The lives of three rhinoceroses exhibited in London 1790–1814

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kees Rookmaaker ◽  
John Gannon ◽  
Jim Monson
Keyword(s):  
Rhinoceros Unicornis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Drury Lane

The history of three living Indian rhinoceroses (Rhinoceros unicornis) exhibited at the Exeter ’Change and the adjoining Lyceum on the Strand in London is detailed. The animals were owned by three successive proprietors of the menagerie: Thomas Clark, Gilbert Pidcock and Stephen Polito. Clark's rhinoceros arrived on 5 June 1790 as a two-year-old from India, largely exhibited at the Lyceum, but shown at Windsor and Ascot races in June 1793 and elsewhere in England until his death in Cosham near Portsmouth (not Corsham) in July 1793. The skin was mounted, possibly bought by William Bullock and subsequently by the Royal Museum in Edinburgh. A painting by George Stubbs should show this animal, but a discrepancy in age and stature is discussed. Pidcock's rhinoceros was acquired in 1799, dying early in 1800 in Drury Lane, after acquisition by an agent of the German Emperor, Francis II. He is shown on token half-pennies issued by Pidcock, and sketched by artist Samuel Howitt. Polito's rhinoceros arrived in July 1810, toured England in 1811, and was sold to the continent in October 1814. Howitt incorporated this animal into his artwork.

‘Of Neuter Gender, tho’ of Irish growth’: Charles Churchill's Fribble

2013 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-130
Author(s):  
Declan William Kavanagh
Keyword(s):  
Direct Response ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Literary Source ◽  
David Garrick ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Identity ◽  
Eighth Edition ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Drury Lane ◽  
Fitzpatrick Functions

This essay argues that the work of a lesser-known mid-eighteenth-century satirist Charles Churchill (1731–1764) provides a rich literary source for queer historical considerations of the conflation of xenophobia with effeminophobia in colonial imaginings of Ireland. This article analyzes Churchill's verse-satire The Rosciad (1761) through a queer lens in order to reengage the complex history of queer figurations of Ireland and the Irish within the British popular imagination. In the eighth edition of The Rosciad – a popular and controversial survey of London's contemporary players – Churchill portrays the Irish actor Thady Fitzpatrick as an effeminate fribble, before championing the manly acting abilities of the English actor David Garrick. The phobic attack on Fitzpatrick in The Rosciad is a direct response to Fitzpatrick's involvement in the ‘Fitzgiggo’ riots of January 1763 at the Drury Lane and Covent-Garden theatres. While Churchill's lampooning of the actor recalls Garrick's earlier satirizing of Fitzpatrick as a fribble in The Fribbleriad (1741) and Miss in her Teens (1747), The Rosciad is unique in its explicit conflation of androgyny with ethnicity through Irish classification. The portraiture of Fitzpatrick functions, alongside interrelated axes of ethnicity, class and gender, to prohibit access to a ‘normative’ middle-class English identity, figured through the ‘manly’ theatrical sensibility of the poem's hero, Garrick. Moreover, in celebrating a ‘Truly British Age’, the poem privileges English female players, in essentialist and curiously de-eroticized terms, as ‘natural’ though flawed performers. By analyzing Churchill's phobic juxtaposition of Garrick and the female players against the Irish fribble, this article evinces how mid-century discourses of effeminacy were also instrumental in enforcing racial taxonomies.

The Virtual Infernal: Philippe de Loutherbourg, William Beckford and the Spectacle of the Sublime

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain McCalman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Special Significance ◽  
Virtual Reality Technology ◽  
Gothic Novel ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
William Beckford ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Drury Lane

Abstract In the autumn of 1781, shortly after being elected to the British Academy of Art as a landscape painter, Alsatian-born artist Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg was hired by the wealthy young aesthete William Beckford to prepare a private birthday spectacle at his mansion in Wiltshire. De Loutherbourg, who was also chief scenographer at Drury Lane theatre and the inventor of a recent commercial “moving picture” entertainment called the Eidophusikon, promised to produce “a mysterious something that the eye has not seen nor the heart conceived.” Beckford wanted an Oriental spectacle that would completely ravish the senses of his guests, not least so that he could enjoy a sexual tryst with a thirteen year old boy, William Courtenay, and Louisa Beckford, his own cousin’s wife. The resulting three day party and spectacle staged over Christmas 1781 became one of the scandals of the day, and ultimately forced William Beckford into decades of exile in Europe to escape accusations of sodomy. However, this Oriental spectacle also had a special significance for the history of Romantic aesthetics and modern-day cinema. Loutherbourg and Beckford’s collaboration provided the inspiration for William to write his scintillating Gothic novel, Vathek, and impelled Philippe himself into revising his moving-picture program in dramatically new ways. Ultimately this saturnalian party of Christmas 1781 constituted a pioneering experiment in applying the aesthetic of the sublime to virtual reality technology. It also led Loutherbourg to anticipate the famous nineteenth-century “Phantasmagoria” of French showman, Gaspard Robertson, by producing in 1782 a miniature Gothic movie scene based on the Pandemonium episode in Milton’s Paradise Lost.

