Travers Vale

Travers Edmund Vale, was an English-born silent film director, theatre impresario, playwright, and actor. Raised primarily in Victoria, Australia, he worked as a photographer, playwright and theatre manager there and in New Zealand prior to his career in film. Early in his career, he was known by the name S. F. Travers Vale under which name he authored his first known play, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1888) which is an adaptation of the 1886 novel of the same name by Fergus Hume. He established his own theatre troupe, The Travers Vale Dramatic Company, which was in residence at the Theatre Royal, Adelaide in 1889 and the Auckland Opera House in New Zealand in 1890.