Tag Archive | Vauxhall Gardens: A History

Vauxhall Gardens: Farewell for Ever

The Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens is one of the places I’d love to slip back in time to visit, just to catch a glimpse of what it was like. After recently splurging to buy this lovely coffee-table book, I thought it might make a wonderful subject for a new blog series. But do buy the book too, if you can! The photos are fabulous!

The Final Season: 18-25 July, 1859

The Public is respectfully informed that this celebrated Place of Amusement, after an existence of nearly a Century and a Half, and receiving within its Portals the elite of the World is DOOMED TO BE DESTROYED; on Tuesday 26^th Workmen will commence taking down the whole of the Buildings, and clearing the Ground in order to Let it for Building purposes. It is therefore with great pleasure that Mr G Stevens, for thirty five years connected with the establishment, informs the public that, through the kindness of the owner of the property, he is enabled to open the Gardens for The last Illuminations! The last Concerts! The Last Horsemanship! The Last Fireworks! The Last Music! The last Dancing! The Last Suppers! And The Last Punch!

On the last night, the “Grand Illumination Gala” included a military band in the Old Orchestra, a juvenile ballet; an equestrian troupe in the Rotunda, as well as numerous acrobats and rope dancers. Dancing on the new Leviathan platform ended with the usual fireworks, but no balloons.

The doors opened at 7 p.m., admission was only 1s, and over fifteen thousand people attended. At the end of the evening Mr. Russell Grover sang the last song, Nevermore shall I return; the last dance was a gallop and, after a short period of silence, the National Anthem was played. Then people began running to the trees on the platform breaking off twigs as souvenirs. Arthur Munby was there and recorded in his diary:

To Vauxhall. It was the last night: dense crowds of people filled the gardens: the circus, the ballet, the dancing & concerts, the supper-rooms, the rifle shooting, the fortune telling, the colored maps and the statues in the long walks—all were there as usual; there was no sign of dissolution: there was nothing in the noisy gaiety of the people (except perhaps that noisy gaiety itself) to show that they knew they were meeting there for the last time. But over all, in large letters formed of colored lamps, hung the words ‘Farewell for ever.’ These were the moral of it all… It is indeed much for a thoughtful man, to have seen the last of Vauxhall: to muse for the last time in those dim lighted alleys, and cry Vanitas vanitatum, and call up melancholy shows of Kings & Court ladies to put to shame the living laughing crowd: but the real sting is, that it is all over.

It’s all gone

All moveable items were sold at auction at bargain prices. The property itself, which was by now extremely valuable for development, was divided up into building plots. The only building left standing today—and it is nearly unrecognizable at this point—is the house that was originally built for the widow of Jonathan Tyers the younger.

Anon., The Pavilion and Colonnade, Vauxhall Gardens, watercolour, November 1859 (Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Theatre Collection, Evert Jansen Wendell Bequest, TS 943.6.8F). The pictures have been removed from the walls and workmen prepare for the final demolition.

Why did Vauxhall close?

The weather was always a problem, and became a standing joke that farmers could always count on rain on the day of Vauxhall’s opening for the season. As the years passed, however, “an increasing number of covered areas, where entertainment could be provided even in a downpour” were introduced. Inclement weather is nothing new to outdoor events, but generally “if the attraction is good enough, the public will put up with the rain and the inconvenient delays or postponements associated with bad weather.”

Essentially, though, the Gardens failed to appeal to the Victorian middle classes.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries visitors to Vauxhall would experience an idealized version of a rural idyll—trees, walks and nightingales, supplemented increasingly by music, dining, drinking and man-made illusions… By the end of the eighteenth century, however, it was not enough; the changes in the structure of London society… brought to the gardens a new, less sophisticated clientele for whom the rural idyll no longer exerted its traditional charm. Londoners increasingly saw themselves as citizens of a great industrial power that was coming to dominate the world through trade and military might… [T]he new audiences wanted to be entertained, amazed and thrilled by new attractions that appealed to the self-confident and patriotic spirit of the age.

Madame Saqui’s daring high wire act and Charles Green’s balloons kept the place running long past the time it would naturally have folded. Expensive new novelties added rarely paid for themselves. Inept management and annual battles with magistrates over the renewal of the license—which resulted in increasing restrictions—also contributed to Vauxhall’s demise.

“There was, of course, always a significant section of the potential Vauxhall audience who opposed all attempts to turn the gardens into a modern popular attraction and pined for the good old days under Tyers.” However, in its beginnings, the Vauxhall area was largely rural. “The creeping urbanisation of the area brought with it the seeds of the final failure of the gardens. As they were no longer truly rural, the original reason for their existence disappeared. Yet if they were to offer little more than the theatres and music halls, they were a long way from the centre of town.”

Vauxhall Gardens, photograph, c.1859 (Lambeth Landmark, 1259). One of only two known nineteenth-century photographs of the gardens. Lit by the setting sun, the figures in the foreground are standing on the New Monster (or Leviathan) Platform and give an idea of the scale of the Orchestra, the original building of 1758 much altered and lamp-encrusted. The caryatids supporting the sounding board were probably added during the remodeling of 1845.

Vauxhall, farewell forever

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

Vauxhall Gardens: The Final Years, Part IV

Jan29

Vauxhall Gardens: A History

David Coke & Alan Borg

Financial Setbacks & Bankruptcy

Vauxhall had suffered financial setbacks regularly over the years, but especially in its later years, when it changed hands frequently. Bankruptcy was declared in 1840, when the gardens were closed and auctions were held for “all sorts of fittings and decorations from the gardens, including many of the paintings; the Royal Nassau balloon, which had originally cost over £2000 was sold to [balloonist] Green for £500.”

Nevertheless, it opened again in 1841, when George Catlin’s “Red Indians” were introduced to the gardens. These tableaux vivant were made up of, in Catlin’s own words:

twenty living figures in Indian costumes, forming groups of their ceremonies, domestic scenes and warfare. These were got up and presented with much labour to myself, and gave great satisfaction; as by them I furnished so vivid and lifelike an illustration of Indian life as I had seen it in the wilderness.

From the satirical magazine Punch:

We wended our way to the ‘royal property’, to take a last look at the long-expiring gardens. It was a wet night—the lamps burnt dimly—the military band played in the minor key—the waiters stalked about with so silent, melancholy a tread, that we took their towels for pocket-handkerchiefs; the concert in the open rain went off tamely—dirge-like, in spite of the ‘Siege of Acre’, which was described in a set of quadrilles, embellished with blue fire and maroons, and adorned with a dozen drums, thumped at intervals, like death notes, in various parts of the doomed gardens. The divertissement was anything but diverting, when we reflect upon the impending fate of the ‘Rotunda’, in which it was performed.

Although it was announced that ‘Vauxhall would positively close its doors for ever’ on September 8^th, 1841, it did open again for the 1842 season, but despite new acts such as Ducrow’s questions (now under the management of his black protégé, Mungo) and the exhibition of Napoleon’s state carriage taken from Waterloo, the gardens remained unprofitable. Vauxhall did not open at all in 1843.

In 1844, the new lessee brought the “Ioway Indians” to Vauxhall. An native encampment was established “on the old Waterloo Ground, from which the party of fourteen (three chiefs, five braves, four squaws, a child and a papoose) emerged from wigwams. They performed only in the afternoon and stayed in lodgings at night.”

This arrangement was one of very great pleasure to the Indians, as it allowed a free space to exercise in during their leisure hours, amongst trees and shrubbery, affording them almost a complete resumption of Indian life in the wilderness, as they had the uninterrupted range of the gardens during the hours that the public were not there to witness their amusements.

The next few years, surprisingly, were quite profitable for Vauxhall, with upgrades and new acts such as Monsieur Musard, “Napoleon of the Quadrille,” with his band of a hundred musicians.

Master Juba

One of the most famous of all Vauxhall performers, William Henry Lane, was an import from the saloons and dance halls of Manhattan.

Anon., Juba at Vauxhall Gardens, engraving (David Coke’s collection) from the Illustrated London News (5 August 1848), 77. William Henry Lane, known as Master Juba, created a sensation in London and was known as the “Dancinest fellow ever was”. He is credited with the invention of tap-dancing.

