the scene.⁸⁸

When, a few months later, Walker Whiteside brought his Hamlet to Winnipeg, both Handscomb and Mrs Walker took the opportunity to compare it adversely to Nelson's, on the grounds that Nelson's was less self-conscious, more real. According to Mrs Walker, 'After Mr. Nelson's portrayal you feel that you have seen Hamlet himself. That you have for the time been a part of him and been permitted to share his innermost communings with his soul.' ⁸⁹ Hamlet clearly meant a great deal to Nelson; Mrs Walker dropped her normally flippant 'Matinee Girl' persona to describe how moved she was by Nelson's curtain speech after his first Winnipeg appearance in the part:

Mr. Nelson came forward diffidently - with the modesty of true worth. When he told how for years he had cherished an ambition to play Hamlet and had each year put it ahead of him, saying to himself - "No, I am not yet fit," and even after having played the part he said, "And I am not yet fit" - and he said it with such an air of sincerity that one could not think he was making a bid for applause. When this educated, refined man so frankly admitted he had much yet to learn and accomplish, when he with trembling lip - for through my opera glasses I could see that he controlled himself with difficulty - spoke of his love for Shakespeare and his efforts to successfully interpret the great Bard, I felt that I must get up and take him by the hand and tell him how much he had already accomplished, and with his intelligence how much he would undoubtedly accomplish in the future.⁹⁰

Nelson considered that 'every thinking man of any sort of serious temperament is his own Hamlet' ⁹¹ the depth of emotion he achieved in the part seems to have resulted from the close identification he felt with the character.

Until January Nelson toured Manitoba towns, often playing up to a week in even quite small places, and generally meeting with social, artistic and financial success. In Carman, for example, from 3 to 8 November he played Ingomar, Richelieu, A Celebrated Case, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, and Don Caesar de Bazan (by Dumanoir and D'Ennery); after his performance of Hamlet he was presented with an address by the mayor, expressing the town's 'sincere approval and enjoyment' of his productions.⁹² Then Nelson returned to this same small community for another week in January (12 to 17) where his presentations included Our Regiment, Damon and Pythias, Mistress Nell (by George C. Hazleton), Romeo and Juliet and Under Two Flags.

At the end of January the company left Manitoba and went on to Regina, Edmonton, Calgary and to towns in eastern British Columbia; on the way back Nelson played most of the same places, adding some new plays to his repertoire, including Othello, in which he played Iago. He returned to Winnipeg for a week at the end of June 1903, and then continued on to Fort William. By the end the company had played, it was said, 60 consecutive weeks.

In April it was announced that next season Nelson would be under the 'sole management' of C.P. Walker, who promised to furnish him with the one element of the Irving-Booth formula that Nelson still lacked - elaborate scenery and costumes.⁹³

Only one event marred Nelson's successful tour. On his arrival back in Winnipeg, Nelson either offended Wheeler, or became caught in a feud between the latter and Walker. As a result, he was again the recipient of vicious reviews and snide innuendos, similar to those he had suffered from in 1898. Wheeler summed up Nelson's June appearances by denying everything he had said the previous fall:

Clever as an instructor Mr. Nelson has not yet reached a high standard as an actor; because he is artificial in his methods and cannot - on the stage at all events - convince the public that he is sincere in his interpretations.
He cannot efface his own personality in any character he tries to enact, and the undue prominence given to the elocutionary element becomes tiresome and monotonous.
City audiences soon find themselves ennuied with his work, and until he can impart vigor of purpose into his delineations, without vocal or physical violence the results will be invariably bungled, and therefore unsatisfactory.
This is plain language, but it will come as a refreshing shower bath after a long course of tepid water administrations in the shape of fulsome flatteries from insincere people who have their own purposes to serve.⁹⁴

