Theatre Royal, Melbourne

An early William Liardet watercolour of the tavern and theatre depicts the rough and ready nature of the pioneer settlement.

It was capable of holding 3300 people and was comparable in size to London's Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres.

His lease still had a year to run, and he sublet it to William Hoskins,[6] but it was taken over by a partnership of Richard Stewart (father of Nellie Stewart),[a] H. R. Harwood, T. S. Bellair, Charles Vincent, John Hennings, and J. C. Lambert, then in 1867 George Coppin joined, and Bellair, Lambert and Vincent dropped out.

Coppin bought his partners out, and was sole manager in April 1872 when the theatre burned down.

[8] It was remodelled in 1904, seating fewer people more comfortably on three tiers, but the growing popularity of the moving pictures in the 1920s affected theatre attendance, as did the effects of the Great Depression in the early 1930s.