Playing the banjo and the tambourine, he was known as the “Dancinest fellow ever was’ and hailed as the inventor of tap-dancing. Dickens made him famous in his American Notes, describing a lively young negro, who is the wit of the assembly, and the greatest dancer ever known. He never leaves off making queer faces, and is the delight of all the rest, who grin from ear to ear incessantly.”

Originally one of six so-called “Ethiopian Serenaders”, Juba was unquestionably the most talented although it was at Vauxhall where he became a star attraction. From the Illustrated London News:

How could Juba enter into their wonderful complications so naturally? How could he tie his legs into such knots, and fling them about so recklessly, or make his feet twinkle until you lose sight of them altogether in his energy. The great Boz immortalised him; and he deserved the glory thus conferred.

The Final Seasons

Poster advertising Van Amburgh and Juba, 1848 (British Library, London, EVAN.474). This illustrates current attractions at the gardens and features (clockwise from top left): the Grand View of Constantinople; the Grand Orchestra; the Rotunda Theatre; the Ballet Theatre; the Coral Cave; the Pavilion and Musical Promenade; the Neptune Fountain; and C.W. Pell’s Serenaders.

In spite of continued financial problems, Vauxhall limped on a few more years, with a lion tamer renowned for putting his head the lions’ mouths (Van Amburgh), the Algerine Family (“clothed in rich Arabian silks and reclining on luxurious divans”), boat races, masquerades, the Great Italian Singers (1851), military fetes featuring the Crimean War, and the American bareback rider, Mr. James Robinson in 1859.

But when the last night came, on 13 October, it must have been clear to all that Vauxhall could continue no longer.

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

Vauxhall Gardens: The Final Decades, Part III

Jan18

Vauxhall Gardens: A History

David Coke & Alan Borg

The early 1830’s marked a low period in Vauxhall’s fortunes. The weather was often poor, causing cancellations of particular events, especially fireworks. There seems to have been a lack of cash for either further investment or spectacular displays.

Among the newer attractions were Michael Boai, the ‘celebrated Chin Melodist’; Joel, the ‘Altonian Siffleur’, who imitated birds; the Singers of the Alps; Don Santiago, the Lilliputian King, only 27 inches high; the great Boa Constrictor and Anaconda. Forty thousand attended on September 8, 1830 when the gardens were free all day to celebrate the coronation of William IV.

In 1832, charity events, flower shows, and other special events were held as a way of increasing income. “Many of these events were run under the leadership of aristocratic or even royal patrons and attracted wealthy visitors.” These included a Ladies Bazaar and Fete Champetre in aid of the Royal Dispensary for Diseases of the Ear; a Fancy Fair sponsored by the Duchess of Kent for the cause of restoring the Lady Chapel at St. Saviour’s Church, Southwark; a fete for the abolition of slavery (1834), and the ‘Superb Gala for the benefit of the Distressed Poles’.

Ballooning

Balloon ascents had been taking place at Vauxhall since 1802, but it wasn’t until the 1820’s and Charles Green that regular balloon ascents and rides were held, generating much-needed income to keep the gardens a viable enterprise.

Green’s first flight was from Green Park on 19 July 1821 in honor of William IV’s coronation. Green’s balloons were larger because he used coal gas instead of hydrogen, which was easier and safer to inflate, as well as cheaper and less harmful to the silk canopy. Green’s

first flights from Vauxhall took place in July 1826. These were the first ever night ascents in Britain and were the climax of the firework displays. The aeronaut could be observed launching rockets and other incendiary devices from the car of the balloon beneath the main canopy.

Not only was Green a serious scientist, but also a skilled showman, which was a winning combination for Vauxhall. “In 1832 he and a ‘scientific gentleman’ went up at 6 p.m. To measure air pressures and carry out other experiments with barometers.”

Balloon ascents were the main reason for daytime opening. For the afternoon openings, Green staged balloon races with his brother and other family members, also giving rides to members of the public. Dickens went to see the spectacle and left a vivid description:

So we retraced our steps to the firework-ground, and mingled with the little crowd of people who were contemplating Mr. Green.

Some half-dozen men were restraining the impetuosity of one of the balloons, which was completely filled, and had the car already attached; and as rumors had gone abroad that a Lord was ‘going up’, the crowd were more than usually anxious and talkative. […] Just at this moment all eyes were directed to the preparations which were being made for starting. The car was attached to the second balloon, the two were brought pretty close together, and a military band commenced playing, with a zeal and fervor which would render the most timid man in existence but too happy to accept any means of quitting that particular spot on earth on which they were stationed. Then Mr. Green, sen., and his noble companion entered one car, and Mr. Green, jun., and his companion the other; and then the balloons went up, and the aerial travelers stood up, and the crowd outside roared with delight, and the two gentlemen who had never ascended before, tried to wave their flags, as if they were not nervous, but held on very fast all the while.

The Royal Vauxhall balloon

The proprietors of the gardens financed part of this balloon, which was intended by Green to be three times bigger than any previous gas ballon.

Measuring 150 feet in circumference and 80 feet high when inflated, it consisted of 2000 yards of raw Italian skill, dyed crimson and white and made up by Mssrs Soper of Spitalfields. Alternate 90-foot lengths were then stitched and glued together, producing a striking striped effect. The whole surface was coated in a varnish devised by Green himself and encased in a net of ropes. The car… was made of wickerwork, oblong in shape, with a bench seat all round the inside. On the exterior there were large gilded eagles at either end, and the sides were draped with purple and crimson velvet, richly embroidered. The cost of the whole machine was put at £2100, but since members of the public were charged for flights at the rate of £21 for gentlemen and £10 10s for ladies, this was soon recouped… Despite the cost, the public demand for flights was insatiable, as Benjamin Disraeli commented in 1837: ‘There is no news today: everything is rather flat and the room is thin as the world have gone to see the monster balloon rise from Vauxhall.

The Great Balloon of Nassau

(c) National Portrait Gallery, London; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

John Hollins, A Consultation prior to the Aerial Voyage to Weilburgh, oil on canvas, 1836. Green is seated on the right, discussing the voyage with Robert Holland; between them stands Thomas Monck Mason, while the group by the window comprises (left to right) Walter Prideaux, Hollins himself and Sir William Melbourne James. The balloon is visible in the gardens behind them. (c) National Portrait Gallery, London; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

On 7 November 1836—without any prior notice—Thomas Monck Mason, Robert Holland, and Green took off in an attempt at a long-distance record. Financed by Holland, the provisions included 40 pounds of ham, beef and tongue, 45 pounds of fowls, as well as preserves, sugar, bread, and biscuits—not to mention two gallons each of sherry, port and brandy, and a device for heating coffee using quicklime.

Carried along on a north-westerly breeze, they passed Canterbury at 4 p.m., dropping a message for the mayor by parachute. Night fell after their Channel crossing between Dover and Calais so they sat down to a substantial supper.… Once it was light Green began seeking a landing site and brought the balloon safely to earth at 7:30 a.m., near the town of Wilbur in the Duchy of Nassau. The aeronauts had flown 480 miles in eighteen hours, easily setting the world record for the longest balloon flight.

More Balloons

Balloons with parachutes had been done since the 1790’s, and Robert Cocking developed a theory of aerodynamics that unfortunately led to his death. Besides the fact that his theory was faulty, the parachute was far too large and heavy. Green and others tried to dissuade him, but he was adamant, and when the parachute was detached from the balloon, it sunk like a stone, and Cocking died within ten minutes of landing from a serious head wound. Vauxhall held a benefit night for Cocking’s widow and Queen Victoria sponsored a public subscription to raise funds for her as well.

The tragedy of Cocking’s upside-down parachute

The plan for a lion tamer and a Bengali tiger to ascend never came to fruition, banned by the magistrate. “In 1850 Green went up on horseback, with his unfortunate mount locked onto a wooden platform by its hooves.

Handbill advertising Green’s ascent on horseback, 31 July 1850 (Museum of London, A8955). This appears to be a complimentary ticket issued by Green himself. The flight did take place, with the horse firmly locked in place by the hooves.

George Cruikshank’s Comic Almanac for 1851

Would you want to have lived near Vauxhall with all these stunts taking place? The following piece purports to be from a disgruntled local resident:

Sir, I reside near a place of popular amusement ‘al fresco’. I am of a cheerful though quiet disposition, and should be perfectly happy but for one circumstance. During the entire summer season I am in a continual state of terror from balloons.

