William Terriss Murder

How William Terriss, Actor and Father of Actress Ellaline Terriss, Met His Death at the Hands of a Madman at the Stage Door of the Adelphi

On the 16th of December, 1897, a gaunt, sallow complexioned man wearing a long cape made enquiries to the keeper of the stage entrance at the Adelphi Theatre in London as to the whereabouts of William Terriss, who was due to appear there that night in an English version of William Gillette's drama "Secret Service." William Terris, whose real name was Lewin, was the resident leading man at the Adelphi, father of actress Ellaline Terriss, and one of the best known and most loved actors in England at that time.

The man enquiring after him was Richard Arthur Prince, a.k.a. Archer, a failed actor and former superintendent of the Adelphi where his wife still worked as a dresser. Consequently, he was well known on the premises where his erratic and unpredictable behaviour had earned him the nickname of "Mad Archer". On this occasion he was so obnoxious that Harry Nichols, one of the principal performers at the theatre, was obliged to intervene, remonstrating with Archer and ordering him to leave the premises. Archer muttered "not yet" but subsequently did in fact leave the building as instructed.

Miss Millward's Account
from "Myself and Others"
By Jessie Millward (in Collaboration with J. B. Booth)
Hutchinson & CO., London. 1923.

On the day of the murder, Thursday, December 16, 1897, Mr. Terriss and his old friend Mr. Harry Greaves dined with me at my flat in Princes Street, Hanover Square, at the usual hour of four o'clock, having spent the early part of the afternoon at the Green Room Club, playing poker with Fred Terry. When seven o'clock came I rose: "I must get down to the theatre," I said. "I hate being rushed," and left them finishing their game of chess.

I drove up in my hansom to the pass door in Maiden Lane, which opened near my dressing-room. At the pass door I saw standing the man Prince, whom I recognized as a former super. Only a night or two previously I had heard a man speaking in a loud voice in Mr. Terriss's dressing-room, and as I came out of my room I met him in the passage with Prince.

I had asked him: "What is the matter?"

"This man is becoming a nuisance," he had told me, and I had guessed that it was a case of begging.

Just as I reached the pass door Prince came towards me, and I half thought of giving him some money so that he should not delay Mr. Terriss when he arrived, but as he came towards me there was something in the man's face that frightened me, and instead of waiting to open the pass door I rushed to the stage door, and on entering my dressing-room I told my maid, Lottie, of my encounter with Prince. In the midst of my dressing I heard Mr. Terriss put his key in the pass door, and then there was a strange silence.

"Something has happened!" I cried suddenly to Lottie, and she rushed down the stairs, I following her. Mr. Terriss was leaning against the wall, near the door. "Here are my keys, Lottie," he said, quite calmly. "Catch that man!" I had just reached him when he swayed.

"Sis," he said faintly, "Sis, I am stabbed."

I put my arms round him to support him, when we both fell to the ground on the bare boards at the foot of the staircase leading to our dressing-rooms. "Mr. Terriss has met with an accident!" I remember calling wildly. "Send for a doctor!" We seemed surrounded with people, doctors came running from Charing Cross Hospital, the world was full of whispers and I felt that all was hopeless. He was lying on my right arm, and I held his hand in my left hand. We were now alone. He opened his eyes, and faintly squeezed my hand. "Sis! Sis!" he whispered. And that was all.

Someone led me to my room. I remember every moment of that time. Soon George Edwardes, Seymour Hicks, and other friends had come to me, and in their own great sorrow were trying to comfort me. "Cry, my dear, cry," begged dear old Mrs. Pateman, but there were no tears.

Meanwhile the murderer had rushed into Maiden Lane, flourishing a long knife, my faithful Lottie clinging to him until the police seized him. When he was told Mr. Terriss was dead: "Yes," he said; "and I meant to kill Miss Millward, too."

Mr. Terriss had never been threatened or I should have known of it. It was the act of a madman. The murderer was a short, thin, dark man, with a pronounced squint, whom, when he was employed as a super, I had often seen posing about the stage, and whom Mr. Terriss had assisted with money when he lost his position. I was told afterwards that for a week before his crime he had been strutting about the Strand boasting that in a few days his name would be on everybody's lips.

At about half-past nine Lottie and I left the theatre. I would not drive, so we walked together back to Hanover Square, and as we passed up Regent Street the newsboys ran by crying: "Murder of William Terriss! Murder of William Terriss!"

"Don't listen. Miss Jessie," pleaded Lottie; "don't listen."

"I must, I know," I said. There were no tears.

