Howard & Wyndham Ltd
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Howard & Wyndham Ltd was a theatre management company, founded in 1895 to formalise an 1883 partnership between J.B. Howard (1841 - 1895) and Frederick WP Wyndham (? - 1930) which had first formed in order to run the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh. Both Howard and Wyndham were well-known impresarios, actors and managers on the Edinburgh scene. The company also leased the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, Theatre Royal, Glasgow and the Royalty Theatre, Glasgow, but Howard died of a stroke only weeks after the company was formed.
Wyndham continued to run the company until 1928, when he retired (though retaining his seat on the board for 2 more years) and A Stewart Cruikshank (previously Director of the company) took over as managing director, remaining until his death in 1946 in a car crash. As soon as he took over, Cruikshank instituted a resident company at the Lyceum. In the meantime, in 1912, the company had also taken over the Robert Arthur group of six theatres (four in England - the Shakespeare in Newcastle upon Tyne, the Royal Court in Liverpool, and the Royal Court in Nottingham - and six in Scotland), as well as gaining a presence in Dundee and Aberdeen.
The company became based at the King's Theatre, and its policy committed it to "the best work of modern writers, together with the classics of the past", including touring Shakespeare productions and opera alongside pantomime and musicals. A Stewart Cruikshank's son Stewart inherited his father's role as managing director, selling the Royal Lyceum Theatre and King's Theatre to Edinburgh Council in 1965-66.