It was in my front garden that the Ourang-outrang descended in a parachute in 1836. I then said nothing of the annoyance caused by the mob rushing into my lawn and scrambling for fragments of the machine, of the destruction effected among my crockery by the animal attempting to escape through my scullery, nor of the alarm which his sudden appearance in the Dining room excited in the bosoms of myself and my family. I thought the balloon mania had reached its highest pitch—no such thing, Sir. After that came the Nassau Balloon which used to take a dozen people up at once exactly over my house, about once a week; till a terrible dream haunted me of seeing the whole party discharged into my premises.

Then Balloons with fireworks, waking me up every other night, and gazing at one of which, out of a window, I received a sudden blow in the eye from a firework case, descending fifteen hundred feet perpendicularly. My next alarm was occasioned by a hamper of champagne, which during a ‘perilous descent’, when a valve gave way, some intrepid aeronaut pitched through my roof at midnight.

Now folks go up on horseback. Can I walk at ease in my garden and know that the veteran Green is three miles above me, performing equestrian feats in the air? Pray, Sir, exert your influence in my behalf, or we shall shortly hear of a ‘Terrific Ascent in a cab,’ to be eclipsed by ‘First ascent of the Monster Balloon, taking up the Pimlico Omnibus.’.

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

Vauxhall Gardens: The Final Decades, Part I

Jan4

Vauxhall Gardens: A History

David Coke & Alan Borg

Changing Up

Thomas Bish and Frederick Gye, who took over management of the Gardens in 1821, decided that “the traditional formula of concerts, suppers, and fireworks” had to be expanded in order to compete with Astley’s Amphitheatre and the West End theaters. In addition to a revamped decor and a grand Panoramic Scene “in lieu of the old Cascade,’ a Grand Masked Fete in honor of the coronation of George IV was held on July 23. Among the attractions was a 24-foot transparency of “His Majesty in his Coronation Robes, with a distant view of Westminster Abbey, attended by Minerva, and a great number of Allegorical figures” painted by Henry Singleton RA. This lavish event included

numerous illuminated devices, representing ‘national trophies… designed for the occasion
Monsieur Chalons, magician
Ramo Samee, Indian juggler
Mr. Wilson, tightrope performer
Mr. Gyngell’s troop of tightrope dancers
Fantoccini and his Ombres Chinoises (shadow puppets)
dancers, including the “celebrated English morris dancers”
military savoyards, Pandeans, Scotch, and other bands
premier performance of A Grand National Ode by the orchestra
supper by Mr. Ward of Bond Street
performance of one of Handel’s coronation anthems

This very successful event was repeated the next day, but the death of Queen Caroline of Brunswick the following day definitively ended any further repetitions.

Transparencies and Optical Devices

The Heptaplasiesoptron, otherwise known as the ‘Fancy Reflective Proscenium’ was built in 1821 by Mr. Bradwell of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. It was composed of

A number of large plates of looking-glass placed in the form of a semi-hexagon, which constitute the walls of the exhibition; and in these seven points of reflection are gained for the view of several illuminated revolving pillars and palm trees, twining serpents, and a fountain of real water; the whole lighted by coloured lamps and brilliant cut-glass chandeliers. Before this splendid scene is exhibited (which is from ten till one o’clock) it is hidden by two curtains of azure-blue silk, richly fringed and ornamented with gold.

The Submarine Cave:

The Submarine Cave, Royal Gardens, Vauxhall, engraving, 1822 (Bodleian Library, Oxford. James Winston Collection, Gough Adds. Surrey C.22, item 2). Painted by the main staff artists, Mr. Thorn and his son Francis, this was one of the new attractions for the 1822 season, the first in which the gardens permitted to use the prefix ‘Royal’.

The back scene of this exhibition is a rich fancy view, consisting of a water-fall, castles, and a fine romantic landscape beyond; this has a peculiarly good effect as a day scene. Before it is placed the rocky entrance to a marine cavern, the arch of which is eighty feet in the interior span; and within this entrance are placed the Water Works. This exhibition commences at 10 o’clock, when it is brilliantly lighted up with concealed lamps.

The Hermitage:

Anon., The Hermit of Vauxhall, engraving, 1832 (Minet Library, London, Lambeth Archives Department, V. of. 207). This is a rare view of the interior of the Hermitage and of the hermit himself. The verses are a parody of Oliver Goldsmith’s lengthy ballad The Hermit (1765), the first line of which is, ‘Turn, gentle hermit of the dale’.

…Made of wood and canvas, it represented the interior of a hermit’s cottage, with the hermit ready by lamplight. First installed in 1757, this too was painted by Mr Thorn and… was presumably constantly re-painted. The Hermitage became a fixture and was soon supplied with a live hermit, a fortune-teller.

The Thorns: Staff Artists

The Thorns, father and son (Francis), seem to have been the main staff artists…; their task was to change or renew the views and transparencies on show at regular intervals. So industrious were they that it is almost impossible to keep up with the succession of spectacular views that graced the gardens.

Over the years, these included:

Optical toy or peepshow, color etching on cut sheets of card, 1822 (private collection). This souvenir of a Vauxhall Juvenile Fete folds flat but expands to give an in-depth perspective view of the gardens.

“a view of Naples by moonlight, with a vivid representation of Mount Vesuvius during an eruption”
Rotterdam by Moonlight
Paris from the Observatory
a Storm off the Cape of Good Hope
Fingal’s Cave
Views of Captain Ross’s Voyages to the North Pole
a moonlight scene of the ruins of an Italian abbey
‘a stupendous diorama of the Golden Temple of Honan’
a model of St. Mark’s Square in Venice
‘a dioramic picture of the proposed new Houses of Parliament after the designs of Mr. Barry’
‘a Grand Moving Panorama of the voyage of the Nassau balloon up to 400 ft in length’.

The Royal Gardens, Vauxhall

Poster, June 1835 (Museum of London, 2007.1/82). From 1822 onwards the proprietors squeezed every ounce of publicity out of the Royal designation of the gardens.

On June 3, 1822, the gardens opened under a new title, issued by Royal Warrant: “The Royal Gardens, Vauxhall.” The new king had visited the gardens frequently as Prince of Wales, and winning his patronage a great promotional coup. “The main entrance was rebuilt, with a portico surmounted by a large carved Royal Arms.”

Juvenile Fetes for Children

Poster advertising the Annual Juvenile Fete, 1824 (Lambeth Landmark 1383). The first such event was held on 13 July 1821 and proved so popular that it was decided to feature at least one every year. The attractions offered at Juvenile Fetes differed little from those on ordinary nights, although the songs avoided the doubles entendres designed for adult ears.

Saturday having been long considered problematic due to the objections of evangelical clergymen to keeping the gardens open after midnight, the new proprietors decided to hold a Juvenile Fete for children. “The first of these took place on 13 July 1821, starting at 5:30 and ending by 10 p.m. With much the same program as an ordinary night. It proved hugely popular.”

Dancing in the Gardens

Anon., The Ballet Theatre, brush drawing in grey wash, touched with colored chalks, 1840-45 (British Museum, London, 1966.0212.1). The stage is surrounded by large trees and there is no seating provided.

Having been granted a licence for Public Music and Dancing (spectator dancing only), “…of the 1823 season two new theaters were erected: one with appropriate scenery and decorations for the Juvenile Ballets; the other, in the Rotunda, for a ‘Novel Entertainment, diversified with dialogue, songs, and imitations’… The first ballet was Cendrillon, danced entirely by children, although adults took part in subsequent years.

The Aerial

Anon., The Aerial, or The Great Unknown, at Vauxhall, engraving, 1825 (Minet Library, London, Lambeth Archives Department, V. of. 153). ‘The Aerial’ was an eccentric called Joseph Leeming who believed he was a person of unrivaled beauty. His appearances at Vauxhall during the 1825 season were widely reported in the press and provided good free publicity for the gardens.