As a result of this column, Walker removed his advertisement from the Tribune and ceased to send Wheeler free tickets for performances. This state of affairs continued for over three years, until, in fact, Walker had given up the Winnipeg Theatre, and was trying to carry on a season at the Winnipeg Auditorium until the new Walker Theatre was ready. Thus, for the rest of Nelson's Winnipeg appearances, we find nothing but abuse about his performances from Wheeler. While it would be wrong to take his criticisms too seriously, we may still at times find them useful to counterbalance the praise Nelson generally received from the other critics; for, as has been said, Wheeler did have a way of picking out the weaknesses of his victims. As the last quotation suggests, elocutionary mannerisms were always to be a problem in Nelson's acting. And when Wheeler states that his Mephistopheles is 'too limited in stature and lacks physical vitality,' ⁹⁵ when he refers to Nelson's 'effeminate' style,⁹⁶ when he describes his Shylock as 'a fourth rate' "old clo'es man", scolding everybody else like the ferocious villain in a Lincoln J. Carter melodrama,' ⁹⁷ and when he states that 'Mr. Nelson plays tragedy like a dancing master in a rage, more provocative of laughter at times than to be taken seriously and surprising a limited audience to astonished silence by the general prosiness of a pedagogic reading,' ⁹⁸ we get a vivid, if exaggerated, picture of Nelson's limitations as an actor.

Nelson opened his first season under Walker's management with Quo Vadis (an adaption by H. and W. Green of Sienkiewicz's novel); this proved an excellent choice, because while not 'legitimate' its historical background and Christian theme proved equally successful in overcoming anti-theatrical prejudice. This production seems to have been the only one of Nelson's to originate in Manitoba. Only the scenery came from Chicago and the company was advertised as 'all Canadian.' The last two weeks of rehearsal took place at the College of Music in Winnipeg and the play was tried out in Brandon and other provincial towns before opening at the Winnipeg Theatre on 9 October 1903. In spite of Wheeler's abuse of the whole enterprise, the production played to packed houses and its receipts were 'the largest in the history of the theatre at one dollar prices.' ⁹⁹ Nelson's role of Vinicius contained a five-minute speech which called forth all his elocutionary skill; according to Mrs Walker he delivered it with such a depth of tenderness and reverence that his audience was spellbound throughout. Indeed, so deeply affected were the auditors by the religious sentiment of the play and Mr. Nelson's fervid acting, that at times it seemed as though they feared to applaud lest it should prove sacrilege.¹⁰⁰

Mrs Walker complained, however, that the part of Nero (acted by Fred Roland) was unduly burlesqued, a complaint that was heard with increasing frequency during the subsequent tour.

The 1903-04 tour was considerably brisker than its predecessor. Nelson played fewer nights in fewer towns, usually opening in Quo Vadis, but including among his repertoire Richelieu, Hamlet, and The Merchant of Venice. He reached British Columbia by the beginning of November, and by February was back in Manitoba.¹⁰¹ In spite of some negative reviews, he generally played to overflow houses; in Edmonton Quo Vadis attracted 'the largest turn out of theatre goers yet seen in Edmonton.' ¹⁰² On the return journey he traded parts in Quo Vadis with his leading man, Christopher Lane Bruce, taking the part of Petronius; the change was generally felt to be an improvement.

The 1904-05 season was rehearsed in Owen Sound; it featured elaborate productions of Faust (described as the 'Lewis Morrison version' of Goethe's play), and Heart and Sword (apparently adapted by Walker Whiteside from Stevenson's Prince Otto). Under Walker's management Nelson was moving increasingly away from the 'legitimate.'

The plays opened in August in Owen Sound and reached Winnipeg early in September. Faust was particularly successful, and set a new box office record. The character of Mephistopheles was considered by some to be one of Nelson's most successful portrayals. William Trant, a well-known politician and man of letters in Regina, wrote a long thoughtful essay for the Manitoba Free Press justifying Nelson's interpretation of the character. According to Trant, Nelson emphasized the 'magnificient though terrible' irony of Mephistopheles lines. He says of Nelson's performance:

The mocking laugh and the mocking look over Faust's philosophy; the sniggering lips and sneering face whenever Faust shows signs of remorse; the bursts of laughter of delight accompanied by a face showing diabolical ecstacy whenever he scores a point or his imps obey his behest, all 'catch on' with the audience and when one thinks he has exhausted his battery of looks and store of laughs then, as Charles Lamb said of Munden, "suddenly he sprouts out an entirely new set of features like Hydra." ¹⁰³