I reached the flat, and sat up all night, thinking, thinking. Everything seemed so quiet; I wanted to be alone. In the morning my mother, my brother and my sisters came to me. "No one is thinking of me now," I half sobbed, and, taking my hand, my mother led me into the diningroom. The room was one mass of flowers with cards. It was strange - I could not bear the sight of the flowers.

In the afternoon Tom Terriss came and took me to see his father in the mortuary at St. Martin's Church, and I laid a bunch of lilies of the valley in his folden hands. They were the flowers he always gave me. Somehow or other the wonderful and majestic peace in my dear comrade's face soothed me. Never shall I forget the kind friends who tried so hard to comfort me. The first telegram I opened was from Mr. Terriss's daughter Ella; she was ill at Eastbourne, and Seymour had gone to break the news to her, yet in spite of her own great sorrow her first thought was of me. But how good and kind were all the Terriss family. His sisters, Mrs. Tomlin and Mrs. Stevenson, and his brothers, Colonel Lewin and Dr. Lewin, did all they could to comfort me in the midst of their own dreadful trouble, and Mrs. Tomlin took me to see my friend for the last time.

As I gazed my last on my comrade, my friend, I thought of the last lines he spoke on the stage in "Secret Service" the night before his death: "... Until we meet again." And then came into my mind those glorious lines: "Death is the beginning of eternity."

A little time later a cab pulled up outside the Adelphi private pass door on Maiden Lane, which was reserved for principal members of the cast (each of whom being provided with a key). It's passengers were William Terriss and his close friend, Mr. John Henry Graves, a surveyor with whom he had spent the afternoon playing poker. Mr. Terriss then alighted from the cab and made his way to the entrance where he was met and joined in conversation by Gilbert Tate, the theatrical manager. As he was taking the key from his pocket to gain entrance to the building, another figure darted out of the shadows of a neighbouring shop doorway. It was 'Mad' Archer, and without warning he plunged a knife twice into Mr. Terriss' back. As Mr. Terriss dropped his glove and turned to face his assailant, Archer plunged the knife into his chest, almost bearing him to the ground with the force of the blow. The bystanders, who had taken the first two blows as nothing more than hearty slaps on the back as a friend might give, then realised what was occurring and rushed forward to restrain Archer before he could strike again.

The wounded man was carried inside the theater and doctors were sent for from nearby Charing Cross hospital. Mr. Terriss was laid on the landing of the stairway just inside the theatre, where Miss Jessie Millward, his leading lady in the current production, rushed to assist, taking his head in her lap and attempting to comfort him. Once or twice he shouted out "Get away; get away" as he lay there groaning, whereupon Miss Millward gently asked him if he knew her, but he made no sign of recognition. Others present tried to staunch the copious flow of blood in any way they could.

Dr. Hayward, a physician from Charing Cross Hospital answering the summons, arrived on the scene within fifteen minutes of the incident but it was already too late to save him. Giving evidence at the subsequent Coroners hearing Dr. Hayward said: "I found Mr. Terriss just inside the door, where he was lying with Miss Millward supporting his head. His vest and undergarments were opened, and there was a large piece of ice on the wound directly over the heart. He was breathing heavily. After I examined the wound I saw there was no hope and that death must ensue almost immediately from the extensive internal hemorrhage. He was not quite conscious and writhed once or twice." Mr. Terriss succumbed to his wounds moments later, Miss Millward cradling his head and providing him what comfort she could to the very last.

A large audience which had by then assembled inside the theatre for the evening performance knew nothing of the incident until the manager came to the footlights and announced that, as Mr. Terris had met with an 'accident', no performance would be given that evening. As the bemused audience filed out, wondering why Terris's understudy, Frederic Lane, had not been called upon to fulfil his role of Captain Thorne, they began to learn the awful truth from the crowd gathered outside.

Constable Bragg from the Bow Street police station had meanwhile arrived and taken Archer into custody; apparently Archer had made no attempt to escape but sat quietly until the police arrived after the onlookers to the incident had restrained him. A carriage was called and the prisoner was taken to Bow Street station, followed by an angry crowd, where he was arraigned for the crime. Mr. Graves, who had witnessed the stabbing, accompanied the officer and assailant to the station. Both he and Constable Bragg later gave evidence that, on the way to the station, Archer had said to them that he did it from revenge, believing that Mr. Terriss had prevented him from gaining employment for some years past.