The summer of 1825… was most notable for the appearance of one of those strange characters who were drawn to Vauxhall from time to time. This was ‘The Aerial,’ the pseudonym of Joseph Leeming, whose eccentric behavior made him briefly the centre of attention. He claimed that his surpassing beauty was ‘without equal in nature or art, this or in any other age of the globe’. Having arrived in London from Manchester, he donned a blue and silver jacket, theatrical trunks or short breeches, silk stockings and blue kid shoes, with a double frill or ruff round his neck and wristbands trimmed with lace. Once in the gardens, he was taken by most visitors to be one of the performers, because he was not wearing a hat. But towards the end of the evening, people began to ask who or what he was. As The Times of 2 July 1825 reported:

An individual in a splendid dress of Spanish costume has excited much attention at Vauxhall Gardens. Having walked or rather skipped round the promenade, with a great air of consequence, saluting the company as he passed along, he at length mingled amongst the audience in the front of the orchestra, and distributed a number of cards on each which was written ‘The Aerial challenges the whole world to find a man that can in any way compete with him as such.’ After having served about three or four hundred of these challenges, he darted off like lightening, taking the whole circuit of the Gardens in his career, and made his exit through the grand entrance into the road where a carriage was waiting for him, into which he sprang and was driven off.

…His final visit to Vauxhall was on the evening of the Juvenile Fete, when he got drunk, and slept in a cloakroom until morning. After this he was informed that he would be refused entry to the gardens on any future occasion.

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

Vauxhall Gardens: An Era of Change (1786-1822), Part III

Dec28

Vauxhall Gardens: A History

David Coke & Alan Borg

Madame Saqui

Marguerite-Antoinette Lalanne came from an acrobatic family performing first at provincial fairs in France, and then at the fashionable Tivoli Gardens (‘The Paris Vauxhall’). Madame Saqui, as she was after her marriage, became so popular in France that Napoleon arranged for her to perform for his army, after which she had her coach painted with an imperial eagle.

Once the War with France had definitively come to an end, Vauxhall proprietors George Rogers Barrett and Jonathan Tyers Barrett were determined to persuade her to come to England to perform at Vauxhall. Her first performance, however, was at Covent Garden Theatre. See the print below “of her descending from the balcony on a tight rope, brandishing two large flags, as the men in the audience look up her skirt with telescopes. The caption reads: ‘A Wonderful THING from PARIS… or Madame SACCHI gratifying John Bulls curiosity, at Covent Garden Theatre, April 1816.’

Madame Saqui at Covent Garden

Prior to the opening of the 1816 Vauxhall Season on 3 June, the advertisements included:

At the end of the first Act Mme and Messrs Sachi will go through a variety of surprising evolutions on the Tight Ropse… at the conclusion of the concert… fireworks… when Madame Sachi, in the midst of a brilliant display of Chinese fire, will perform her astonishing Ascension, as exhibited in the Gardens of Tivoli in Paris. Admission to the Gardens is lowered from 4s to 3s 6d.

The weather was perfect and the crowds flocked to catch a glimpse of the new attraction. The enormous success of the evening led to announcement that Madame Saqui’s troupe would perform every night until further notice. As they did, virtually every night of every season until 1820.

In her first year at Vauxhall, on the birthday of the Prince Regent, Madame Saqui exhibited her ‘grandest Feat which she had the honor of performing before the Sovereigns of Europe two years since, at Paris’—no doubt one of her spectacular ascents… [In 1819], instead of ascending from the ground, she suddenly appeared in the centre of a blazing star, 60 feet above the heads of the astonished crowd; from this she descended amidst a shower of fire accompanied by martial music. Then she turned round, ran back up the rope to the fiery star, only to be lost to view in a new barrage of fireworks. She also continued to perform with her daughter Adèle, the pair dancing an allemande on two or three ropes.

Madame Saqui left Vauxhall after the close of the season in 1820 to do other things, eventually retiring and falling on hard times. She did come out of retirement at the age of seventy-five, performing at the Hippodrome. A correspondent to L’Intermédiare des chercheurs et des curieux said:

When I was a child, I saw her dance on the tightrope at the Hippodrome; she was seventy-five. It was a pitiful sight to see this decrepit figure in a pink costume, her face the color of faded parchment surmounted by a grotesque diadem. She gained in my childhood memory as an unforgettable image of the evil diary Carabosse.

Musicians

One of the characteristics of many Vauxhall performers long service. “It was not unusual for musicians, including singers, to work each season in the gardens for at least twenty years, and some served for much longer: the kettledrummer Jacob Nelson held the record at fifty years…”

James Hook, composer and organist, was a fixture at the park from 1772-1821, composing “over two thousand songs and at least twenty organ concertos.”

William Parke, an oboist who joined Vauxhall with his brother John in 1776, composed numerous songs, concertos and other pieces, and also wrote Musical Memoires, which is full of information about the music at Vauxhall.

Strolling Players were the Savoyards , who played French and Venetian ballads in groups of four or five throughout the gardens following the main concert in the Orchestra, on instruments that included flutes and cymbals. The Pandeans (although some considered them to be the same as the Savoyards) played on pan-pipes. “The Duchess of Devonshire is known to have preferred the Pandeans…”

Charles Taylor received £290 in 1812. He

…was one of the longest-serving and most popular Vauxhall singers, especially noted for his comic songs. He first appeared in the gardens in 1794, returning regularly thereafter. He made the speech on the last night of the season several times and, unusually for a vocalist, rose to become Director of Music in 1822.

Mrs. Bland first appeared in 1790, retiring in 1823.

Described as ‘the sweet-voiced, dumpy little ballad singer’, she was said to have ‘refused an offer [for the 1789 season] of the Vauxhall Managers, to the tune of one hundred and sixty guineas.’ Her voice was ideally suited to the countless ballads that Hook and others wrote for her. Sometimes these demanded special effects—in June 1818, for example, she sang a new song by Parke, which was echoed in a distant part of the gardens by a bugle-horn.

Catherine (Kitty) Stephens, an actress and soprano, married the 5^th Earl of Essex in 1838.

Charles Dignum first appeared in 1794, but became notable at Vauxhall during the first two decades of the 19^th century. “He was well-known for his duets with Mrs Bland, especially Long Time I’ve Courted You, Miss, a dialogue between a shy sailor and a flirtatious lady.

John Braham, a popular operatic tenor, made his first appearance at Vauxhall as a boy soprano in 1787, “returning as an established star for the season of 1826, for the enormous fee of 800 guineas.”

Miss Feron (Fearon), known for her imitative talent, performed “a new comic song by Parke called The Romp or the Great Catalani, in which she used her powers of mimicry to parody the famous Italian soprano.” This act became so popular that it was repeated often and Parke writes:

…The recitative which introduces the air, ending with the words Great Catalini, it became necessary, in order to make the music accord with the poetry, to repeat a part of the last word, by which it read thus: Great Cat, Great Catalani. This, I was informed, gave umbrage to the lady, who, having perhaps an aversion to the feline race, said that she liked the song very well, with the exception of the Great Cat in it.”

Comic Songs

Parke’s Great Catalani was an early example of the double-entendre, that came to dominate the music hall… The words of many of these songs were published and sold at the gardens, so that the public came to know them by heart and to glamour for their repeated performance.

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

Vauxhall Gardens: An Era of Change (1786-1822), Part II

Nov30

Vauxhall Gardens: A History

David Coke & Alan Borg

Grand Military Fetes and Displays

The first record of a military fete was on 30 May 1786, the day after the Jubilee, when transparencies of British men-of-war by the marine painter John Thomas Serres (1759-1825) were presented with other decorations, including a representation of the British lion trampling the Spanish flag. The newly formed Duke of York’s Band played military airs and was to perform regularly in the gardens until 1816. This period saw an increasing presence of soldiers and military bands, theoretically in response to the threat of invasion from France, but more directly in an attempt to rival the jingoistic displays to be seen at Astley’s. In 1787 the Cascade, the most famous of Vauxhall attractions in the eighteenth century, included marching soldiers. These military displays gradually expanded and needed more space, so from 1816 the Cascade site was used by Madame Saqui’s rope-dancing troupe.

Eventually, grand military fetes to celebrate actual events involved firework displays.

On 11 June 1810, Mizra Abul Hassan Khan wrote about his visit to the Gardens for the Grand Oriental Fete in honour of the Persian Ambassador:

The avenues were lighted by rows of tall candelabra and by lanterns hung from trees. In one place there were fireworks: when they did not rise high enough, everyone laughed and said ‘Shocking!’ The fireworks ended with the name of the Qibleh of the Universe written in Persian letters! Everyone appreciated this display and clapped their hands together. From there we went to a large covered place, beautifully lighted and decorated, like a theatre in the city. It was built to accommodate 5000 people in case of rain. After the fireworks, some people sat down to eat; later they danced.