Both these productions, with their elaborate scenery, costumes and equipment, were then taken west, reaching British Columbia in the middle of October and returning to Winnipeg by December for two more performances, before touring Manitoba and Walker's American circuit.¹⁰⁴ On tour, Faust did not always come up to expectations. The electrical effects about which much was made in the publicity seem to have been ineffective in the tiny halls along the route, and Nelson's performance was criticized by some as being excessively comic.¹⁰⁵

After Christmas Nelson and Walker prepared, apparently in Minneapolis, another elaborate production, Paul Kauvar, a French Revolution drama by Steele MacKaye. This appeared in Winnipeg in the middle of February, and by the middle of March Nelson and his company were again in British Columbia; on the return journey a newly-refurbished Richelieu was featured.¹⁰⁶ Although these tours continue to be described as successful, one has the impression that Nelson's visits are increasingly being taken for granted in most of the towns along his route. Stays are shorter, the reviews are briefer and sparser, and the praise more perfunctory.

Nelson's final season, 1905, under Walker's management included another adaptation of Stevenson's Prince Otto, this one by Otis Skinner, and one last fling at the 'legitimate,' Boker's Francesca da Rimini. Mrs Walker found the play too long, and wished Nelson had not insisted on presenting it without cuts, but she considered Nelson's portrayal of Lanciotto almost equal to his Hamlet.¹⁰⁷ The productions appeared in Winnipeg on 4 and 5 September and reached Vancouver and Victoria by the middle of October, apparently Nelson's first appearances in these cities.¹⁰⁸ By December Nelson was back in Winnipeg, though he gave no performances there. During the holiday period Nelson presented a series of performances in Grand Forks, N.D., and Crookston, Minn., which were a kind of retrospective summary of his western tours: Prince Otto, Richelieu, Paul Kauvar, Francesca da Rimini, Hamlet, Robertson's David Garrick, and Faust in Grand Forks, and Prince Otto, Richelieu, and Quo Vadis in Crookston. On Christmas Day, Walker held a reception for the company in Grand Forks. Shortly after this, although there was no official announcement, Walker severed his relations with Nelson. This did not mean the end of Nelson's tours, which continued on a smaller scale for some years. But Walker's withdrawal meant the end of the greatest period of Nelson's career; without his support, the dream that Nelson might prove the Canadian Irving or Booth gradually faded away.

No doubt Walker's main reason for discontinuing the Nelson tours was that he was now putting all his resources into the enormously costly project of the Walker Theatre, the construction of which began in the spring of 1906. No doubt too, to a large extent Nelson had served his purpose; his tours had created a market that now was being exploited by more conventional touring attractions. Now the 'legitimate' had to compete with them, and it is not surprising it should lose out on the prairies as it previously had done in the east.

But Walker may have had other reasons for breaking his association with Nelson. Walker's daughter, Ruth Harvey, in her autobiographical book Curtain Time, gives us a glimpse of the personal relationship between Walker and Nelson. This source must be used with caution, however; its semi-fictionalized nature is indicated by the fact that Nelson does not appear in it under his real name, but as 'Alfred Carson,' the star of one of the companies Walker is said to have 'organized himself and sent on pioneering tours through Canada and the northwestern states.' ¹⁰⁹ Harvey describes Carson as 'a slim, wiry, nervous man with piercing light eyes and dark hair that was so crisp that I expected it to give off electric sparks.'¹¹⁰ He walked with 'a swift, Irvingesque lope,' ¹¹¹ and was given to striking melodramatic poses and quoting Shakespeare. According to Harvey, Carson managed to start a feud with the critics in almost every town he visited. He responded to their negative criticisms by writing them letters, calling on their editors, denouncing them in curtain speeches. The critics, in revenge, wrote even more slighting reviews, which provoked Carson to threaten suicide. After an incident in which Carson supposedly poisoned himself - by 'nibbling carbolic soap' - Walker is portrayed as being persuaded by his wife to give in to Carson's demands for a production of Henry V in order to cheer him up.¹¹² The incident is used by Harvey to explain her father's exasperation with actors.