XII.—The Stage History of Colley Cibber's the Careless Husband

PMLA ◽  
1921 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-250
Author(s):  
Harry Glicksman
Keyword(s):  
History Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
Drury Lane

Theatrical records tend to prove that The Careless Husband, doubtless the best of Cibber's comedies, enjoyed a warm reception when it was first presented before London audiences. Produced for the first time at Drury-Lane on Thursday, December 7, 1704, it held the boards of that theatre for nightly performances during the remainder of that week, and, with the customary exception of Sunday, during the whole of the following week, which ended Saturday, December 16. The initial cast was: Sir Charles Easy — Wilks; Lord Foppington — Cibber; Lord. Morelove—Powell; Lady Betty Modish—Mrs. Oldfield; Lady Easy—Mrs. Knight; Lady Graveairs—Mrs. Moore; Edging—Mrs. Lucas. Along with the announcement for Friday, December 15, there appears the following: “With a piece of Instrumental Musick to be performed by Mr. Paisible, Mr. Banister, and others. And several Entertainments of Dancing by Monsieur Cherrier, and others.” For the next evening the managers promise a change in the bill: “Several Italian Sonata's on the Violin by Signior Gasparini. And several Entertainments of Dancing by Mrs. du Ruel.” Such extradramatic features attend the production of the play rather frequently throughout its stage career.

scholarly journals Captive Rhinoceroses in Europe from 1500 until 1810

1973 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. C. Rookmaaker
Keyword(s):  
Rhinoceros Unicornis ◽  
History Of

Between 1500 and 1810 ten rhinoceroses have been recorded in Europe, while two others died on their way to Europe. The history of these animals is given here. Eleven specimens belonged to Rhinoceros unicornis, one to Rhinoceros sondaicus. Two doubtful reports are also on record.

Mary Morein (fl. 1707): Drury Lane Actress and Fair Performer

1991 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-30
Author(s):  
Cheryl Wanko
Keyword(s):  
Employment Conditions ◽  
Biographical Dictionary ◽  
History Of ◽  
Court Of Chancery ◽  
Drury Lane ◽  
London Stage

In 1708 an actress named Mary Morein filed a bill of complaint in the Court of Chancery against William Pinkethman. Morein's name appears nowhere in The London Stage, and there is no entry for her in the Biographical Dictionary. Other than the lawsuit testimony by and against her, I am aware of no evidence about her. Thus the lawsuit is of interest because it documents the existence of an otherwise unknown performer at a stormy time in the history of the London theatre. Perhaps more important, however, it contains significant factual evidence about the employment conditions of minor actresses, and gives specific figures for what such a person might earn by performing at the Fairs.

Shakespeare in Tottenham-Street: An “Aesthetic” Merchant of Venice

1975 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Kleb
Keyword(s):  
Stage Management ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Financial Failure ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
History Of ◽  
Poetic Drama ◽  
Drury Lane ◽  
London Stage ◽  
The Way

The 1860s and 1870s are generally considered a hiatus in the history of Shakespearean production on the London stage. Accounts of the period usually move quickly from Charles Kean's retirement in 1859 (or the end of Samuel Phelps' management of suburban Sadler's Wells in 1862) to the beginning of Henry Irving's regime at the Lyceum in 1879—acknowledging the Phelps-Chatterton collaboration at Drury Lane as worthy, but hardly remarkable, and mentioning in passing such isolated events as Fechter's new Hamlet in 1861. Nevertheless, while no management comparable to Kean's or Phelps's, devoted principally to poetic drama, appeared during this time, there were occasional Shakespearean productions of exceptional interest. One such was the Bancrofts' version of The Merchant of Venice, which opened at the Prince of Wales's Theatre in out-of-the-way Tottenham-street on 17 April 1875. It ran for only thirty-six performances and lost the famous actormanager team £3,000. Despite its financial failure, however, the production attracted considerable critical attention at the time, much of it favorable, and it has since gained an honorable place in stage history. Beerbohm-Tree, for example, in an address to the Oxford Union Debating Society in 1900, called it “the first production in which the modern spirit of stage management asserted itself.”