American Samuel Morse, inventor of the Morse code, visiting on 17 September 1811:

A few evenings since I visited the celebrated Vauxhall Gardens, of which you have doubtless often heard. I must say they far exceeded my expectations; I never before had an idea of such splendor. The moment I went in I was almost struck blind with the blaze of light proceeding from thousands of lamps and those of every color. […] All is gayety throughout the gardens; every one is in motion, and care, that bane of human happiness, for a time seems to have lost her dominion over the human heart. Had the Eastern sage, who was in search of the land of happiness, at this moment been introduced into Vauxhall, I think his ost exalted conceptions of happiness would have been surpassed, and he would rest contented in having at last found the object of his wishes. […] The music and this course of dancing continue till about four o’clock in the morning, when the lights are extinguished and the company disperses. On this evening, which was by now means considered as a full night, the company consisted of perhaps three thousand persons.

George Cruikshank, Vauxhall Fete, engraving, 1813 (British Museum, London., 1862.1217.309). This satirical print shows many of the leading figures who attended the Grand Festival in honor of the Battle of Vittoria. On the left the Duke of York vomits against a tree; other notables include the Duke of Sussex in Highland uniform, the Duke of Clarence dressed as an Admiral, the Lord Mayor of London and Lord Castlereigh. On the far right a fat lady exclaims ‘They’re all drunk, the Brutes.’

Grand Festival of the Battle of Vittoria

On 20 July 1813, a Grand Festival of the Battle of Vittoria was held in honor of the then Marquess Wellesley, who attended. “The festival was ‘perhaps the most superb and costly entertainment ever given in England’ and such was its popularity that ‘the limited number’ of tickets ‘was exceeded and, in consequence, from ten to fifteen pounds was offered for a ticket’”. Byron noted:

There is to be a thing on Tuesday ycleped a national fete. The Regent and *** are to be there, and everybody else, who has shillings enough for what was once a guinea. Vauxhall is the scene—there are six tickets issued for the modest women, and it is supposed that there will be three to spare. The passports for the lax are beyond my arithmetic.

At a dinner for twelve hundred people in the Rotunda, the VIPs sat at a crescent-shaped, raised table. There was also

a row of crimson steps covered with massive pieces of ornamental gold and silver plate, with the bust of the Lord Wellington on the summit. At the foot, and leaning against a silver vase of exquisite workmanship, was the Marshal’s staff taken in the battle. Two trumpeters in their state liveries and with silver trumpets, stood forward from the pile, and between them a grenadier of the Guards held the standard of the 100th French regiment of the line.

Neither George III nor the Prince of Wales attended (in spite of Byron’s expectation), but otherwise, the list of attendees was quite impressive. Wellesley arrived late for the dinner and found his seat of honor occupied, but presumably that was quickly dealt with. The ladies joined the party at 9 p.m., and at 11 p.m., the Princess of Wales arrived. She

was conducted around the chief promenade several times by his Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester and Col St Leger. The Princess was hailed repeatedly with loud greeting, and repaid the attentions of the company in the most courteous manner. She was dressed ina white satin train with a dark vet and ornaments, richly embroidered. On her head-dress she wore a green wreath, with diamonds.

Even later, “many of the nobility came from the Opera House after the conclusion of the ballet.”

In the course of the evening a new air called The plains of Vitoria was performed by the orchestra, while military bands, including those of the Foot and Life Guards, the Duke of Kent’s Regiment, and the 7th Hussars, played and marched up and down the Walks. ‘The appearance of some of these bands in the forest part of the garden was extremely picturesque, and presented some idea, at times, of soldiers in a campaign regaling and reposing themselves under the shade. The fireworks were set off in three sessions, at 11 p.m. and at 1 and 2 a.m. These were devised and directed by ‘Colonel Congreve’, the inventor of the Congreve Rocket, which was much used in the Napoleonic wars.

Other Military Fetes at Vauxhall

More fabulous military fetes were held in the following year, one of 13 June 1814 to celebrate the Treaty of Paris, and in August, a mock sea battle (Grand Mechanical Naumachia). Although there were fireworks on 15 August 1815 following Napoleon’s surrender at Waterloo, there were no specific events to mark the occasion until 18 June 1817. This became an annual celebration, eventually involving a reconstruction of the battle on the southeast side of the old Grand Walk, which became known as the Waterloo Ground.

Anon., View of Vauxhall Gardens, engraving (Lambeth Landmark 1260) from the Lady’s Magazine, XXX (1799), supplement. The walks were covered to counter the rains which proverbially started when the Vauxhall season opened; they were extended all round the Grove in 1810.

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

Vauxhall Gardens: An Era of Change (1786-1822), Part I

Nov23

Vauxhall Gardens: A History

David Coke & Alan Borg

While the years from 1732 to 1786 were the undoubtedly the heyday of Vauxhall, the years following the Jubilee continued to attract large numbers of visitors and was the most popular outdoor entertainment for many years. Charles Burney’s daughter Sarah wrote in 1807:

You should quit your Devonshire Shades were it only to share in the universal rage there is for going to Vauxhall. I never knew anything like it. The whole London World seems to be seized with a fit of the fool.

Vauxhall Fashions, engraving (David Coke’s collection) from La Belle Assemblée no. 7 (August 1806). Many dressmakers and retailers advertised their wares as representing the latest fashions seen at Vauxhall.

Scenes from Vauxhall were presented on stage, authors such as John Keats, Pierce Egan, and William Thackeray wrote about it, and others tried to copy it, in London and elsewhere. Bath’s Sydney Gardens, opened in 1795 and much visited by Jane Austen, was modeled on Vauxhall in London, as was Tivoli in Copenhagen. Vauxhalls started appearing everywhere.

One half of the world don’t know how t’other lives, Sung by Mr. Dignum in Vauxhall Gardens, etching, 1805 (British Museum, London, 1861.0518.1087). A very popular tenor at the gardens, Dignum also gave the farewell address at the end of several seasons.

A change in clientele

In the early nineteenth century, however, with England’s middle and working classes rapidly expanding due to the Industrial Revolution and the rapid growth of London’s population, Vauxhall’s clientele began to change as well.

The social balance was changing too; the old aristocracy watched nervously as France spiralled into revolutionary chaos, and several of the great families decided to move back to the country, to avoid the potential dangers of urban unrest… In addition, social circles were becoming more restricted and inward-looking; the London aristocracy was being rapidly overtaken in terms of numbers by the professional middle classes of industrialists, businessmen, doctors and lawyers. To support them, huge numbers of labourers, tradesmen and servants moved to the capital.

Because of this influx, houses began to pop up in and around Vauxhall, which meant that the Kennington Street area was no longer a country hamlet, but a part of the city itself, and the residents didn’t always appreciate all the racket coming from Vauxhall in the early hours of the morning.

Picturesque Elevation of the Iron Bridge created over the Thames at Vauxhall, engraving, 1816 (David Coke’s collection). Designed by the engineer James Walker, the new bridge greatly shortened the land journey from London to Vauxhall Gardens.

A significant advantage was the completion of the new Vauxhall Bridge in August 1816, which shortened considerably the route from the West End.

The bridge remained open all night, both for pedestrians and for coaches, catering for those revellers who stayed on into the small hours, to the annoyance of the local residents who were trying to sleep.

A change of attractions

The form of the entertainments at Vauxhall remained traditional to the end of the eighteenth century. Various new attractions were introduced only gradually and these were directly in response to new forms of popular entertainment that had sprung up elsewhere in London.

One of these was Philip Astley’s enormously popular shows, with “daring displays of horsemanship”, as well as jugglers, tight-rope walkers, and great pageants of historical events. See my post of Astley’s Amphitheatre here.

Vauxhall had always promoted patriotic songs and military bands, and later added battle reconstructions and victory celebrations, after Astley’s model. The Battle of Waterloo was considered to be the “most spectacular event ever staged at Vauxhall.”

