MAJOR

Henry Archibald (son of Mr. Major, compositor, who d. Reading, June 1863). b. One Bell yard, Strand, London 30 Dec. 1828; employed by J. B. Chamberlain, picture dealer 203 High Holborn 1845–8; a letter carrier in Lincoln’s Inn Fields post office 4 Dec. 1848 to June 1876 when granted pension of 14 shillings and 7 pence per week; played Dog gra in Francis Talfourd’s pantomime Black-eyed Susan at Strand theatre 12 weeks from 24 Dec. 1855, also in his own dramas at Grecian theatre 1871–4; known as “The Postman artist of Lincoln’s Inn Fields”; his picture of Grapes and butterflies took first-cla prize at Floral hall, Covent Garden 1865; he gained 8 more first-cla prizes at picture shows; presented a large painting of fruit worth £50 to King’s college hospital 7 Jany. 1870; exhibited 6 fruit pictures at Suffolk st. gallery 1859–73; lived at 14 Brown low st. Holborn. J. Diprose’s Parish of St. Clement Danes , ii 65–7 (1876). Note. —He wrote for the Soho theatre A cure for the gout, farce 1859, and A sketch from the Louvre, farce 1860, for the Grecian theatre 5 farces namely It never rains but it pours 1862, A Rye House plot 1865, The expected general 1870, The man of mystery 1870 and The rural poet 1871, and 4 dramas namely Primrose farm 1871, The blind fiddler 1872, The mystic number 7, 1872, and My pretty Jane 1874, for the Britannia theatre The Ku Klux Klan drama 1873, and for Croydon theatre The lock out 1879; he wrote 7 other dramas and 8 other farces which were not produced; two of his dramas The lock out and The Nondescript, and two of his farces A Jack of both sides and Irish home rule were printed.