Some of the details, of Harvey's account are clearly invented. Nelson never appeared in Henry V, for example. Walker is portrayed as initiating the tours, whereas it is clear that he only backed Nelson once the latter had proved himself in his highly successful 1902-03 tour. Nelson certainly did feud with Wheeler, and possibly with critics in other centres as well. One reason for the increasing scarcity of reviews of Nelson's later tours may even be that the critics were being denied tickets to performances; after its negative review of Nelson's Faust, for example, the Calgary Albertan carried no more mentions of Nelson's appearances. Nevertheless, Harvey's portrayal of Carson's behaviour seems too humorously exaggerated to be taken as a true depiction of Nelson's.

Harvey's book reveals that Walker, an American, was entirely New-York-oriented in his attitude to theatre. He regarded Nelson as a stop-gap, like the troupe of female cyclists he once brought in from St Paul to fill out his schedule; Harvey portrays him as dreaming of building the new Walker Theatre to induce better shows to come, and putting aside his, wife's cautioning remarks by exclaiming:

But we'll have something we'll be proud of, that the town will be proud of... And we'll bring them good shows. No more Carsons! No more bicycle girls! ¹¹³

There can be no question but that Nelson's productions were 'good shows.' Harvey herself is careful to say that Carson 'was really a good actor;' ¹¹⁴ from her columns in Town Topics it is clear that Mrs Walker thought Nelson at times a very good actor indeed. In the Free Press, Handscomb tried in review after review to persuade his readers that the fact that Nelson had never been a New York success did not mean that he was not good. But Walker was probably only reflecting his audience's tastes when he replaced Nelson with the slicker products of the big producing organizations south of the border. Nelson may be said to have shared the fate of many Canadian artists, whose decision to make their careers in Canada effectively prevented them from ever really winning the admiration of Canadians.

