 His company included from time to time many actors and actresses who, having trained under him, became prominent on their own account, and both by his organization of this regular company and by his foundation of a dramatic school of acting in 1901, Benson exercised a most important influence on the contemporary stage.In 1901 when his company looked likely to fail the actor-manager Otho Stuart, a former member of his company and one of Benson's creditors used his managerial acumen to keep the company afloat, creating the F. R. Benson Company Ltd with Stuart becoming a co-director to better be able to regulate the new company's finances.From the first he devoted himself largely to the production of Shakespeare's plays, reviving many which had not been acted for generations, and his services to the cause of Shakespeare can hardly be overestimated.