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Patent Wrongs and Patent Theatres: Drama and the Law in the Early Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Dewey Ganzel
Dewey Ganzel*
Affiliation:
Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio
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Extract

The general election of 1831, part of the high tide of Reform feeling, swept many new men into the last un-Reformed Parliament, among them Edward Bulwer. Bulwer, later Bulwer-Lytton, for whom the first flush of literary success had become a more or less permanent roseate glow of popularity, had determined to make his mark as an MP as well as a novelist, and he became, in his own mind at least, the spokesman for literature in the House. As a political neophyte, he needed a cause and he found one in the theatre, whose wretched state was generally decried. In espousing its legal reform, Bulwer saw a means of advancing not only the cause of the drama but also his own political fortunes. On 31 May 1832, therefore, he presented a motion for the creation of a select committee to investigate the state of dramatic literature. He was not seeking information, for his speech showed him to be well-informed on theatrical matters. Neither was he impartial; his mind was clearly made up: he was anti-monopoly, anti-censorship, and pro-copyright. The committee was to make an “inquiry” into the decline of the drama, but under Bulwer's direction it was not to be a forum for airing the grievances of the patent theatres, whose “monopoly” was continually violated. Its purpose was to display to Parliament and to the country at large the inadequacies of the legal status quo. Although earlier attempts to form such a committee had been unsuccessful, Bulwer's motion was passed, and the Select Committee on Dramatic Literature was appointed with Bulwer as chairman.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 76 , Issue 4-Part1 , September 1961 , pp. 384 - 396
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1961

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References

Note 1 in page 384 There were 24 members on the committee, only ten of whom actually participated in deliberations (five constituted a quorum), although all signed the subsequent report. In addition to Bulwer, the other active members of the committee were Henry Bulwer, Edward's brother; Thomas Duncombe; John Stanley; George Lamb; Col. DeLacy Evans; Galley Knight; Earl of Belfast, Vice Lord Chamberlain; Richard Lalor Sheil; and Sir George War-render. Great Britain, Parliamentary Reports (1831–32), vii, 2.

Note 2 in page 384 Sheridan to Robertson: A Study of the Nineteenth Century London Stage (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1926), pp. 147 ff., 152. The phrase is Hazlitt's.

Note 3 in page 384 A complete list of witnesses is as follows: Thomas Baucott Mash, Comptroller under the Lord Chamberlain; James Winston, stage manager at the Haymarket and subsequently Drury Lane; John Payne Collier (twice), Shakespeare scholar; William Dunn (twice), treasurer to the committee of Drury Lane; Charles Kemble, proprietor of Covent Garden Theatre; Samuel James Arnold, proprietor of the English Opera House; George Colman, Examiner of Plays; George Bolwell Davidge (twice), proprietor of the

Coburg Theatre; Edmund Kean, actor and proprietor of the Richmond Theatre; William Dowton, actor; John Braham, singer; David Osbaldiston, proprietor of the Surrey Theatre; Captain John Forbes (twice), proprietor of the Covent Garden Theatre; Thomas James Serle (twice), playwright; Peter Francis Laporte, lessee of Covent Garden Theatre; Samuel Beazley, architect and playwright; William Charles Macready, actor; David Morris (twice), proprietor of the Haymarket Theatre; Thomas Morton (twice), script reader at Drury Lane Theatre; Thomas Potter Cooke, actor at the Coburg Theatre; Douglas Jerrold, playwright; Edmund Lenthall Swifte, author and theatregoer; Charles Mathews, proprietor of the Adelphi Theatre; Eugene M'Carthy, lessee of three Irish theatres; W. Thomas Moncrieff, playwright; George Bartley, stage manager of Covent Garden Theatre; Reogre Rowland Minshull, magistrate; John Poole, playwright; Richard B. Peake, playwright; William Henry Settle, law clerk; John Ogden, independent theatregoer; Thomas Halls, magistrate; Francis Place, author; Richard Malone Raymond, manager of the Liverpool Theatre; William Wilkins, builder and proprietor of provincial theatres; James Robinson Planché, playwright; William Moore, trustee to Mr. Harris, proprietor of Covent Garden Theatre; James Kenney, playwright; and Edward William Elton, actor. Great Britain, Parliamentary Reports (1831–32), vii, 9 ff.

Note 4 in page 385 Great Britain, Parliamentary Reports (1831–32), vii, 1–251.

Note 4 in page 385 xvin (January 1833), 32.

Note 6 in page 385 “Noctes Ambrosianae No. LXIV,” xxxii (November 1832), 861.

Note 7 in page 385 “Committee on Dramatic Literature,” No. 262 (3 November 1832), p. 714.