HAROLD NELSON: THE EARLY YEARS (c. 1865-1905) *

Douglas Arrell

* Based on a paper delivered at the conference of the Association for Canadian Theatre History/Association d'histoire du théâtre au Canada, l'Université du Québec à Montréal, May 1980. The following members of the association aided the author in research for the paper: Carol Budnick, Anton Wagner, Heather McCallum. Particular thanks are due to David Gardner for sharing his extensive research on Nelson.
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1 ROBSON BLACK [Frederic Robson], 'The Romance of the Theatre in Canada' Canada West Monthly 6 (May 1909), p 16
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2 'Harold Nelson The Actor' Calgary Weekly Albertan 6 March 1903, p 2, col 4
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3 'Harold Nelson Shaw, Canadian Actor and Citizen' Edmonton Bulletin 31 December 1906, p 3, col 3
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4 'Harold Nelson Shaw, Canadian Actor and Citizen' Edmonton Bulletin 31 December 1906, p 3, col 3. We are told in the Edmonton Bulletin 30 August 1908, p 8, col 3 that Nelson played the part of François in Booth's Richelieu 'over twenty years ago'.
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5 Toronto Saturday Night 16 December 1893, p 8, col 3
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6 'Sarge[a]nt, Franklin Haven' The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, VI (1929; rpt. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1967), p 330
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7 See Nelson's letter to the editor, Winnipeg Tribune 14 October 1898, p 5, col 2
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8 Toronto Saturday Night 16 December 1893, p 8, col 2
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9 As reported in the Manitoba Free Press 16 May 1903, p 24, col 2
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10 Toronto Saturday Night 8 June 1895, p 6, col 1
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11 Toronto Saturday Night 31 Aug. 1895, p 6, col 2
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12 'Harold Nelson Shaw, Canadian Actor and Citizen' Edmonton Bulletin 31 December 1906, p 3, col 3. Charles Hedmont was an American Wagnerian tenor, whose short season of management at Covent Garden outside the regular season included the first performance in English of Die Walküre. Nelson's name does not appear among the soloists of this company. See Harold Rosenthal, Two Centuries of Opera at Covent Garden (London: Putnam, 1958), pp 269-70 and pp 728-29
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13 'Harold Nelson Shaw: Artist and Pioneer' Vancouver Province 20 February 1937
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14 See Nelson's letter to the editor, Winnipeg Tribune 14 October 1898, p 5, col 2
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15 Toronto Saturday Night 6 June 1896, p 6, col 4
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16 See the advertisement of the Toronto Conservatory of Music, Toronto Saturday Night 3 October 1896, p 10, col 3
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17 Toronto Saturday Night 9 October 1897, p 6, cols 2-3
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18 See Toronto Saturday Night 5 February 1898, p 6, col 3
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19 Toronto Saturday Night 12 February 1898, p 6, col 3
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20 Toronto Saturday Night 19 February 1898, p 6, col 1
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21 Nelson's first Manitoba company included: J. Harry Proctor, Edward D'Oize, William Colvin, William Clifford, Fred Larter, N. Clifford, Arthur Meredith, Marguerite Lorrimer, Blanche Crozier, Florence Royden, Rose Cameron, Claire Lawrence.
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22 Mrs Shaw died in Toronto in June 1904. Nelson's brother died in Boston in the same month. See the Manitoba Free Press 27 June 1904, p 3, col 3.
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23 CHARLES H. WHEELER, 'Some Personal, Theatrical and Musical Reminiscences,' Chapter LII, Winnipeg Town Topics 9 March 1912, p 14, col 3. Wheeler's somewhat fragmentary reminiscences appeared intermittently in Town Topics between 17 December 1910 and 12 April 1913.
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24 See Toronto Saturday Night 12 March 1898, p 61 col 1 and 2 April 1898, p 6, col 3.
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25 'Harold Nelson Shaw, Canadian Actor and Citizen' Edmonton Bulletin 31 December 1906, p 3, col 4
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26 Winnipeg Town Topics 12 November 1898, [p 4], col 2
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27 'Harold Nelson The Actor' Calgary Weekly Albertan 6 March 1903, p 2, col 4
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28 See ROBERT CRAIG BROWN and RAMSAY COOK, Canada 1896-1921: A Nation Transformed (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974) pp 28-32.
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29 'Harold Nelson The Actor' Calgary Weekly Albertan 6 March 1903, p 2, col 4
