Remarkable residents 1. Robert Rivers Melbourne

He was admitted to the Charterhouse on 9 November 1868 when he was only 56, a clear breach of the rules.  But Robert Rivers Melbourne was a local celebrity.
There are a number of confusions about dates.  It's not clear, for instance, where he was born; the 1861 census says London.  It's also unclear exactly when he became manager and lessee of the Queen's Theatre on Paragon St, Hull.  Most reports say 1854, but a newspaper story in 1933 tells of his pioneering balloon ascent from the Zoological Gardens in 1849.  However, he was in Belfast in 1848, managing the Theatre Royal there and marrying Caroline Lewis of Bristol.  (She was 27; he was 37).
Melbourne was in partnership with Joseph Henry Wolfenden, and the pair got the licence to run the Hull theatre in 1857 - or perhaps earlier.

Queen's Theatre, Paragon St, Hull

In the same year Melbourne and Wolfenden applied for a licence to run the Theatre Royal in Sheffield.  When there were objections to this, they argued that their licence to run the Queen's in Hull had already been renewed several times because it was all legal and successful.  There is no further record of this application.
Wolfenden died in 1861 after being thrown from his horse.  He was only 34.  Melbourne paid for his grave in the Hull General Cemetery.  Wolfenden's widow, Henrietta, took his place in the partnership with Melbourne.  [Caroline Melbourne now becomes something of a mystery.  On the 1861 census she is a visitor at the home of a family in Sculcoates (Hull).  In 1864 and 1867 the local papers report three occasions on which a Caroline Melbourne is charged with theft, twice of bed-linen, but one would have expected them to mention the fact if this is Robert's wife.  We don't know whether she entered the Charterhouse with Robert, but after his death she would have been evicted and she tried to earn her living as a dressmaker, lodging with various families.  She died in 1885.]
The theatre seems to have been successful if the number of advertisements for shows is any indication.  For much of the 1860s these appear frequently in the local papers, particularly in 1864 and 1865.

This one is from February 1864, advertised for the "benefit" of Henrietta.  It shows a typical theatre programme of the time, a mixture of short plays and music.  Notably, Melbourne himself acted in the "farce" which concluded the evening.

Also from 1864, this one advertises a visiting opera company, including a benefit evening for the leader of the company, Louisa Fyne.

There was also an annual pantomime.  This one ran through January 1865 with special trains advertised to bring people from places like Grimsby and Withernsea.  In 1866 Henrietta Wolfenden died and was buried in the same grave as her husband.
The pantomime staged in January 1867 proved to be the last.  In February Robert filed for bankruptcy, with liabilities of about £1,500 (about £94,000 in today's values).  He had been generous with his money, but the debts suggest that the theatre had been losing money for some time.  His friends rallied round.  There was a benefit performance at the Theatre Royal and, with what we would now call crowd-funding, the debts were paid and the bankruptcy discharged in June 1867.
Robert tried to start again.  In September 1867 he acquired the use of the lecture hall in the old Mechanics' Institute building in George St to set up a music hall.

The venture seems to have failed.
His theatrical friend Mr Coleman helped out again, engaging him to take part in a 7-night performance in the spring of 1868.  But that was the end of Robert's career.  He was  already a sick man when he was given a room in the Charter-house in November 1868.  He died only 2 months later on 15 Jan 1869.

 He was buried in the same grave as Joseph and Henrietta Wolfenden.  The headstone no longer exists.
The Queen's Theatre was closed for good in 1869 and its contents auctioned off.