Note 8 in page 385 Watson Nicholson cited the Report in his bibliography for The Struggle for a Free Stage in London (Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1906), but his text indicates that his source was the Morning Chronicle and not the document itself.

Note 9 in page 385 E.g., see Watson, Sheridan to Robertson, p. 152 passim; Allardyce Nicoll, A History of English Drama 1660–1900 (Cambridge, 1955), iv, 22.

Note 10 in page 386 Page numbers included in parenthesis here and following refer to the Report.

Note 11 in page 386 Collier was evidently unaware that Jolly was granted a “license” later revoked. Cf. Leslie Hotson, The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1928), pp. 167–194, and Nicoll, I, 308–314.

Note 12 in page 386 See testimony of Thomas Baucott Mash, Report, pp. 16–17.

Note 13 in page 386 See “An Act for punishment of rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars,” 39 Eliz. c.4 (1597); “An Act to restrain the abuses of players,” 3 James i.e.2 (1605); “An Act… for more effectually punishing such rogues, vagabonds, sturdy beggars and vagrants, and sending them whither they ought to be sent,” 12 Anne c.23 (1713); “An Act to amend and make more effectual the laws relating to rogues, vagabonds, or other idle and disorderly persons, and to houses of correction,” 17 Geo. II c.5 (1744). The legal recognition of the status of the actor as artist did not come until the act of 6 Victoria (1843) which in effect cleared the court dockets of all cases pending against actors and separated them from “rogues, vagabonds, vagrants, and sturdy beggars.” This provision was a significant sign of the changing theatrical times.

Note 14 in page 387 These acts concerned London and its environs only. Other cities and towns had to have special enabling legislation passed to be allowed the same rights as the patent theatres. Thus Bath (8 Geo. iii c.10), Liverpool (11 Geo. m c.16), Manchester (IS Geo. iii c.47), Bristol (18 Geo. ni c.8), and others received permission to play the regular drama. This was changed by a law of 1788 (28 Geo. m c.30) which allowed Justices of the Peace to license for the regular drama one theatre in their precincts provided it was outside a twenty-mile radius of London and Edinburgh.

Note 15 in page 387 Testimony of James Winston, Report, p. 20.

Note 18 in page 388 The Works of Douglas Jerrold (London, Bradbury Agnew [1850?]), v, 109. 17 P. 49.

Note 18 in page 388 The law of 1843, “An Act for regulating theatres,” 6–7 Vict, c.68 (1843) allows the Queen to bestow Royal Patents in the future; it does not outlaw them but only restricts their exclusive operation.

Note 19 in page 388 There is no wholly accurate and comprehensive history of London theatres; since much of the data is irretrievably lost, perhaps there never will be. The following information is taken from the most complete history to date, H. Barton Baker's History of the London Stage and Its Famous Players (1576–1903) (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1904). It disagrees in a few minor instances with both Allardyce Nicoll's list (iv, 222–233) and with that given by Erroll Sherson in London's Lost Theatres of the Nineteenth Century (London: John Lane, the Bodley Head, Ltd., 1925). Since none of these works cites irrefutable authority, I have thought it most consistent to use a single rather than an eclectic source: the data in all three sources support my general conclusions. The eleven theatres were : Astley's Amphitheatre (Olympic) 1806; Sans Pareil (Adelphi) 1806; Tottenham Street Theatre (Queen's) 1809; Coburg (Victoria) 1818; Argyll Rooms 1819; The Shakespeare, Curtain Road 1820; City Theatre, Grub Street (City Pantheon) 1829; Pavillion 1829; Garrick 1830; Orange Street Theatre, Chelsea 1831; The New Royal Sussex (Marylebone) 1831. See Baker, pp. x-xiv.

Note 20 in page 388 Shakespeare, Curtain Road 1820; Argyll Rooms 1823; Orange Street Theatre, Chelsea 1832; Royalty (Brunswick) 1838. Ibid.

Note 21 in page 388 The Albion (New Queen's) 1832; The Grecian 1832; New Lyceum (King's Cross) 1832; Strand 1832; Westminster 1832; Rotunda 1833; Royal Kent, Kensington 1834; City of London 1835; St. James's 1835; Royal Standard 1837; Bower Saloon 1838; Miss Kelly's Theatre (New English Opera House) 1840; Princess's 1840; Britannia 1841; Colisseum, Albany Street 1841. Ibid.

Note 22 in page 388 Sans Souci 1834; Albion 1836; City Theatre, Grub Street 1836; Westminster 1836; Rotunda 1838; Royal Kent 1840; Colisseum 1842. Ibid.

