power that directors wield in the theatre today. The Bancrofts were also responsible for making fashionable the 'box set', which Lucia Elizabeth Vestris had first used at the Olympic Theatre in the 1830s – this consisted of rooms on stage which were dressed with sofas, curtains, chairs, and carpets on the stage floor. They also provided their actors with salaries and wardrobes. Also, the Bancrofts redesigned their theatre to suit the increasingly upscale audience: "The cheap benches near the stage, where the rowdiest elements of the audience used to sit were replaced by comfortable padded seats, carpets were laid in the aisles, and the pit was renamed the stalls." Other plays that the Bancrofts produced at the Prince of Wales's Theatre were Tame Cats (1868), The School for Scandal (1874), Sweethearts (1874), The Vicarage (1877), and Diplomacy (1878, an adaptation of Victorien Sardou's Dora). Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft likewise presented at their theatre a number of prominent actors, among them Hare, Coghlan, the Kendals, and Ellen Terry. In 1879, she reprised a favourite role of hers, Nan, in John Baldwin Buckstone's Good for Nothing, in a mixed bill alongside W. S. Gilbert's Sweethearts, in which she played Jenny Northcott. Later years In 1879, the Bancrofts moved to the Haymarket Theatre, a larger house, where they renovated the theatre and reportedly introduced he first use of the electric light on the English stage in 1880. They continued the successful presentation of modern comedy until both retired from management on 20 July 1885, having made a considerable fortune producing theatre. After that, Lady Bancroft rarely appeared onstage. In 1895, her eldest son, Captain Charles Bancroft married Margaret Grimston, a daughter of Dame Madge Kendal and William Hunter Kendal. The marriage was later annulled. Books Bancroft was the author of the novel The Shadow of Neeme. She also collaborated with her husband in the production of two volumes of reminiscences called Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft On and Off the Stage, Written by Themselves (London, 1888) and The Bancrofts: Recollections of Sixty Years (Dutton and Co.: London, 1909). Recordings Bancroft recorded three 10" discs for the Gramophone Company in June 1903. 1236 Drinking the waters. 1237 The Deutscher's baby. 1238 (a) A boy's philosophy; (b) Love. Notes Sources The Bancrofts: Recollections of Sixty Years (Dutton and Co.: London, 1909) (Online summary here.) External links Cup and saucer drama: the Bancrofts and their theatres Information