Boat races on the Thames was another innovation, which including a rowing race for watermen and a sailing match for ‘gentlemen’s pleasure sailing boats’. Which was followed by a grand gala in the gardens, of course. In 1812, the contest was called the Vauxhall Grand Regatta.

Vauxhall Sailing Match, engraving, 1800 (Minet Library, London, Lambeth Archives Department, V. fo. 57). This appears to be the only surviving image of one of the Vauxhall sailing matches.

Advances in science and technology brought ballooning to the gardens, the first balloon ascension beginning in 1802, but not becoming a regular feature until the 1820’s. André Jacques Garnerin, the first Vauxhall aeronaut, experimented with making parachute jumps from balloons. One of his flights included releasing a cat from a height of 600 feet, who descended safely into some resident’s garden. George Colman the younger, a playwright, wrote

Poor Puss in a grand parachute
Was sent to sail down through the air
Plump’d into a garden of fruit,
And played up old Gooseberry there:
The gardener transpiring with fear,
Stared just like a hundred struck hogs;
And swore, tho’ the sky was quite clear,
‘Twas beginning to rain cats and dogs.

Fireworks, first introduced in 1783, were limited to special occasions at first, but pyrotechnic displays did not become standard until 1798.

When it was time for the fireworks to start, a bell was rung and everyone went to the firework ground at the far eastern end of the gardens. The hours varied, displays being advertised at 9, 10 and 11 p.m.; on gala nights there was often more than one show.

Changes in proprietors and prices

Jonathan Tyers the younger’s son-in-law, Bryant Barrett, managed the gardens until his death in 1809, when his sons Jonathan Tyers Barrett and George Rogers Barrett inherited. Jonathan Barrett became sole owner in 1818. In 1821, the gardens were leased to relatives and business partners Thomas Bish and Frederick Gye, later joined by Richard Hughes, “and the trio used their option to buy the property in 1825 for £30,000.”

In 1792, the price of admission was raised to 2 shillings for regular nights and 3 shillings for the Grand Galas (masquerades), which involved elaborate fancy dress.

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

Vauxhall Gardens: The Third Generation of the Tyers Family and the Jubilee of 1786

Nov19

Vauxhall Gardens: A History

David Coke & Alan Borg

Following Jonathan Tyers’s death in 1767, his son Jonathan Tyers the younger managed the gardens, along with the assistance of his sister Elizabeth Wood and other family members, until 1786. At that time, the responsibility for the park was passed on to Bryant Barrett, who was Tyers the younger’s son-in-law, married to his only daughter, Elizabeth.

Barrett was a wax chandler by trade, which was a fortunate coincidence, since Vauxhall Gardens must have been spending a fortune on candles and lighting fixtures.

The most visible aspect of Barrett’s initiative appears in the start of regular newspaper advertisements giving details of the musical programmes for each evening; but it was also at this time that proprietors began to sponsor sailing matches on the Thames.

Lean years at Vauxhall

The 1770’s and early 1780’s had been lean ones for Vauxhall, partly because of the increase in crime and vandalism within its walks; but bad behaviour was clearly not the proprietors’ only problem. …quite apart from financial depression in the early 1770’s and grim news from the American colonies, the appalling weather of the summers of 1775-7 had cost the Tyers family a great deal. …

Samuel Arnold finally had to close Marylebone Gardens in 1778… No clear reason is given for this, but the complaints of local residents, especially about the fireworks, are bound to have been a contributor factor. Ironically, Marylebone’s initial advantage in being so close to London had become its eventual downfall.

The Jubilee of 1786

J. Wooding, The New Temple & Ball Room, on the Jubilee Night, at Vauxhall, engraving, c. 1786. The circular Grand Temple at the junction of the Grand South Walk and the Centre Cross Walk, with the temporary ballrooms added to its north and south. The artist was keen to show all the different forms of lighting in use.

The approach of the half-century mark of the opening of Vauxhall Gardens “must have come as a godsend to Barrett at the start of his proprietorship.”

The last great fashionable event had been the hugely successful Ridotto al Fresco of 1769. In a conscious attempt to remind people of the ‘good old days’, when the gardens had last been patronised by fashionable society, the design of the ticket for the vent of the event of seventeen years earlier was adapted for the 1786 Jubilee.

Ticket for the Vauxhall Jubilee, 29 May, engraving. Signed, dated and sealed by Jonathan Tyers the younger, although the management of the park was now in the hands of his son-in-law, Bryant Barrett.

In preparation for the event, which took place on 29 May 1786, the following renovations were completed:

The buildings around the Grove were painted in an elegant pale blue and white livery, and flowering shrubs were planted to appeal to the modern taste in gardening.
The Rotunda’s interior decoration was completely renewed, with modern mirrors, and the Ionic columns of the Pillared Saloon were renewed with a rich deep pink scagliola. Window frames were replaced and draped with tasselled crimson and silver fabric, and the Rotunda Orchestra was filled with evergreen plants under a decorated ceiling. In the other recess (where the original Rotunda Orchestra had been housed), the large transparent painting of George, Prince of Wales (later the Prince Regent and George IV) in a noble classical pose was replaced with another transparency depicting an amphitheatre of the Corinthian order, through which could be seen a perspective view of a garden. (Apparently, the original transparency was criticized by some as having nothing in common with the Prince’s true character.)
14,000 coloured lights and wreaths of artificial flowers were draped around the pillars and in festoons around the cornices of the Covered Walks.
A circular Grand Temple was set up at the crossing of the Grand South Walk and the Centre Cross Walk, “little more than a dome on eight classical columns.”
The Centre Cross Walk was partly built over to give more dancing space in two temporary ballrooms, attached to the Grand Temple on the north and south. “The walls of these ballrooms were painted with Arcadian pastoral scenes beyond a range of Ionic columns decorated with wreaths of flowers, while the ceiling showed a sky filled with ‘tender variegated clouds.’” …In each of the ballrooms was an alcove for the musicians, and others for tables stocked with lemonade, capillaire, and orgeat (soft drinks flavoured with orange flower or almond syrup.) The whole strucutre was of course illuminated with thousands of coloured lamps ‘producing a refugency of light that dazzles and surprises.’
On the site of the former Prince’s Pavilion (built for George III’s father), a new room was created for Prince George and his party.
The entrance to the gardens on Kennington Lane was renewed and enlarged, soon becoming the main coach-entrance, later to be expanded with cloakrooms, waiting-rooms, and other public facilities.

Handbill for the Vauxhall Jubilee, 1786. A very plain and understated piece of printing, designed only to impart information about the event.

The Jubilee was attended by somewhere between five and six thousand people, most in fashionable and elegant costume, a few in fancy dress, which in this period meant smart dress with added details, such as feathers, flowers, ribbons, ruffs, etc., not character costumes.

There were last night above 6000 persons present, and among them some of the first people in the kingdom, but as is always the case at Vauxhall, it was a mélange; the cit and the courtier jostled each other with the usual familiarity; the half guinea was no repellent to the middling order; John Bull loves to shoulder his superiors in rank, his betters he’ll not allow them to be; and where he pays as much for admission, he never considers them to be more than his equals.

Anon., Representation of the Grand Saloon in Vauxhall Gardens, engraving, after 1786. An unusual view of the renovated Rotunda interior, taken from the entrance off the Grand Walk. The Rotunda Orchestra is on the left, and one of Hayman’s paintings from his Seven-Years War series is visible in the Pillared Saloon on the right.

On the following day, the gardens were opened to four thousand people who were not able to get tickets after those for the first event were sold out.

A successful season

Barrett took advantage of the popular trend of holding military fetes to honor the huge numbers of soldiers coming home from North America by promoting a patriotic tone to this one, with large transparencies framed by martial and naval motifs.

Later that year, when George III escaped a “rather pathetic assassination” by a housemaid with a knife outside St. James’s Palace, Vauxhall celebrated the king’s survival with a new patriotic song by James Hook and an organ concerto with variations on God Save the King.

Barrett’s first season at the helm “once more confirmed Vauxhall as a popular and respectable venue for fashionable society during the 1780’s. However,

…the public attitude towards the gardens was beginning to undergo a fundamental change. The largely unquestioning indulgence was now a thing of the past, and questions were being asked as to whether a pleasure garden was more of a nuisance than a benefit. The establishment’s opposition to public entertainment was strengthening.

Neighbors who had complained for years about the disruption caused by those returning home in the early hours of the morning, were starting to be heard.

