St Martin's Hall was built for John Hullah, in 1847, by William Cubitt, from a design by Richard Westmacott.

The music hall was capable of seating 3,000 persons and was opened in 1850 by Hullah, the founder of a new "school of choral harmony".

[3] Charles Dickens first appeared as a public lecturer in St Martin's Hall, in April, 1858, speaking on behalf of the Hospital for Sick Children, in Great Ormond Street.

[1] In 1867, a 4,000-seat theatre was built within the shell of the existing building by C. J. Phipps[1] for Henry Labouchère and his partners, with interior decoration by Albert Moore and Telbin.

[4] A new company of players was formed, including Charles Wyndham, Henry Irving, J. L. Toole, Lionel Brough, Ellen Terry and Henrietta Hodson.

[8] The theatre hosted comedies, such as F. C. Burnand's The Turn of the Tide (1869, starring Hermann Vezin and George Rignold with Hodson), historical dramas, such as Tom Taylor's Twixt Axe and Crown (1870), popular revivals of Shakespeare (starring such famous actors as Samuel Phelps) and Tommaso Salvini, dramatisations of Dickens novels, burlesques and extravaganzas.

[11] The same year, the theatre was joined by overhead wires to the Canterbury Music Hall in Lambeth, and public demonstrations of the Cromwell Varley telephone were given.