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The London Theatre Cartel of the 1720s: British Library Additional Charters 9306 and 9308

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Judith Milhous  and
Robert D. Hume
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Extract

One of the basic facts of eighteenth-century London theatre history is the disinclination of the managers of the patent theatres to engage in serious competition of any sort following the Licensing Act of 1737. This preference for peaceful coexistence was not, in fact, a new development: a strong inclination toward a modus vivendi can be proven as early as 1720. The evidence is a pair of almost entirely neglected manuscript charters (contracts) preserved in the British Library. In both instances we find the managers of the two theatres attempting to restrict actor transfers. The first contract (dating from September 1720) was apparently never formally concluded, but the second (dated April 1722) was duly signed and sealed, and evidently remained in effect until about 1730. Taken together, the two charters shed considerable light on the accommodation eventually reached between the two companies after the reestablishment of competition in 1714, and they also give us lists of performers in 1720 and 1722 that add significantly to the company rosters in The London Stage.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , May 1985 , pp. 21 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1985

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References

Notes

1 See Milhous, Judith and Hume, Robert D., “The Silencing of Drury Lane in 1709,” Theatre Journal, 32 (1980), 427–447CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For details of Drury Lane's operations 1710–1714 (including the replacement of Doggett by Barton Booth in the triumvirate management), see Vice Chamberlain Coke's Theatrical Papers, 1706–1715, ed. Milhous, and Hume, (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1982)Google Scholar.

2 Granted 18 October (P.R.O. LC 5/156, p. 31).

3 This petition (evidently dating from ca. December 1714) is among the Blenheim MSS recently transferred to the British Library. As of May 1984 it is Add. MS 61, 686, item 75, but this number may be changed. The petition has been known primarily from the description published in HMC Report VIII, Appendix, Part 1, p. 24, col. 1.

4 P.R.O. SP 44/246, p. 386 (ca. December 1714). The patent was granted with astonishing celerity on 19 January 1715 (P. R.O. C66/3501, no. 13; copy in LC5/202, pp. 280–285). On Steele's part in the Drury Lane management, see Loftis, John, Steele at Drury Lane (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1952)Google Scholar, to which we are indebted.

5 Both letters are printed in The Correspondence of Richard Steele, ed. Blanchard, Rae (1941; rpt. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), pp. 112, 112–113Google Scholar. Steele was not above making what public relations capital he could out of the situation. Under the cover of anonymity he complains in Town-Talk, no. 2 (23 December 1715) that the opening of Lincoln's Inn Fields and the theft of Drury Lane actors have forced the Drury Lane managers to “suspend” their design of reforming theatrical taste.

6 Correspondence, p. 353.

7 See The Weekly Packet, 28 September–5 October 1717.

8 Whereabouts of MS unknown to us. Reported by Fitzgerald, Percy, A New History of the English Stage, 2 vols. (London: Tinsley, 1182), I, 417Google Scholar.

9 The London Stage, 1660–1800, Part 2: 1700–1729, ed. Avery, Emmett L. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1960)Google Scholar.

10 Highfill, Philip H. Jr, Burnim, Kalman A., and Langhans, Edward A., A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, 18 vols. in progress (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1973–)Google Scholar. Whether she is the “Mrs Barns” who received a benefit at the Little Haymarket on 27 December 1725 we cannot say.

11 Presumably Mary Cook, a minor performer at Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent Garden from 1715 to 1740. She received a shared benefit 9 May 1721, so her omission from the London Stage roster is simply an error.

12 Only five names appear in the London Stage season roster of actors and actresses but not in Add. Charter 9306: Mr Coke (evidently an error for Cocker), Mr Hall (temporarily absent in autumn 1720), Mr Orfear [Orfeur] (joined later in the season?), Mr Pack (entering his final season as a regular performer after a career of more than forty years), and Mrs Biggs (whose last recorded performance was 11 October 1720). Rich seems to have included in his protected list only those dancers who were under regular contract.