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

Vauxhall Gardens: The Business Side

Oct19

Vauxhall Gardens: A History

David Coke & Alan Borg

Vauxhall’s huge success after Jonathan Tyers’s acquisition of the property, which had been in existence for seventy years as the “New Spring Gardens”, can be attributed to the man’s perception that his idealistic dream must be counter-balanced by sound financial practices. An essential element of this was publicity, and of this, Tyers proved to be a master. How did he do this?

Promoting Vauxhall

He promoted the gardens as a sort of “heaven on earth,” a magical sort of place to lift one’s spirits after a hard day in the real world.

[T]his was achieved through stories in literature and the printed media, through popular songs and through the artworks and music he commissioned. The second was the flattery of his audience; he consistently treated his visitors as special people, always referring to them as persons of quality, ladies and gentlemen, patriots, libertarians, educated people who appreciated fine things and good music. And the last was the simple dissemination of factual information about Vauxhall, its history, its current attractions, and how this pleasure garden should be enjoyed, by means of articles in newspapers and periodicals, of histories and guidebooks and of topographical and satirical engravings.

John Lockman, Publicist

In truth, of course, Vauxhall fell short of perfection, and that’s where John Lockman came in. He was a sort of early publicist, who wrote poems and songs designed to “underscore Tyers’s transformation of a notorious gathering place for drunks, gamblers and prostitutes into a civilised pleasure garden where anyone could enjoy a decorous evening’s entertainment without risk to their reputation.”
Lockman’s assistance was necessary because it was impossible to exclude troublemakers, particularly if they were respectably dressed. “[I]t was easier to sell an enhanced image of the place to a persuadable public.

Tyers was always careful to make everybody in his clientele feel good about themselves, and in particular about their patronage of Vauxhall. In his press announcements, for instance, he would often start by thanking his visitors for their support, especially if the weather had been bad, and would repeatedly finish by pledging to keep out of his gardens anyone not worthy of their company.

Another tactic was to use magazines and newspapers. Newspapers, of course, were a no-brainer. Letters such as the “S. Toupee” articles published in Scots Magazine may or may not have been instigated by Tyers, but they certainly proved valuable in driving up excitement for Vauxhall. “Of the Luxury of the English; and a Description of Ranelagh Gardens and Vaux-hall, in a Letter from a Foreigner to his Friend at Paris,” supposedly written by Henry Fielding (a friend of Tyers) and commissioned by Tyers, piled on the praise for Vauxhall in comparison to Ranelagh Gardens.

A female audience was enticed to Vauxhall by published songs and by scenes in novels set in Vauxhall Gardens. And then there were the Love at First Sight articles, or “Lonely Hearts” columns, which may or may not have been genuine. Here’s one from the London Chronicle in August 1758:

A young Lady who was at Vauxhall on Thursday night last, in company with two gentlemen, could not but observe a young gentleman in blue and a gold-laced hat, who, being near her by the orchestra during the performance, especially the last song, gazed upon her with the utmost attention. He earnestly hopes (if unmarried) she will favour him with a line directed to A.D. at the bar of the Temple Exchange Coffee-house, Temple-bar, to inform him whether fortune, family, and character, may not entitle him upon a further knowledge, to hope an interest in her heart.

Another marketing tactic was to engage actors dressed as gentlemen to patronize coffee-houses to express their intention to go to Vauxhall and entreat others to meet them there.

Tyers’s Management Style

It goes without saying that if one wishes to have customers return, one has to ensure that their first time is as pleasant and enjoyable as possible. If you knew Jonathan Tyers—and you probably wouldn’t because it was never himself he wanted to promote and therefore took pains to remain in the background—you could see him in the kitchens working as hard as his employees to get the food out to the customers.

Waiters, or “drawers” were freelance employees, who were constrained to work hard in order to earn tips and keep their posts. Since in other venues, “drawers” were known to steal from their employers, “Vauxhall waiters were required to pay for the food on collection from the kitchens, and themselves ran the risk of defaulting customers, especially if they had not been sufficiently polite or efficient in their service.”

Although he had to maintain a strict discipline among his employees, he was a thoughtful employer. When two of his waiters married two of his barmaids, he provided wedding rings and an elaborate dinner at his home in Denbies, with fifty of his staff as guests.

one shilling coin

Vauxhall Tickets

Up until 1736, the admission cost was sixpence, but afterward, the price was doubled to one shilling. Considering the expense of maintaining and improving the gardens and contriving new entertainments, this seems modest indeed; however, there was more to be made from the food and drink once the visitors were admitted. For the visitors, there was also the cost of dressing respectably and the cost of transportation. The one shilling price was fixed until 1792, when it was doubled to two shillings.

In 1737 Tyers initiated a subscription price, or season ticket. The metal tickets were issued to a thousand people at a guinea each, and would admit two people to the gardens for the entire season. Not only did this ensure repeat visits by two thousand people, it provided him with funds upfront to use for maintenance and improvement.

The relief on the obverse usually represented, through classical imagery, a particular aspect of Vauxhall Gardens, often associated with the music. On the reverse was engraved the subscriber’s name, accompanied… by the ticket’s number.

silver ticket

In 1738, the tickets were made of silver and the price rose by three shillings. In 1741, the price was raised to two guineas.

As a comparison, a season ticket for two to the Great Room in Soho was five guineas, while individual concerts were ten and a half shillings, the same price as Handel’s fundraising concert at the Foundling Hospital in 1749. Almack’s (founded in 1765) charged ten guineas for a once-weekly ball over twelve weeks, so Vauxhall tickets were considered quite a bargain.

Hogarth’s gold “perpetual” ticket

Attendance

“S. Toupee” in his letters in Scots Magazine estimated that “not less than one thousand shillings are received each evening of performance during the season,” not including season ticket holders. Special events, such as the rehearsal of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks, drew several thousand spectators. Opening and closing nights and royal birthdays also drew large crowds.

The opening night of the 1769 season, for instance, was a remarkably fine evening for the time of year, and it was estimated that ‘there were upwards of twenty thousand of the first nobility present.’

Crime and Disorder

Even though it suffered occasional lean times, there can be little doubt that eighteenth-century Vauxhall Gardens became the most popular single visitor attraction for London… With these numbers of people coming together, especially to a place where alcohol was available, crime, vandalism and disorder were inevitable.

Nor was it just pickpockets and prostitutes his police force (initiated in 1732) had to deal with. While Tyers encouraged his waiters to restrict alcohol consumption, it was difficult for them or even him to police the mischievous London Bucks, who were of a class higher than his. Tyers and his staff managed these problems themselves, even if it meant “eating” the cost of vandalism, not wanting to involve courts, which would draw bad publicity. “S. Toupee,” in one of his letters in 1739, “pointed out that there was ‘a man in the posture of a Constable, to protect the Ladies from any insult, &c.’ at the end of each walk.

Besides the half-dozen or so constables, he employed up to eight men to guard the route from the river and led a (possibly regular) blitz against the pickpockets.

Refreshments

Anyone who has worked in the restaurant industry can tell you how difficult a task it is to prepare food for crowds of people, but how many restaurants have to cater for 500-1000 or more hungry people? This is a logistical nightmare that Tyers managed with aplomb.

Consistent with his insistence on featuring English art and music, the food at Vauxhall was simple and English. There were complaints about the prices, of course. Here are some prices from one of the “S. Toupee” letters in 1739:

one bottle of French claret: 5 shillings
one cold chicken: 2-1/2 shillings
one quarter of cyder: 1 shilling
one quart of small-beer: 4 pence
one slice of bread: 2 pence
one slice of cheese: 4 pence
dish of ham or beef: 1 shilling, salad, an extra pence
sweet pastries: 1 shilling
custards and cheesecakes: 4 pence
heart cakes and Shrewsbury cakes: 2 pence
one bottle of champagne and arrack: 8 shillings
two pounds of ice: sixpence

Isaac Cruikshank, A Country Farmer & Waiter at Vauxhall. A farmer in country dress, on his first visit to Vauxhall, has ordered ham in expectation of a plateful of English gammon. When the waiter brings him the notoriously thin slices that were Vauxhall ham, the farmer is furious.

