[2] Terriss was educated at Christ's Hospital[3] and Bruce Castle School, Tottenham, where he was a friend of J. Comyns Carr and Frederick Selous.
[4] Carr later wrote of Terriss's school days that "if he gained but little learning, he at any rate acquired a perfect mastery in the art of tree-climbing".
[7] He married Isabel Lewis (stage name Amy Fellowes) in 1870 and had a daughter, Ellaline, who became a well known actress in Edwardian musical comedy, often appearing with her husband, the actor-manager Seymour Hicks.
[6] After brief stints in the merchant navy, and as a tea-planter in Bengal and other unsuccessful ventures, he returned to England, working briefly in a hospital where his brother was a surgeon, and then as an apprentice engineer.
Still restless, however, Terriss then travelled with his wife to South America and the Falkland Islands, where he tried his hand at sheep-farming and other rustic jobs.
[6] He had successes at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in Robin Hood and in Rebecca, based on Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, among other plays.
His handsome presence, fine voice, friendly demeanour and gallant bearing made him one of Britain's most popular actors.
In 1878 he had a hit as Squire Thornhill in Olivia, an adaptation by W. G. Wills of The Vicar of Wakefield, alongside Ellen Terry and Hermann Vezin.
[13] In 1880 he joined Henry Irving's company at the Lyceum Theatre, playing such parts as Cassio in Irving's hit production of Othello, Laertes in Hamlet, Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice, Flutter in The Belle's Stratagem, Courriol in The Lyons Mail, Jack Wyatt in James Albery's Two Roses and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet to enthusiastic notices.
[18] Terriss performed many roles opposite Mary Anderson to much acclaim, including the title characters in Romeo and Pygmalion and Galatea.
[19] In December 1885 Terriss met 24-year-old Jessie Millward, with whom he starred as David Kingsley in the extraordinarily successful The Harbour Lights (by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt), which ran for 513 performances.
[3] The New York Dramatic Mirror called Terriss "one of the greatest and next to Henry Irving undoubtedly the most popular actor in England".
[6] On 16 December 1897, as he was entering the Adelphi Theatre through the stage door in Maiden Lane to prepare for the evening's performance of Secret Service, 50-year-old Terriss was stabbed to death by a deranged and disgruntled actor, Richard Archer Prince.
[3] Terriss, however, sent small sums of money to Prince via the Actors' Benevolent Fund, and continued to try to find him acting work.
[3][28] His relatively mild sentence was met with anger by the theatrical community, and Sir Henry Irving was later quoted as saying that "Terriss was an actor, so his murderer will not be executed.
[32] A portrait of Terriss hangs in the stairwell of Denville Hall, the home for retired Actors and Actresses in Northwood, London, England.
A fictionalised version of Terriss's murder, The Star of the Adelphi, was broadcast in 2002 on BBC Radio 4 as part of The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.