Anthony - Murder, mayhem and music hall : the dark side of Victorian London

Barry Anthony is an historian with a particular interest in the Victorian and Edwardian period who has written extensively about popular culture and entertainment. He is the author of Chaplins Music Hall and The Kings Jester: The Life of Dan Leno, Victorian Comic Genius (both I.B. Tauris) and co-author, with Richard Brown, of a groundbreaking study of the early British cinema, A Victorian Film Enterprise.

Praise for Chaplins Music Hall, also by Barry Anthony:

[Barry] Anthony is particularly good at exploring the fragility of the lives built by these performers, the instability as their audience shifted its allegiance from music hall to variety, then variety to film.

Judith Flanders, TLS

Barry Anthony has managed to bring back to life the often remarkable and dramatic lives of the performers who once entertained the British public in the many music halls throughout the country.

Michael Chaplin, from the Foreword to Chaplins Music Hall

As a writer examining Chaplins links with music hall, Barry Anthony could not be bettered. A recognised expert on early cinema and the music halls, he paints a vivid account of a crucial part of Chaplins extraordinary career.

Richard Anthony Baker, author of British Music Hall:
An Illustrated History and editor of Music Hall Studies

Meticulously researched and well written; [this is] an important addition to music-hall history and to Chaplin studies.

Max Tyler, historian of the British
Music Hall Society

Barry Anthonys account of Charlie Chaplins music hall roots offer[s] shining insights into the formative background of the Chaplin phenomenon. This is a top-class and captivating book.

Eric Midwinter, The Call Boy: Official Journal
of the British Music Hall Society

The Dark Side of Victorian

London

Barry Anthony

First published in 2015 by

I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd

London New York

www.ibtauris.com

Copyright 2015 Barry Anthony

The right of Barry Anthony to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in future editions.

References to websites were correct at the time of writing.

ISBN: 978 1 78076 634 8

eISBN: 978 0 85773 713 7

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

1829

29 September: creation of the Metropolitan Police Force.

1837

20 June: accession of Queen Victoria.

1839

September: first photograph of London taken at Charing Cross.

28 October: first performance of Jack Sheppard at Adelphi Theatre, Strand.

1841

6 March: first sitting of The Judge and Jury Society at the Garricks Head, Covent Garden.

1849

W. G. Ross performs the ballad Sam Hall at the Cyder Cellars, Maiden Lane.

1851

1 May: opening of the Great Exhibition.

185456

Crimean War.

1856

1 January: creation of the Metropolitan Board of Works.

18578

Indian Mutiny.

1857

September: passing of the Obscene Publications Act.

1859

May: Lord Chamberlain bans any Jack Sheppard play on the London stage.

1860

18 November: issue one of Charley Wag; the New Jack Sheppard.

1861

1 April: first portrayal of Widow Twankey, Strand Theatre.

18 May: death of Renton Nicholson.

11 November: Offences Against the Person Act sets the age of sexual consent at 12 years and removes death penalty for anal sexual intercourse.

1862

April: Middlesex magistrates refuse entertainment licences for The Coal Hole and the Cyder Cellars.

1864

11 January 1864: opening of Charing Cross railway station.

17 October: opening of the Strand Music Hall.

1868

11 November: death of pornographer William Dugdale in Clerkenwell Prison.

21 December: opening of the Gaiety Theatre.

1870

28 April: arrest of transvestites Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park at the Strand Theatre.

1871

28 January: fall of Paris to German forces.

1872

10 August: Licensing Act restricts public house opening times.

1874

June: Lord Chamberlain bans the cancan on London stage.

1875

January: demolition of Northumberland House, last of the Strands seventeenth-century palaces.

13 August: Offences Against the Persons Act raises the age of sexual consent to 13 years.

1878

January: demolition of Temple Bar.

1879

4 April: opening of Madame Favart at Strand Theatre.

1881

28 December: Savoy Theatre becomes the first public building in the world to be illuminated entirely by electricity.

1882

4 December: official opening of Royal Courts of Justice, Strand.

1884

30 May: explosion of Fenian bomb at Scotland Yard.

1885

14 August: Criminal Law Amendment Act raises age of sexual consent from 13 to 16. All sexual acts between men made illegal. 26 December: opening of Little Jack Sheppard at Gaiety Theatre.

1888

31 August: murder of Mary Ann Nichols, possibly the first victim of Jack the Ripper.

17 September: opening of the Parnell Commission at the Royal Courts of Justice, Strand.

30 October: opening of Faust Up to Date at Gaiety Theatre, Strand.

1889

16 March: disappearance of Mabel Love.

21 March: creation of London County Council.

26 August: Cruelty to Children Act.

1890

24 May: opening of Tivoli Music Hall.

1891

25 September: suicide of Alexander Woodburn Heron.

7 November: first London performance of Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay.

16 November: Charles Le Grand sentenced to 20 years for extortion.

5 December: start of the Florence St John divorce case.

1893

6 June: murder of Maud Merton at Wormwood Scrubs.

25 July: execution of Police Constable George Samuel Cook at Newgate Prison.

1894

17 October: first public exhibition of motion pictures in United Kingdom.

1895

14 February: first performance of Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest.

1896

25 January: death of actor Claude Marius Duplany.