Even a devoted fan such as “S. Toupee” confessed that the food was expensive. The sliced meats were thin, especially the ham. “This was all part of the fun of the evening—a great joke on fashionable society who were happy to play along.” A well-known verse alluding to this:

Never trouble Ham House, or its inmates at all,

For a ghost, that may be but a sham,

But seek in a sandwich that’s cut at Vauxhall,

For the true apparition of Ham.’

Note:

The cost of the food did not alter significantly over the whole period from Tyers’s re-launch until the gardens’ final closure; the prices of wines and spirits, however, were a different matter, rising sharply in the nineteenth century.

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

Vauxhall Gardens: The Music, 1732-1859

Oct12

Vauxhall Gardens: A History

David Coke & Alan Borg

Before Vauxhall, professional, high quality music was expensive and therefore restricted to the wealthy. Because it was usually performed in private drawing rooms or concert halls, the concept of performing it in the open air was also a novelty. At a time when music from past masters was popular, Tyers introduced music by contemporary English or London-based composers. Oftentimes, the music (and the musicians) were the same as those performing in London theaters during the winter.

Tyers exposed a substantially larger audience to serious music than had ever been possible or even conceivable before. The fact that he did so in a setting where the audience could choose to listen or not, and could choose where to listen from, fundamentally transformed the public’s experience of musical performance, and led to a much wider and easier acceptance of the concert as a public entertainment.

Instrumental Music

Following the construction of the Orchestra building, which resolved several acoustical issues from performing in the open air, in 1735, music became

the crucial ingredient in setting the tone for an evening at Vauxhall. It promoted relaxed enjoyment, and its rational elegance was a catalyst for good behaviour and conversation among the company.

The unusual experience of listening to music in the open air and, after dark… held a very special allure for the audience. There is no doubt that music heard from a distant point of the garden… would have been attractive, providing a good excuse to lure members of the opposite sex away from the crowded Grove… On her eventful visit to Vauxhall, Fanny Burney’s heroine Evelina was particularly impressed by its al fresco music, if not seduced by its freedoms… Despite the disagreeable company, she recounts that

There was a concert, in the course of which, a hautbois concerto was so charmingly played that I could have thought myself upon enchanted ground, had I had spirits more gentle to associate with. The Hautboy in the open air is heavenly.

Click here for a previous post about the Orchestra.

The construction of the Organ building, and the installation of the massive organ, resolved the problem of volume, since its range could reach throughout the gardens, and even beyond. Click here for a previous post about the Organ.

Handel and Vauxhall

Squidgeworth found a friend at the Foundling Museum

Just as Handel’s statue dominated the Grove, his music dominated Vauxhall’s repertory for a hundred years. Handel and Tyers had a mutually beneficial relationship that likely developed into close friendship. Tyers’s press articles tended to focus only on Handel’s music, and the promotion of his music before the crowds of Vauxhall helped him rise to popular fame.

Vocal Music

Due to a concern for propriety, Tyers resisted song at Vauxhall for at least a dozen years. By this time, Vauxhall was being criticized for “the absence of song on the grounds that, without lyrics, music ‘lacked interpretation,’ and was therefore less conducive to good humour among the audience.”

Soon after, Cecilia Young, a soprano who later married Vauxhall’s music director, Thomas Arne, was engaged, and the “introduction of song as a regular element of the programme launched the most perennial popular feature of the Vauxhall evening.”

Thomas_Augustine_Arne_portrait_by_Zoffany

Thomas Arne

Thomas Arne’s ballads “were, from 1745, regularly performed at the gardens to huge applause, and they were published in the first Vauxhall songbook, Lyric Harmony, which appeared in September of that year.” Arne’s songs, which were lighthearted and natural, appealed to a wide array of people, and thus fit in with Tyers’s own philosophy to make the arts available to all.

The lyrics of Vauxhall songs… are basically in the pastoral and romantic ballad style that evolved in the late seventeenth century from a long tradition of popular song… Over the next few decades, ballads absorbed influences from other popular music forms, particularly Italian opera, to become the genre known as the Vauxhall song.

Thomas Arne’s version of “God Save the King” was first performed at Drury Lane in 1745. He also wrote, “Rule Britannia,” another patriotic song. Click here to hear the latter song on the BBC website. I’m sure you will find it familiar.

A second genre that was to become popular with Vauxhall audiences was the patriotic song, one of the earliest types to be regularly heard at the gardens. Exploiting topical events as they did, they highlighted the link between the dutiful virtus of victorious military action and the pleasurable voluptas enjoyed by Vauxhall’s visitors, fully complementing the ideals behind Tyers’s management.

The songs regularly sung at Vauxhall and the other gardens enjoyed a wide currency. They were published not only as songsheets and in songbooks, but also in periodicals, particularly women’s magazines. Among the moral tales, romances, fashion hints, poetry, recipes and other items thought suitable for female consumption, editors of magazines such as the Ladies Complete Pocket Book or the Universal Magazine would often slip in the ‘favourite new songs’ being featured at the pleasure gardens in the current season, to be enjoyed by Vauxhall’s many “armchair” visitors around the country.

Besides the salary paid by Tyers and passes to allow them to come and go as they wished, “well-loved singers were rewarded by the audience who threw money at their feet.”

A thirty-two-year-old Oliver Goldsmith described a visit to the gardens around 1760, full of praise for the singers and the band.

The satisfaction which I received the first night I went there was greater than my expectations; I went in company of several friends of both sexes, whose virtues I regard and judgments I esteem. The music, the entertainments, but particularly the singing, diffused that good humour among us which constitutes the true happiness of Society.

Music after Jonathan Tyers’s death

After 1761, ownership was taken over by Tyers’s son, Jonathan Tyers the younger, and very little changed at first, until the early 1780’s, when strolling bands were introduced, possibly as an economic gesture, and the quality of music declined.

The introduction of Haydn’s compositions in 1783 marked the faltering start of a new era at Vauxhall. Haydn soon gained a wide following, even toppling Handel from his long-running supremacy.

Regular press advertisements detailing the evening’s program appeared in 1786, when Bryant Barrett, Jonathan Tyers the younger’s son-in-law, took over management of the gardens. Apparently he believed the audience to be more sophisticated about music and thus more interested in knowing beforehand what would be included.

James Hook

James Hook, Vauxhall’s music director from the early 1770s until 1821, composed over two thousand songs specifically for Vauxhall and performed an organ concerto every evening at closing time.

…each season introduced an entirely new crop of songs, numbering between thirty and forty-five, with no repeats from previous years; the most popular songs received as many as fifty performances through the season… Most of the half dozen or so singers employed each year appeared every evening, Monday to Saturday, from mid-May to late August. This represented around eighty-five evenings out of a hundred—a tough programme for any performer, especially when singing out of doors.

The Vauxhall Effect

As a music promoter, Tyers was unusual at the time in not being a professional musician himself; it was his judgement and business sense that determined his visitors’ experience, and dictated the selection of people he employed to take his vision forward. The renown of his performers was less important than their ability to express a particular house style.

Performers at Vauxhall

For a list of performers at Vauxhall (musical and otherwise), check this website: Vauxhall Gardens: 1661-1859.

The Final Season: 18-25 July, 1859

It’s all gone

Why did Vauxhall close?

Vauxhall, farewell forever

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

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Financial Setbacks & Bankruptcy

Master Juba

The Final Seasons

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

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Ballooning

The Royal Vauxhall balloon

The Great Balloon of Nassau

More Balloons

George Cruikshank’s Comic Almanac for 1851

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

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Changing Up

Transparencies and Optical Devices

The Royal Gardens, Vauxhall

Juvenile Fetes for Children

Dancing in the Gardens

The Aerial

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

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Madame Saqui

Musicians

Comic Songs

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

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Grand Military Fetes and Displays

Grand Festival of the Battle of Vittoria

Other Military Fetes at Vauxhall

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A change in clientele

A change of attractions

Changes in proprietors and prices

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Lean years at Vauxhall

The Jubilee of 1786

A successful season

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Promoting Vauxhall

Tyers’s Management Style

Vauxhall Tickets

Attendance

Crime and Disorder

Refreshments

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

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Instrumental Music

Handel and Vauxhall

Vocal Music

Music after Jonathan Tyers’s death

The Vauxhall Effect

Performers at Vauxhall

Susana’s Vauxhall Blog Post Series

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