Introduction or Expensive and Dangerous Amusements
Lee Jackson's well-researched book is an examination of the growth of the leisure industry in the nineteenth century. He looks at the gin palace, the music hall, the exhibition ground, the seaside resort and the football club. This all co-incides with the shorter working week with half days on Saturdays. (As a ten-year-old boy, I remember vividly walking to my father's shop on Kensington High Street at lunchtime on a Saturday (early closing day) to take the 49 bus to Kensington Gardens, where John and I played football at Buck Hill).
Chapter 1: The Gin Palace or The Abodes of Suicide
(These horrible alternative titles fare no better in later chapters).
We hear how ornate these places were, occasionally situated in the midst of slums. Their gaslighting, the liquor they served and the "magnificent decoration". However, there was normally no seating, encouraging drinkers to leave. These were very different to the alehouse, where there was seating and you were served at the table. Magistrates were often trying to close them down.
"Gin drinking had acquired a thin veneer of respectability." There is a discussion about the licensing battles between these places and ale houses. As trade grew, the "gin shop" became gradually replaced by the Gin Palace. A far more respectable and luxurious establishment. Licensing laws meant that beer shops had to close at 10pm, whereas gin places were open until midnight. It was the 1839 Metropolitan Police Act that prohibited Sunday opening before 1pm.
The part about licensing laws reminded me of when I lived next to the river in Barnes; the pubs there on the south side of the River Thames closed an hour earlier than those in Hammersmith on the north side. How many times did I cross Hammersmith Bridge for one more pint?
Chapter 2: The Free-and-Easy or The Glorious Apollo
For some reason the author starts talking about the advent of the music hall, only to ditch that and goes back to public houses where a club room allowed gatherings of friends to drink, sing and have a good time. Jackson believes this is "from which music hall would eventually spring". That sounds like rubbish to me. Better is the writer's investigations into Mr Boothroyd's Kings Arms on Golden Lane where the premises were extended to accommodate three hundred patrons who were charged an entrance fee for the entertainment. We know because they were prosecuted. Now this could be the precursor of the music hall.
We hear about various such venues where the owners tried to expand their premises for entertainment, only to lose out to the local licensing board. Next come London's "patent" theatres (the Theatre Royals), which came under the jurisdiction of the Lord Chamberlain. The "minors" were other establishments which only presented music and mime. These were forever pushing the boundaries as their presentations started to include more dialogue.
Then came the Theatres Act of 1843 and a major change. All theatres could perform drama, thus abolishing the monopoly of the "patent" theatres. They were all now under the jurisdiction of the Lord Chamberlain. Music and dancing licences were still available as long as there was nothing theatrical or spoken.
Chapter 3: The Music Hall or He Slept on the Piano
The author starts this section with Charles Thornton's "Canterbury Hall" as an example of a music hall. It had a capacity of up to 2,000. There were songs, ventriloquists, magicians, acrobats, melodrama and pantomimes. Jackson spends some time telling us about the battles in court between music halls and theatres. From what used to be an annexe of a pub to a standalone "variety theatre" or "palace of varieties". There was still much controversy about content.
The last part of this section suggested that the drinking culture was certainly dying down with the growth of these new theatres. And people expected more for their money: carpets instead of sanded floors, cushioned armchairs instead of benches, and the finest fabrics, fixtures and fittings. A new age of luxury. Theatres might have a twelve-strong orchestra and be "free from vulgarity". The first Royal Variety Performance took place at The Palace Theatre in 1912.
Chapter 4: The Dancing Room or The Way of the Whirled
This chapter starts with the creation of "assembly rooms". Not to be confused with "commercial dance halls for the masses". The author explains about "dancing academies" to bypass the laws on such congregations. However, the main feature of this chapter focuses on Laurent's Casino that opened in October 1846, just off The Strand in Adelaide Gallery, where there was a conversion into a dance hall. Advertised as "Dancing for the Million" with a fifty-piece orchestra.
Then Caldwell's Assembly Rooms in Soho "catered more for the working-class dancer" with up to 600 participants. These prospered thanks to "rigid moral policing". However, there were still battles with the magistrates, so much so that these establishments closed after only a few years.
What did prosper for dancing at the end of the century were the seaside resorts, such as The Tower Ballroom in Blackpool. Hammersmith Palais opened in 1919.
Chapter 5: The Pleasure Garden or The Midnight Roysterers
Maybe the best example was Vauxhall Gardens: "an enclosed cultivated park". It opened during the evening, where various routes were lit (or not). There were various entertainments along the way and a two-storey bandstand for an orchestra. There were variety acts, concerts, firework displays, ballooning ascents, tightrope walkers and all kinds of circus, theatrical performances and dancing.
Chapter 6: The Exhibition Ground or The City of Sideshows
The Great Exhibition was a "Crystal Palace" erected in Hyde Park. Visitors from home and abroad flocked from home and abroad to the capital in 1851. There were six million admissions in six months. It was not until 1854 that a remodelled Crystal Palace opened in Sydenham, South London. We hear a lot about the installations that filled this permanent building. When a new Alexandra Palace opened in 1873, it burnt down after sixteen days. It was rebuilt and reopened. Successful on the face of it, but not enough to repay the shareholders. All the attractions at these exhibitions are far too many to list. Earls Court opened in 1887 and Olympia in 1886.
Chapter 7: The Seaside or A Triumphal Car for Neptune
(Don't you just hate these alternative titles)
It was the steamboat and railways that were the cause of the explosion of of tourism. At first, Brighton and Margate were at the fore. Then Blackpool. Before the advent of the railways from 1846 to 1863, the best way to the resorts was by steamboat. Sixty miles from London in 1815, it took six to seven hours but was extremely popular. We hear about the opening of piers, with a fine example being Southport. We hear about the construction of promenades. The first piers were very plain, but then came extensions with various additions and rooms. Blackpool North Pier had concerts. Blackpool Tower opened in 1894 and there is a description about its construction.
Along the seafront came various attractions such as theatres, aquariums, winter gardens, donkey rides, organ grinders, and Punch and Judy; the list goes on. Amusement parks began to open.
Chapter 8: The Football Field or To Brutalise the Game
The growth of football in the nineteenth century from its "rough and tumble" beginnings to the establishment in 1863 of the Football Association (the FA), which provided a set of rules. I'm not sure about the author's description of how it grew out of rugby and cricket clubs. But we do hear about the formation of the early football clubs, mainly in the north of England. Blackburn Olympic played in the FA Cup final of 1883 at The Oval where they beat Old Etonians.
Conclusion
This is mainly just a rehash of all the above and the factors that contributed to the "country's entertainment explosion". With newspapers, magazines, railways and transport.
This was a hugely researched book; sometimes it felt as if the author wanted to include everything that he found. Twenty-seven pages of end notes, a huge bibliography, but a shortish index. It could have done with some judicial editing.
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