Pictorial Material on the Bridges Street and Drury Lane Theatres

1966 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-100
Author(s):  
Edward A. Langhans
Keyword(s):  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Pictorial Material ◽  
Architectural Features ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christopher Wren ◽  
Drury Lane

Considering their importance in the history of the English theatre, we know remarkably little about the architectural features of the two Restoration playhouses which Thomas Killigrew and his King's Company built on the plot of ground where the modern Drury Lane now stands. In 1913 Hamilton Bell published reproductions of some designs by Sir Christopher Wren, two of which he felt might have some connection with these buildings, and of these the section view of a “Play House” has been frequently reprinted. The frontispiece to Perrin's Ariane (1674) shows the stage of Drury Lane, and we have two pictures from near the turn of the century depicting Joe Haines (or Haynes) mounted on an ass on the Drury Lane forestage. Other than these five prints, however, pictorial material on these important playhouses has been wanting. Therefore it may be worth considering more carefully what we already have and reporting on several new discoveries.

The rhinoceros (fl. 1770–1793) of King Louis XV and its horns

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Péquignot
Keyword(s):  
West Bengal ◽  
Museum Studies ◽  
Rhinoceros Unicornis ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Louis Xv

While receiving remarkable animals as presents was a common practice among European monarchs, the rhinoceros of Louis XV (Rhinoceros unicornis) became one of the most famous. The live male Indian rhinoceros was a gift to the King from Jean-Baptiste Chevalier, French governor of Chandannagar in West Bengal. It left Calcutta on 22 December 1769, and arrived in the port of Lorient, Brittany, six months later on 11 June 1770. From there it was transported to the royal menagerie in Versailles, which had been built in response to increasing interest in zoology and Louis XIV's passion for the exotic, in 1664. When the rhinoceros died in 1793, having been in captivity in France for more than 20 years, its skeleton and stuffed hide were preserved and have been held since then in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris. Here it remains on exhibition as an almost three-hundred year old relic of R. unicornis, an invaluable source for museum studies and the history of taxidermy. Why the original horn of this rhinoceros was replaced by a much longer one, and why, in turn, this was replaced by a short one is discussed.

Garrick's Zara

PMLA ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-232
Author(s):  
Fred L. Bergmann
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Considerable Portion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Drury Lane

In recent works on eighteenth-century drama and theatrical practices, Aaron Hill's Zara has received passing attention because of its notable longevity. The play did make theatrical history of a sort in that it was one of only three which were presented for more than twenty consecutive years during David Garrick's tenure at Drury Lane as manager (1747–76). Zara, with its twenty-three consecutive seasons, was surpassed only by Hamlet and Benjamin Hoadly's Suspicious Husband in unbroken performance, both of the latter, having achieved twenty-nine consecutive seasons. But mere longevity and consecutiveness of performance cannot force the play upon the attention of today's students of the history of the drama. What perhaps can, however, is the hitherto unrecorded fact that for a considerable portion of its history in Garrick's theater and for years afterward it was not Hill's play but Garrick's own adaptation that was popular. Furthermore, it is an adaptation which sheds interesting light on Garrick's dramatic methods and increases his stature as a careful reviser of older plays.

A Tentative Calendar of Daily Theatrical Performances in London, 1700–1701 to 1704–1705

PMLA ◽  
1948 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-180
Author(s):  
Emmett L. Avery ◽  
A. H. Scouten
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Complete Listing ◽  
Theatrical Performances ◽  
History Of ◽  
Drury Lane

There has long existed a need for a full and definitive calendar of theatrical performances in London during the eighteenth century. If the modern scholar does not have access to the original sources—the theatrical advertisements, the playbills, and manuscript diaries and account books—he must turn to a number of modern histories, of the eighteenth century stage, no one of which is complete and all of which combined do not offer a full listing of day-to-day performances. The account of the stage published in 1832 by John Genest is still the most comprehensive for the entire century, but Genest made a selection, not a complete listing, of performances, and that fact alone makes it impossible to find in his pages the stage history of a play or its casting or the vogue of the works of a single dramatist. The handlists in Allardyce Nicoll's works are also very valuable, but they too have the limitation of recording only selected performances, primarily those of plays first performed in the century. Dougald MacMillan's calendar of Drury Lane offerings from 1747 to 1776 is a more complete listing, but it is a record of only one theater, and although it offers the casts, it does not reflect the rôle of the entertainments in the theatrical programs.

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