Archer was received into custody at Bow Street station by Inspector Wood, whereupon, still possessing the knife concealed under his cape, he produced the weapon and stated, in a very calm and rational manner: "That's what I stabbed him with; he had due warning". When charged with the murder he simply nodded his head. At that time Archer led the police to believe that he was unmarried and requested only that his sister be informed of his condition. But when a telegraph was then sent to the sister she replied washing her hands of him, wherupon Archer proclaimed that she was "in league with the Terrisses," adding that she had refused him aid earlier that night and it was on her account that this had happened. The following morning Archer appeared before Bow Street Police Court where it was charged "for that he did at about 7.20 p.m. on December 16th kill and slay one William Terriss with a knife at Maiden lane, parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields." As he was led away flanked by two gaolers there was an unseemly show of hissing and resentment from people standing at the back of the court room.

Mr. Tom Terriss, the actor's son was called upon to formally identify the slain man's body. His daughter, Ellaline Terris, had recently been dangerously ill, and was, at the time, still in a serious condition. A telegram had to be sent to her attending physician at Eastbourne to break the sad news.

A post-mortem examination of the body revealed that in addition to the two wounds in his back, and a single wound to the chest, there was also a laceration to the right wrist, probably caused as Mr. Terriss attempted to fend off the final blow. The two wounds to the back would not have been fatal, but the chest wound, which was on the left side between the fourth and fifth ribs had penetrated the heart causing the victim to bleed to death. It had apparently been struck with great force since one of the ribs was broken.

A coroners enquiry took place on December 20th, 1897. Tom Terris was the first to testify and produced into evidence a letter he had found inside the theatre, addressed to his mother, and making threats against his father. The letter was anonymous, but in light of the events that followed it seems certain that the author was Archer, and perhaps the letter represented the warning that Archer spoke of. If so, Mr. Terriss was unaware of it at the time of his murder. John Graves was the next to testify. The Foreman of the Jury wanted to know whether there was any time between the blows to have closed with the man? "No, no." said Graves. "They were delivered like lightning!" and added "I had known poor Terriss all my life, and would have given twenty lives to have saved his." After all the evidence had been heard, the jury returned a verdict of "wilful and premeditated murder" and Archer was subsequently tried for the crime. Even before the trial there could have been no doubt that Archer was responsible for the crime, but in the course of the proceedings a little more was brought out about the motives behind it. It transpired that Archer had been insanely jealous of Mr. Terriss' success whilst his own acting career had been a failure. Working as a lowly stage hand he was often heard to make sarcastic comments as to Mrs. Terris acting such as "Fools often succeed in life where men of genius fail."

He blamed Mr. Terriss for preventing him gaining work as an actor and for causing him to lose his job backstage at the Adelphi, his only means of support. As a member of the committee of the Actors Benefit Fund, he also blamed Mr. Terriss for preventing him gaining relief from that source also, despite his many requests for financial assistance. In fact Mr. Terriss had done all he could to help Archer, only a month before his murder having written a letter to the secretary of the fund recommending Archer as a worthy case and pleading on his behalf. On January 14th, 1898, the jury returned a verdict of guilty against Richard Arthur Prince in the murder of William Terriss, but spared him from hanging by finding him irresponsible for his actions by reason of insanity. He was committed to Broadmoor Prison for the Criminally Insane, where he would remain until his death, some thirty-nine years later.

William Terriss was buried at Brompton Cemetary on December 21st, where an immense crowd, estimated by the police to be in excess of 50,000, was gathered to pay their last respects to the much loved entertainer. All the leading theatrical personalities were present; the Bancrofts, Sir Henry Irving, Mr. Seymour Hicks (the deceased son-in-law), Mary Anderson and Lily Langtry to name but a few. Miss Millward, who had been with him at the end, also attended the funeral and had delivered a cushion of white chrysanthemums and lilies with the inscription "My dear comrade" picked out in violets. The funeral procession, which started from Bedford Park, consisted of over 100 carriages. In spite of the funeral taking place in mid-winter, the floral tributes were as numerous as they were splendid, the Prince of Wales himself sent a magnificent wreath of white lillies and orchids accompanied by a card of condolence. The tributes in fact were so numerous that it seemed all London must have been stripped of flowers, and with only a few able to be carried with the coffin two additional hearses were required to carry the remainder to the grave site.

William Terriss left a personal fortune of 20,000 pounds to be divided equally amongst his children, his wife being already independently wealthy.

The day before the murder of William Terriss his understudy, Frederick Lane, had come to the theatre in an agitated state and related to all who would listen the details of a vivid and distressing dream he had had the night before. He recounted that he had dreamed that William Terriss, surrounded by actors and stage hands, was lying unconscious on the stairs leading to the theater's dressing rooms. His chest was bare and blood was streaming from a gaping wound. An exact portent of what would occur the following night. Three witnesses later signed affidavits that Lane had related his story to them before the murder occured.

The Murder of William Terriss