The Grand Opera House of Goderich

The Opera House block as it appears in 2025. The corner building (Takalo and Burt) replaced the Grand Opera House. The brickwork on the cornice of the West Street building that survived the fire is still visible.

Opera Houses were one of the most culturally significant buildings in every Ontario city and town in the Victorian era.

Across the boards of the opera house stage trod comedians, Shakespearean thespians, plays, travelogues, politicians, temperance advocates, minstrel shows and, in some more risqué venues, bawdy entertainment.

For a few brief years, the stage of Goderich’s Grand Opera House hosted a full range of Victorian stage entertainment.

Dry Goods Merchant, George Acheson, in 1886, retrofitted an opera house into his large commercial building located on the northwest corner of West Street and the Square.

Erected in 1875-76, the building housed several other businesses but soon became known as the Grand Opera House Block. 

When it held its grand opening on November 16, 1886, it was known as Acheson’s Hall. Its inaugural performance was a ‘Famous Ballad Concert” performed by a “galaxy of eminent artists” from London, England.’

Such stars as Charles Abercrombie, late solo tenor to Her Majesty the Queen; Miss Annie Taunton, from the London Academy of Music; and Walter Pelham “The Prince of English Humourists” who promised to give “his original, unique and refined facial and Mimetic Entertainment”.

Such refined entertainment filled “the house to overflowing with tickets at .25 and .50 cents: .75 cents for reserved seating, according to the Huron Signal.

Such impeccable English entertainment allayed concerns about the perceived low moral character of the entertainment business.

Yet, just to make sure that a new entertainment venue in town was a wholesome place for amusement, a lecture series by well-known clergymen from Toronto, Hamilton and New York scheduled.

Indeed, although few operas were ever staged in local opera houses, the term opera house, according to entertainment historian Brian Morton, was preferred because “the word theatre seemed somehow disreputable” in devoutly Christian Ontario.

Acheson leased the opera house to C W Andrews who managed the hall and arranged bookings. After its grand opening, the opera house was briefly known as the Royal Opera House but, perhaps, to avoid confusion with its rival, the Victoria Opera House on Kingston Street, Andrews changed its name to Grand Opera House in March 1887.

Aside from theological lectures and classical English folk ballads, the Grand hosted travelling troupes from across North America and the United Kingdom. These dramatic companies brought popular contemporary entertainment to Goderich.

In August 1887, Toronto's Templeton Opera Company performed Gilbert and Sullivan's “The Mikado” in Goderich for the first time on the Grand's stage. The Signal reported that “a good house greeted” the production which reflected credit upon anyone who “came before the footlights.”

Another contemporary play, R. L. Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” staged in January 1889, was considered so disturbing that it was accompanied with a lecture by Rev D Rogers, of Londesborough, who explained that “a dual nature is not obtainable by science or compatible with a good life.”

J. W. Bengough, Canada's greatest and most famous cartoonist noted for his bitingly satirical caricatures delivered an illustrated lecture at the Grand in September 1887.

The Huron Signal entertainment critic said Bengough “wasn't much to look at” but “he wasn't talking long till I snickered right out, and when he commenced on the chalk business I had to hold on to the seat with both hands” to steady himself from laughter.

One of those whom Bengough satirized was future Prime Minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who held a political rally at the Grand Opera House on his February 1892 visit to Goderich.

After a torchlight parade around the Square, Laurier was escorted to the Grand Opera House where he was greeted by the local Liberal Association and a standing room only house. The Signal reported that “many had to go away, being unable to get even on the stairway leading to the hall.”

Travelogues from exotic places also proved very popular at the Grand.

In November 1894, the “Prince of Entertainers”, W E Ramsay served as “companion and guide” on a trip around the world. His dramatic magic lantern show, with ‘scenes true to life from Greenland’s Icy Mounts to India’s Coral Strand” proved to be “the event of the season” for an Ontario audience that had probably never travelled more than a few miles from home.

A popular draw to the Grand was Dr. Saushbrauh. In March 1888, Dr. Saushbrauh “the celebrated traveller, impersonator and humourist” who was born in India and had “converted to Christianity from Heathenism” and became a minister and earned a medical degree was considered by the Signal the “most interesting entertainment” in a long time.

The paper thanked the Women’s Missionary Society for introducing him to a Goderich audience. In October 1888, the “Hindoo contingent” of the Salvation Army attracted “a large attendance” and collected a wealth of donations, according to the paper.

Fightin’ Joe Hess was another celebrity speaker who appeared at the Grand Opera House. For three nights in April 1890, the prize fighting bare knuckle boxer and drunk testified about his conversion to religion and temperance.

Sponsored by the Young Women’s Christian Temperance Union, each night ‘Fightin’ Joe’s testimonial brought in an audience that was “crowded through the doors” and “anxious to hear” the sinner who had come to the light.

Local entertainment troupes also drew large box office crowds at the Grand. Fundraising entertainments staged by the Goderich Athletic Club, Odd Fellows and Masonic Lodges, the Cricket Club, West Huron Teachers and Collegiate Dramatic Society, church groups and others could always be counted on to draw large crowds of friends and neighbours.

Performances by local troubadours were always sure to receive favourable reviews in the local press. On other occasions, the Grand hosted benefit concerts to raise money to assist neighbours incapacitated by disease or disability.

Yet, the most popular performances were the music hall sing-a-longs, comedies and Vaudevillian acts like the Guy Brothers’ Minstrel Shows, Bosco the Magician, the New York Bijou Theatre Company and Joseph Hodgson, the Mesmerist, among others, were favourite acts which always banked good box office numbers.

In July 1890, Aleck Saunders became the Grand Opera House’s new manager who, in turn, passed the management on to Harry Hart in June 1894. Hart made extensive renovations to the opera house that summer.

When it re-opened in September, the Huron News Record reported that “the handsome and delightfully clean and well lighted house” had “earned the continued thanks of the people of Goderich.” That single sentence is the closest to a description of the Grand's interior.

Unfortunately, any information on the opera house’s seating capacity, stage set up, or dressing rooms is lost. A carriage call delivered one's carriage to the West Street entrance after each show.

The famed English operatic singer, G. H. Snazelle sang at the Grand on March 14, 1895. Ironically, Snazelle would have a Goderich family connection 130 years later as local photographer and historian, Colleen Maguire, was his first cousin, three times removed.

At 8 a.m. on the morning of Thursday, April 4, 1895, flames were seen erupting from the Grand Opera House.

Despite the heroic efforts of the fire brigade to save the building, the opera house and three other businesses were destroyed in the greatest conflagration in Goderich in ten years, according to the Signal.

Although parts of the commercial building were saved, all that was left of the Grand Opera House was “a few warped piano strings and frame, several iron chair attachments and a disfigured coal stove”.

It was a tragic end to one of the area's most culturally significant buildings.