13 For example, P.R.O. LC 7/1, p. 40 (16 April 1695), LC 7/3, f. 70 (25 July 1695), and LC 7/1, p. 47 (26 October 1696). For an instance of a refusal to permit such a transfer — soon waived, to be sure — see “The Petition of Verbruggen, Porter, Pack, and Bradshaw” (early January 1708), Vice Chamberlain Coke's Theatrical Papers, Document 30.

14 P.R.O. LC 7/3, ff. 156, 137 (also in LC 5/158 under dates).

15 Published with the kind permission of The British Library.

16 Reading doubtful; could be “Wills,” but Wilks is definitely the person intended.

17 See Fitzgerald, I, 416 (who unhelpfully cites “Add. MSS. 2201”).

18 Only a few performers' names appear in the London Stage season rosters for 1721–22 but not in Add. Charter 9308. At Lincoln's Inn Fields: Christopher Bullock (who had died 5 April), Mr Morgan (a surprising omission), Mr Ogden, Mr Parlor (employed only briefly), Miss Purdon, Mrs Bower (a temporary singer), and some dancers: Jones, Lally, Jr, Sandham's son, Tirrevette, and Miss Sandham. At Drury Lane: Pietro (a temporary singer), Mrs Brett (a beginner, and Colley Cibber's daughter), Mrs Lindar (temporarily absent?), and Mrs Wetherilt (a very minor or occasional member of the company). The omission of Hester Santlow Booth was evidently an oversight.

19 Theophilus Cibber, A Letter … to John Highmore (June? 1733), p. 2. British Library shelfmark 1889. d. 1(32).

20 Fitzgerald, I, 418.

21 Manuscript in the Rare Book Room of the Pennsylvania State University Library. The note evidently dates from 1722–23, since our first record of Mrs Bubb is a benefit at the end of that season.

22 Folger PN 2598 G3F5, Copy 4, ex-ill., vol. 5.

23 Fitzgerald, I, 416, 419.

24 Folger Y.d. 467 (reprinted in facsimile in the Biographical Dictionary, VI, 498).

25 Fitzgerald, I, 417. The wording of this note may indicate that Rich had agreed to let Chetwood move to Drury Lane — as he promptly proceeded to do.

26 Printed in facsimile by Thaler, Alwin, Shakspere to Sheridan (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1922), opposite p. 114CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 This notice, dated “April 22, 1723,” was published in the Daily Courant on 24 April.

28 Anon., A Seasonable Examination of the Pleas and Pretensions of the Proprietors of, and Subscribers to, Playhouses (London: T. Cooper, 1735)Google Scholar. British Library shelfmark 641.d.31(1).

29 Griffin's reference to signed articles contradicts Cibber's assertion that the Drury Lane managers relied on oral agreements. See An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, ed. Lowe, Robert W., 2 vols. (London: Nimmo, 1889), II, 113Google Scholar.

30 Theophilus Cibber says that Miller was “kept out of any Business upwards of Two Years.” See A Letter … to John Highmore, p. 2.

31 The Case of John Mills, et al. (1735), p. 2. “No doubt, there may be soon (as has heretofore been practis'd) Cartels, as they call'em, estabiish'd between the Patentees, that one House shall never receive an Actor who has left the other, let the Motive be Ever so just.” British Library shelfmark 11795.k.31(8). Part of Theophilus Cibber's campaign propaganda in his Letter … to John Highmore is the promise that when he becomes manager he will not make cartels (p. 4).

32 Except for brief periods (e.g., under Fielding in 1736 and 1737) the Little Haymarket did not have a stable repertory company, but gave employment to an ever-shifting succession of performers on an essentially pick-up basis. See Hume, Robert D., “Henry Fielding and Politics at the Little Haymarket, 1720–1737,”, in The Golden and the Brazen World: Papers in Literature and History 1650–1800, ed. Wallace, John M. (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1985), pp. 79–124Google Scholar.

33 P.R.O. C33/356, Decrees and Orders, 1730B, f. 179v.

34 P.R.O. LC 5/160, p. 138.

35 We are grateful to Professor Edward A. Langhans for providing information on personnel whose entries are not yet in print in the Biographical Dictionary.