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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2010
The Parliamentary Act of 1843 that eradicated the duopoly of Covent Garden and Drury Lane affected London taverns as well as theatres. To skirt the ban on drama, minor theatres had long interpolated musical interludes into any sort of play, thus naturalizing indoors a variety format more common to the fairground or circus. The growing taste for miscellaneous entertainment was also served by tavern saloons, where variety bills supplemented alcoholic conviviality. The Act of 1843, amending the licensing act of 1737, merely recognized this fact of life and extended a welcoming hand to these and other performance spaces. All places of entertainment holding a “burletta license” might stage plays, provided that smoking and the sale of spirituous beverages were banned from the premises.
1 Encyclopœdia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911), s.v. “Music Halls.”
2 For descriptions of song and supper rooms, see the appropriate citations in Senelick, L., Cheshire, D. F., and Schneider, U., British Music Hall 1840–1923: A Bibliography and Guide to Sources (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1981).Google Scholar For a contemporary account of Evans's not listed therein, see T., , “A Gastronomic Survey of the Dining Houses of London,” Bentley's Miscellany (New York: Jemima M. Lewer, 1839), 3: 477–78.Google Scholar Herbert Spencer in “Manners and Fashion” (1857) suggested that the popularity of night clubs and taverns among gentlemen resulted from the increasing stiffness and stateliness of dinner parties and society soirées.
3 Quoted in Earl, John, “Building the Halls,” in Music Hall: The Business of Pleasure, ed. Bailey, Peter (Stony Stafford: Open University Press, 1986), 1.Google Scholar
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11 All quotations from the Rice diaries are drawn from the 1840 and 1850 volumes, with the permission of the Harvard Theatre Collection. They reproduce his eccentric spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
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33 Death certificate from St. Catherine's House, London.
