Jimmy Rogers as 'Miss Eily O'Connor'

In 1862 the comic actor Jimmy Rogers scored a great success at the Royal Strand Theatre as the eponymous heroine of Miss Eily O’Connor, a burlesque by H.J. Byron of Dion Boucicault’s phenomenally successful The Colleen Bawn.

One of the first and most popular ‘sensation’ dramas, the highlight of the original play came at the end of Act 2,when Eily was thrown into a moonlit lake by the hunchback Danny Mann, but in the final act it transpired she had been rescued by the loveable rogue Myles-na-Coppaleen. The production was the first to enjoy a long run of modern proportions and it earned its author a small fortune.

Photographed by the Southwell Brothers of London and entered at Stationers’ Hall on 25 October 1862.