A Neglected Jones/Webb Theatre Project: ‘Barber-Surgeons’ Hall Writ Large

Summary

The drawings, which are reproduced in Plates I and II, form part of the ‘Jones/Webb Collection’ in the Library of Worcester College, Oxford, and must be of paramount interest to theatrical scholars. Part of a series numbered 7, 7a, 7b, and 7c, their neglect is particularly surprising as they are now found in the same large scrapbook volume, Drawings by Inigo Jones and John Webb, Nos. 1-61, as number 27, the important Jones/Webb drawing of ‘The Cockpit-in-Court’. Drawings 7 and 7A are plans and elevations of Jones’ famous oval ‘Theater of Anatomie’ completed for the Company of Barber-Surgeons in 1638. Drawing 7b (Plate I) is an exterior elevation of a building which may, with an explicit caveat, be tentatively and temporarily called ‘Barber-Surgeons’ Hall’, and a plan view of the same building. Drawing 7c (Plate II) offers two interior elevations of the opposite ends of the same ‘Hall’. Both 7b and 7c are carefully finished ink drawings, ‘show drawings’ in fact, on sheets of fine quality paper which measure approximately 12½ by 16½ inches. (Number 27, the ‘Cockpit’ drawing, is only slightly larger, measuring 13½ by 17 inches.) The unknown compiler of this volume— perhaps C. H. Wilkinson—has associated, through his numbering, the four sets of drawings with ‘The Mystery and Commonality of Barbers and Surgeons of London’.