THE LATE MR H. L. BATEMAN.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 306, 5 June 1875, Page 3

THE LATE MR H. L. BATEMAN.

The Times says that few deaths could cause such general and profound regret among the best class of English playgoers as that of Mr H. L. Bateman, which occurred on Monday night, 22nd March, A correspondent furnished the Times with the following particulars respecting Mr Bateman's sudden death : —“ On Sunday, the 21st March, Mr Henry Irving gave a dinner to a large number of theatrical friends, of whom Mr Bateman was one, at the Pall-mall Restaurant. Mr Irving’s hospitality having been prolonged somewhat beyond the legal hour for closing licensed houses, about half-past eleven o’clock he was surprised by the appearance of a posse of police-constables, headed by their superior officer, who rather unceremoniously required that the company should at once separate. Mr Bateman, who was sitting upon Mr Irving’s right hand, being of a somewhat exciteable temperament, protested in good set terms, at the same time offering his addresscard and those of several other gentlemen present to the chief officer, who is stated to have peremptorily replied that he wanted no cards, but that what he required was the immediate dispersal of the party. Mr Bateman was excessively indignant, and having given expression to his feelings, presently withdrew to the Westminster Club, of which he and several of the gentlemen present were members. At the Club the incident narrated formed the subject of animated discussion up to an advanced hour, \y;hen the company separated, Mr Bateman returning to his residence at Rutland-gate. Rising at an early hour on Monday morning, he was in the act of dressing, when he complained of an unusual pain in the region of the heart, and, complying with the advice of his family, he lay down-upon his bed, where he remained throughout the day. In the evening Miss Isabel Bateman left her father’s house to enact her role of Ophelia at the Lyceum Theatre, without the smallest apprehension of the serious nature of her father’s illness. At seven o’clock Mr Bateman appeared to be in a calm sleep, Shortly after nine o’clock he was discovered to be dead, and the medical man summoned on the instant pronounced that death must have occurred fully two hours previously. Intelligence of the sad event reached the theatre about ten o’clock, but it was prudently considered advisable not to interrupt the performance, and Miss Bateman, while passionately declaiming upon the death of her fictitious parent Polonius, was happily ignorant of the death at the same moment of her own father.” >