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30 'Richelieu' Regina Leader 12 January 1899, p 8 col 5. See also a short travel piece by Nelson for a further example of his patriotic spirit, 'Louisbourg' Winnipeg Town Topics, 3 January 1903, p 3 col 2.
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31 'Harold Nelson Shaw, Canadian Actor and Citizen' Edmonton Bulletin 31 December 1906, p 3, col 3
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32 Winnipeg Town Topics 15 October 1898, [p 4], cols 1-2
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33 Winnipeg Town Topics 1 October 1898, [p 5], col 1
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34 Winnipeg Town Topics 8 October 1898, [p 4], col 2
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35 See Mrs Walker's comments in Winnipeg Town Topics 25 March 1899, [p 5], col 1
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36 Winnipeg Town Topics 29 October 1898, [p 5], col 2
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37 See Winnipeg Town Topics 4 October 1902, p 14, col 2
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38 Winnipeg Tribune 12 October 1898, p 4, col 3
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39 Winnipeg Tribune 14 October 1898, p 5, col 2
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40 Winnipeg Tribune 15 October 1898, p 7, cols 1-2
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41 Winnipeg Telegramme 17 October 1898, p 5, cols 1-2
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42 Winnipeg Tribune 22 October 1898, p 4, col 4
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43 Winnipeg Tribune 29 October 1898, p 7, col 3
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44 Rat Portage Miner 18 November 1898, p 5, col 1. The company now included: J.H. Proctor, Fred Larter, Willaim, Clifford, William Colvin, Florence Royden, Arthur Meredith, Douglas Peterson, Richard Belmont, Miss Yasmak, Rose Cameron, Blanche Crozier, Claire Lawrence, Marguerite Lorrimer. Tour dates included: Rat Portage (14-19 November), Morden (24-26 November), Souris (5-6 December), Brandon (8-10 December), Neepawa (15-17 December), Virden (23-24 December), Brandon (26 December), Regina (5-7 January).
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45 Frederick Shipman's brother Ernest, known as 'Ten Percent Ernie,' was a colourful figure in the early history of the Canadian film industry. See PETER MORRIS Embattled Shadows: A History of Canadian Cinema 1895-1939 Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1978, pp 95-126. See also p 296, no 10, for more information about the Shipman brothers
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46 For impressions of the company see items such as 'The Nelson Stock Company', Virden Advance 15 December 1898, p 1, col 7 and Brandon Western Sun 27 October 1898, p 5, col 1. The Brandon visit took place during a week's break (17-22 October) in the Winnipeg Grand Opera House season.
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47 'Richelieu' Regina Leader 12 January 1899, [p 8], col 5
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48 Regina Leader 19 January 1899, [p 8], col 4. See also Winnipeg Telegramme 21 March 1899, p 8, col 3.
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49 Letter from F.W. Shipman, Regina Leader 26 January 1899, [p 9], col 6.
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50 Winnipeg Tribune 21 January 1899, p 7, col 3
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51 'Nelson Stock Co. (Re-organised)' Regina Leader 26 January 1899, [p 9], col 6
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52 Manitoba Free Press 19 January 1899, p 3, col 4
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53 As reported in the Manitoba Free Press 16 February 1899, p 3, col 6. The new company consisted of: Olive West, Kathryn Bronne, Mrs J.H. Bronne, Edith Harcourt, Willard Bowman, Isaac Payton, David Davies, Gus Forbes, Ernest Willis. Tour dates included: Fort William (27 February - 4 March), Port Arthur (7-13 March), Rat Portage (14-18 March), Winnipeg Grand Opera House (20 March - 15 April), Rat Portage (17-22 April), Morden (1-3 May), Winnipeg Grand Opera House (5-6 May), Portage La Prairie (8-10 May), Neepawa (11-13 May), Portage La Prairie (24-25 May), Brandon (29 May), Souris (10-12 June), Carman (20-21 June).
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54 'Harold Nelson Shaw, Canadian Actor and Citizen' Edmonton Bulletin 31 December 1906, p 3, col 4
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55 Winnipeg Town Topics 25 February 1899, [p 2], col 3
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56 'Between Acts' Winnipeg Telegramme 21 March 1899, p 8, col 3
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57 Brandon Western Sun 23 March 1899, [p 12], col 2
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58 Winnipeg Town Topics 18 March 1899, [p 2], col 3
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59 Winnipeg Town Topics 25 February 1899, [p 3], col 2