Note 23 in page 389 Great Britain, House of Commons, Journals, Lxxxvii (1831–32), 354.

Note 24 in page 389 Report, testimony of Charles Kemble, p. 42.

Note 25 in page 389 Report, testimony of John Forbes, part owner of Covent Garden, Question 1834: “Do you not think the class of persons who attend the minor theatres is different from the class who attend the large theatres?—[Answer:] No, in the aggregate they are the same,” p. 105. Cf : Testimony of Davidge, proprietor of the Surrey-side Coburg: His audience he states comes from the “west end of the town and the city of London.” Question 1205. “Are they persons in the habit of going to the large theatres?— [Answer:] Decidedly; the theatre has been patronized by most of the royal family, and noblemen and gentlemen attached to theatricals,” p. 76.

Note 26 in page 389 See Report, Davidge's testimony, p. 79. On Friday, 1 August 1828, the boxes held 1,230; on Monday, 17 December 1824, the pit held 1,090; on Monday, 27 December 1830, the gallery held 1,512. Total = 3,932.

Note 27 in page 389 See Nicoll, iv, 68, and Watson, p. 137 passim.

Note 28 in page 389 Recounted at length in Macready's Reminiscences, and Selections from his Diaries and Letters, ed. Frederick Pollock (London: Macmillan & Co., 1876), pp. 177 ff.

Note 29 in page 389 Report, Appendix 13, p. 249. 30 See Macready, pp. 170–171.

Note 31 in page 390 London's population was growing enormously but this increase was not seen in the City itself but rather in the surrounding boroughs. Much of the growth was southward into Southwark. For example, in 1820 1,821,000 persons crossed Waterloo Bridge. In 1830 2,423,000 did so. See Michael G. Mulhall, The Dictionary of Statistics (London : Routledge, 1903), p. 438.

Note 32 in page 390 See testimony of Douglas Jerrold, Report, p. 161.

Note 33 in page 390 Quoted in Jerrold, v, 91.

Note 34 in page 390 In The Life of Charles James Mathews (2 vols., London: Macmillan & Co., 1879, ii, 92–93), Charles Dickens, Jr., prints an itemized list of the employees of Covent Garden during the week ending 26 December 1840, when the theatre was under the management of Madame Vestris and Mathews. Even at that late date the theatre employed 684 persons, many of them superfluous.

Note 35 in page 390 See n. 26 above.

Note 36 in page 390 Report, Appendix IS, p. 2S0, a Letter to Bulwer from Henry Harris, 18 July 1832.

Note 37 in page 391 Covent Garden Theatre practices were duplicated by Drury Lane. See testimony of Francis Place, pp. 205 ff., and his pamphlet A New Way to Pay Old Debts (London : Sherwood, Neely & Jones, 1812).

Note 38 in page 391 E.g., see Scott's “Essay on the Drama” in The Miscellaneous Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott (Edinburgh: Cadell & Co., 1827), vi, 259–470. (Originally written in 1819(?) for the Encyclopaedia Britannica.)

Note 39 in page 391 “Dramatic Literature,” xviii (January, 1833), 41–42.

Note 40 in page 392 The Master of the Revels had the power to censor plays in the early seventeenth century. By 1737, however, this power had become inoperative and was ignored. To determine what an informed scholar of 1832 believed to be the historical facts at issue, see the testimony of John Payne Collier, Report, p. 23.

Note 41 in page 393 Speeches of Edward Lord Lytton, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons, 1874), I, 12–13.

Note 42 in page 393 16 July 1832.

Note 43 in page 393 (London: Richard Bentley, 1841), p. 429. 44 Printed in Jerrold, v, 108.

Note 45 in page 394 See 3 Hansard, xvi (12 March 1833), 561.

Note 46 in page 394 For a comprehensive contemporary description of production procedures, see the testimony of George Bartley, Report, pp. 180 ff. When a change in this inartistic and financially extravagant method came, the innovators were the actors, who slowly extended their control over the entire production.

Note 47 in page 394 E.g., Nicoll, iv, 5l-53.

Note 48 in page 395 Report, p. 156. This is in sharp contrast to the prices paid only thirty years earlier when Thomas Holcroft, for example, received nearly i300 for the publication rights of Road to Ruin (p. 158).

Note 49 in page 396 (London : Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, & Green, 1831), p. 317.

Note 50 in page 396 Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, Bills, 1833 (73) ii.117 (13 March 1833); and Acts, 3–4 Win. 4.C.15 (10 June 1833).

Note 51 in page 396 Great Britain Parliamentary Records, House of Commons 1842 (33), 561 521–2 GS.c.46 1, 19, 35, 2(3) (16 December 1911).