Thomas Thorne (1841–1918) was an English actor and theatre manager. Thomas Thorne was one of the founding managers of London's

Vaudeville Theatre The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on the Strand in the City of Westminster. Opening in 1870, the theatre staged mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. The theatre was rebuilt twice, although each new buildin ...

, along with

David James Dewi, Dai, Dafydd or David James may refer to: Performers *David James (actor, born 1839) (1839–1893), English stage comic and a founder of London's Vaudeville Theatre *David James (actor, born 1967) (born 1967), Australian presenter of ABC's ''P ...

and

Henry James Montague Henry James Montague was the stage name of Henry John Mann, (20 January 1843 – 11 August 1878), an American actor born in England. Biography Montague was born 20 January 1843, in Staffordshire, England. After playing as an amateur he appe ...

, and performed leading roles in many of the productions there. His father was Richard Samuel Thorne, who managed the

Surrey Theatre The Surrey Theatre, London began life in 1782 as the Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy, one of the many circuses that provided entertainment of both horsemanship and drama ( hippodrama). It stood in Blackfriars Road, near the j ...

. His older sister,

Sarah Thorne Sarah Thorne (10 May 1836 – 27 February 1899) was a British actress and actress-manager of the 19th century who managed the Theatre Royal at Margate for many years. She ran a school for acting there which is widely regarded as Britain's fir ...

, was an actress. His younger brother, George Thorne, was also an actor, best known for his performances in the comic

baritone A baritone is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the bass (voice type), bass and the tenor voice type, voice-types. It is the most common male voice. The term originates from the ...

roles of the

Savoy Operas Savoy opera was a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which imp ...

with the

D'Oyly Carte Opera Company The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is a professional British light opera company that, from the 1870s until 1982, staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere. The ...

. His nephew was the actor

Frank Gillmore Frank Parker Gillmore (May 14, 1867 – March 29, 1943) was an American playwright and a stage and early film actor. He was a founder and former President of Actor's Equity. He was born in New York City to John Parker Gillmore and his actr ...

, and his great-nieces the actresses Ruth Gillmore and

Margalo Gillmore Margaret Lorraine "Margalo" Gillmore (31 May 1897 – 30 June 1986) was an English-born American actress who had a long career as a stage actress on Broadway. She also appeared in films and TV series, mostly in the 1950s and early 1960s. Family ...

. Thorne was married to Adelaide Newton, whom he had met when they were both actors with the

Royal Strand Theatre The Royal Strand Theatre was located in the Strand in the City of Westminster. The theatre was built on the site of a panorama in 1832, and in 1882 was rebuilt by the prolific theatre architect Charles J. Phipps. It was demolished in 1905 to ...

, but the marriage was not a happy one. According to Erroll Sherson, Thomas Thorne died penniless and insane.Sherson (1925) p. 225

References

Sources

* Sherson, Erroll
''London's lost theatres of the nineteenth century''
Ayer Publishing, 1925 pp. 224–225. . *

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London that houses a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. When it opened in 1856, it was arguably the first national public gallery in the world th ...

Thomas Thorne in ''Saints and Sinners''
English male stage actors 1841 births 1918 deaths {{UK-stage-actor-stub