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60 Winnipeg Town Topics 8 April 1899, [p 5], col 1
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61 See Winnipeg Telegramme 5 April 1899, p 8, col 2, and Manitoba Free Press 5 April 1899, p 3, col 4.
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62 Winnipeg Town Topics 8 April 1899, [p 3], col 2
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63 Winnipeg Town Topics 15 April 1899 [p 4], col 2
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64 Winnipeg Tribune 8 April 1899, p 7, col 2
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65 See the Winnipeg Tribune 4 February 1899, p 7, col 2
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66 Rat Portage Miner 29 June 1899, p 8, col 2
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67 See CHARLES H. WHEELER, 'Some Personal, Theatrical and Musical Reminiscences,' Chapter LIX, Winnipeg Town Topics 27 April 1912, p 16, col 1
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68 Recorded in the minutes of the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Conservatory of Music, 13 February 1899, as reported by Miss M.A. Jeffery, of the Publicity Office of the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto, in a letter to David Gardner, 6 December 1974
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69 GERTRUDE E.S. PRINGLE, 'Catherine Proctor, Canadian Actress' Maclean's 15 September 1922, p 65, col 1
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70 See ROBERT BARRY SCOTT, 'A Study of Amateur Theatre in Toronto 1900-1930,' M.A. Thesis University of New Brunswick 1966, p 38.
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71 See Saturday Night 8 September 1900, p 6, col 2
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72 Toronto Saturday Night 15 September 1900, p 6, col 3
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73 See Manitoba Free Press 14 October 1901, p 3, col 4. Tour dates included: Rat Portage (7-9 October), Winnipeg (10-12 October). Nelson may also have appeared with the company prior to this in Fort William and Port Arthur
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74 Toronto Saturday Night 15 March 1902, p 6, cols 3-4
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75 The company consisted of: Helene Scott, William D. Cornyn, T.E. Cornyn, Clara M. Cornyn, Clifford Lane Bruce, Marie Davidson, Morgan J. Kelly, Fred Roland, Duncan Penwarden, Wilfred Garrette, William Yule, Maud Proctor (Catherine's sister), William Blake. Tour dates included: Rat Portage (25 August-2 September), Winnipeg Theatre (3-6 September), Grand Forks (8-11 September), Grafton (12-13 September), Winnipeg Theatre (15-20 September), Brandon (29-30 September), Souris (13-18 October), Carman (3-8 November), Morden (25-27 December), Carman (12-17 January), Virden (28-29 January), Regina (9-12 February), Medicine Hat (23-28 February), Calgary (2-7 March), Edmonton (9-14 March), Calgary (30 March-April 4), Mcleod (6-8 April), Lethbridge (9-14 April) B.C. towns (15 April to the end of May), Calgary (29-30 May), Lethbridge (2 June), Medicine Hat (4 June), Regina (11- 13 June), Brandon (19-20 June), Winnipeg Theatre (22-27 June).
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76 Rat Portage Miner 29 August 1902, p 1, col 6
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77 'The Harold Nelson Co.' Lethbridge News 16 April 1903, [p 3], col 3
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78 'Good Drama' Calgary Weekly Albertan 6 March 1903, [p 6], col 4
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79 Edmonton Bulletin 12 March 1903, [p 4], col 1
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80 From an address to students of the Collegiate in Winnipeg on 'Shakespeare, His Plays and How to Study Them' as reported in the Manitoba Free Press 25 June 1903, p 3, col 2
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81 'The Harold Nelson Company' Edmonton Bulletin 10 March 1903, p 1, col 2
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82 'Harold Nelson' Edmonton Bulletin 2 January 1904, p 3, col 1. See 'Harold Nelson Shaw, Canadian Actor and Citizen' Edmonton Bulletin 31 December 1906, p 2, col 4.
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83 Also known as the Red River Valley Circuit, it included, in May 1899, the Metropolitan Theatre, Grand Forks, the Fargo Opera House, the Grafton Opera House, the Grand Opera House, Crookston, the Lyceum, Fergus Falls, the Wahpeton Opera House, and the Davidson Opera House, Saint-Cloud (see the Manitoba Free Press 20 May 1899, p 7, cols 1-2). A later report also mentions the Brainerd Opera House (Manitoba Free Press 25 April 1903, p 3, col 2).
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84 See DOUGLAS ARRELL, ' "High Art They Called It": The Theatre Criticism of CW. Handscomb of the Manitoba Free Press' Canadian Drama/L'Art dramatique canadien 5(1979), pp 251-53.
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85 Winnipeg Town Topics 30 August 1902, p 14, col 1
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86 Winnipeg Town Topics 6 September 1902, p 13, cols 2-3
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87 Winnipeg Town Topics 13 September 1902, p 13, col 1
