Subsequently he paid a visit to South Africa, playing there in all the principal towns in a repertory of thirty-eight pieces. Returning to London, he reappeared at the Lyric on 9 Oct. 1890 in Audran's comic opera 'La Cigale.' In 1894 he joined (Sir) Herbert Beerbohm Tree's company, with which he remained associated, with slight intermissions, down to his death. Among the parts played by him during Tree's management of the Haymarket were the Laird in 'Trilby' (1895) and Bardolph in 'King Henry IV, Pt. I' (1896). After an interval, he rejoined Sir Herbert Tree at Her Majesty's, playing such parts as Picolet in Robert Buchanan's adaptation 'A Man's Shadow' (1897), Sir Toby Belch in 'Twelfth Night' (1901), Brunno Rocco in Hall Game's 'The Eternal City' (1902), and Trinculo in 'The Tempest' (1904). On 15 June 1905 his stage jubilee was celebrated at His Majesty's by a testimonial performance in his honour. Here, too, he made his last appearance on the stage, in 1909, as Moses in 'The School for Scandal.'
Brough had little capacity for interpreting character, and obtained his effects mainly by simple drollery. Early in his career his gifts of improvisation and theatrical resourcefulness, allied to a rich sense of humour, gained him pre-eminence in burlesque. His most striking effects were procured by an assumption of blank stolidity.
Brough died on 8 Nov. 1909 at Percy Villa, South Lambeth, where he had long resided. He married on 12 July 1862 Margaret Rose Simpson (d. 1901), who was not connected with the profession, and had four children, Mary, Sydney, Percy, and Margaret, all of whom took to the stage. Mary and Sydney survived him, the latter dying in April 1911.
A crayon portrait of Brough by J. Macbeth was shown at the Grafton Galleries in 1897. An oil-painting of Brough and Toole in 'Dearer than Life' was sold at the Toole sale in November 1906.
[Pascoe's Dramatic List; W. Davenport Adams's Dict. of the Drama; Bancroft Memoirs; Dutton Cook's Nights at the Play; Mowbray Morris's Essays in Theatrical Criticism; John Hollingshead's My Lifetime, 1895, and Gaiety Chronicles 1898: Dramatic Notes for 1881; Tatler, 10 July 1901; Green Room Book, 1909; private information; personal knowledge.]
BROUGH, ROBERT (1872–1905), painter, born at Invergordon, Ross-shire, in 1872, was educated at Aberdeen. There he was apprenticed to Andrew Gibb, engraver and lithographer, with whom Sir George Reid, president of the Royal Scottish Academy, also began his artistic career. Brough studied at the Aberdeen Art School, and at the close of his apprenticeship he removed to Edinburgh, pursuing his art education there. He entered the Royal Scottish Academy life-school in 1891, and distinguished himself as a student, gaining the Chalmers bursary and the Maclaine-Waters medal and other prizes. From Edinburgh he went to Paris, continuing his studies under Jullien and Constant, and attracting much notice by his vigorous style. Returning to Aberdeen in 1894, he began practice there as a portrait painter, contributing also lithographic pictures to the local illustrated journals, 'The Scottish Figaro' and 'Bon-Accord.' His first notable picture was the portrait of Mr. W. D. Rosy of Aberdeen (afterwards editor of 'Black and White,' London), which was painted in 1893, and was presented in 1907 to the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh. In 1897 Brough moved to London, taking a studio in Tite Street, Chelsea, where he became the friend and protege of Mr. John Singer Sargent, R.A., exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy, the New Gallery the Royal Scottish Academy, and the International Society Exhibitions. In December 1904 he was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy, but his brilliant and promising career was suddenly terminated before he painted his diploma picture. He had been painting the portraits of the daughter-in-law and grandson of Sir Charles Tennant of The Glen, Peeblesshire, and was on the return journey to London when he was fatally injured in a railway accident at Storrs Mill, near Cudworth Junction, between Leeds and Sheffield, on 20 Jan. 1905. He died unmarried in Sheffield Hospital next day, and was buried at Old Machar, Aberdeenshire.
Brough gave promise of becoming one of the most notable of Scottish portrait-painters. His style was both powerful and original, uniting simplicity with breadth of treatment. While his study at Paris had served to develop his style, he retained his originality, and his portraits are remarkable alike for their richness of colour and virility of draughtsmanship. Among his most notable portraits are 'Miss Julie Opp, actress'; 'The Viscountess Encombe' (1898); 'Master Philip Fleming' (a work which attracted attention at the