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88 Winnipeg Tribune 20 September 1902, p 6, col 5
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89 Winnipeg Town Topics 17 January 1903, p 11, col 3 and p 12, col 1
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90 Winnipeg Town Topics 13 September 1902, p 14, col 2
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91 From an address on Hamlet to the students of the University of Minnesota, as reported in Winnipeg Town Topics 16 April 1904, p 5, cols 1-2
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92 As reported in Manitoba Free Press 27 December 1902, p 8, col 2
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93 Announced in Manitoba Free Press 25 April 1903, p 3, col 2
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94 Winnipeg Tribune 27 June 1903, p 6, col 3
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95 Winnipeg Tribune 10 September 1904, p 6, col 4
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96 Winnipeg Tribune 19 March 1904, p 4, col 4
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97 Winnipeg Tribune 19 March 1904, p 4, col 4
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98 Winnipeg Tribune 9 September 1905, p 8, col 2
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99 Manitoba Free Press 12 October 1903, p 3, col 1
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100 Winnipeg Town Topics 17 October 1903, p 11, col 2
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101 The 1903-04 company included: Clifford Lane Bruce, Florence McLeay (sister of Franklyn McLeay), Kathryn Stuart, Helene Scott, Fred Roland, Bryce Desmond, Idalie Jowett, William Blake, Arthur Cyril, Lewis H. Till, Walter Leonard, Hazel Pill (Pianist), Jackson Rigby. Tour dates included: Brandon (21 September), Winnipeg (9-10 October), Brandon (16 October), Regina (20-21 October), Calgary (26-29 October), Lethbridge (31 October-2 November), B.C. towns (2 November-15 December), Lethbridge (16-19 December), Edmonton (25-30 December), Medicine Hat (4-5, 8-9 January), Regina (20-23 January), Brandon (5-6 February), Winnipeg (15-16 February), Morden (17-18 February), Melita (29 February), Grand Forks (16 March), Winnipeg (21-23 March), Rat Portage (11-16 April).
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102 Edmonton Bulletin 26 December 1903, p 8, col 1
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103 WILLIAM TRANT, 'Harold Nelson as Mephisto' Manitoba Free Press 3 December 1904, p 8, col 4
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104 The company included: Clifford Lane Bruce, Helene Scott, Lewis A. Till, William Garrette, William Blake, Crete Chadwick, Eugene Beaupre, Miss Fosbrook, Violet Gray, Herbert Osborn. Tour dates included: Owen Sound (3, 5, 9 August), Rat Portage (29 August-2 September), Winnipeg (5-6 September), Brandon (8 September), Regina (16-17 September), Medicine Hat (22 September), B.C. towns (October), Lethbridge (31 October-1 November), Calgary (3-4
November), Edmonton (7-9 November), Medicine Hat (14 November), Moose Jaw (15 November), Saskatoon (17-18 November), Regina (25-26 November), Brandon (2 December), Winnipeg (3 December), Souris (8-9 December), Fergus Falls (4 January), Grand Forks (27 January).
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105 See, for example, 'New Interpretation of Goethe's "Faust" ' Calgary Weekly Albertan 9 November 1904, [p 6], col 2.
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106 The company included: Clifford Lane Bruce, William Blake, WilliamYule, George W. Anderson, Charles Edwardes, Herbert Osborne, Eugene Beaupre, Helene Scott, Marie Davidson, Lillian Fletcher, and Hazel Pill. Tour dates included: Winnipeg (20-21 February), Regina (25 February), Medicine Hat (27 February), Lethbridge (28 February), B.C. towns (c. 15 March-12 April), Lethbridge (13 April), Edmonton (17-18 April), Calgary (19-22 April), Medicine Hat (24 April), Regina (28-29 April), Winnipeg (12-13 May).
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107 Winnipeg Town Topics 2 September 1905, p 10, col 1
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108 The company included: Clifford Lane Bruce, Helene Scott, William Blake, Bryce Desmond, Elizabeth Patterson, Pearl Reesor, Alma Fontaine. Tour dates included: Rat Portage (1 September), Winnipeg (4-5 September), Medicine Hat (12 September), Vancouver (9-12 October), Victoria (13-14 October), Lethbridge (17-18 November), Edmonton (27-28 November), Medicine Hat (30 November), Grand Forks (25-30 December), Crookston (1-3 January).
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109 RUTH HARVEY, Curtain Time Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949, p 57
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110 Ibid p 57
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111 Ibid p 58
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112 Ibid p 60
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113 Ibid p 100
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114 Ibid p 58
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