The Worst Street in London: Foreword by Peter Ackroyd (20 page)

Due to the excessive quantities of gin available, prices remained low and Londoners gradually became increasingly reliant on it to get through their day. Many poorer members of the populace would nip out for gin in the same way as we would pop out for a pint of milk today. Gin was an essential part of their daily diet and the resulting drunkenness began to have genuinely horrifying results. Sensational reports began appearing in the newspapers of drunken nurses mistaking babies for logs and putting them on the fire and inebriated mothers killing their children so they could spend more time in the gin shops.

By 1730, it became clear that the country (and London in particular) was in the grip of a gin epidemic and something had to be done to curb the public’s insatiable appetite for the drink. A previous attempt to control public consumption of gin through taxation had achieved little so the Government decided to introduce more drastic measures. In 1736, the second Gin Act was passed through parliament. Ministers saw that those most addicted to gin were the poor and so they decided to raise the retail tax on the spirit to 20 shillings per gallon (it had previously run at 5 shillings per gallon). In addition to this, gin retailers were now required to take out an annual licence, at a cost of £50.

Generous rewards of £5 were to be awarded to anyone who informed the authorities of illegal trade. The idea behind the massive tax increase and annual licence fee was to make gin prohibitively expensive, thus stopping the masses from buying it. However, the retailers and distillers were not about to give up their lucrative businesses without a fight. Working on the (correct) assumption that very few members of the public would risk the wrath of their alcoholic neighbours by ratting on the gin suppliers, most gin shops continued to sell the spirit either under the counter or disguised as an exotically named ‘medicinal’ beverage. Popular brands at the time included ‘My Lady’s Eye Water’ and ‘King Theodore of Corsica’!

Unsurprisingly, the 1736 Act did little to stop the gin epidemic and if anything, consumption increased. Various solutions to the problem were discussed including an ill-advised campaign to encourage drinkers to switch to beer, using Hogarth’s famous engraving ‘Gin Lane’ to illustrate the perils of gin drinking. In the end, it was an economic crisis that ended the gin epidemic rather than any Government influence.

During the 1750s, a series of poor grain harvests pushed the price of gin’s basic ingredient to an alarming level. As the cost of grain soared, workers were laid off and farmers began supplying the food industry instead of the gin distillers whose alcoholic beverage was not considered as important a commodity as bread. With growing unemployment and higher food prices, the public had less disposable income and so gin consumption began to fall dramatically. Seizing the opportunity to kill off the epidemic for good, the Government passed yet another Gin Act, this time lowering the licence fees but severely restricting the number of outlets from which gin could be sold. This time, their efforts worked and by 1757 the gin craze was in its death throes.

However, gin never entirely disappeared from London’s streets. Some gin shops survived the mid-eighteenth century recession in trade and by the dawn of the new century, London’s burgeoning population was beginning to discover the delights of gin once again. As the city became increasingly overcrowded and living conditions deteriorated, the public sought escape through alcohol-induced oblivion. Seemingly oblivious to the horrors of the gin craze less than a century previously, the Government actively assisted the gin shop owners in attracting more custom by halving the cost of spirit licences and drastically cutting the duty payable on spirits. By 1830, around 45,000 spirit licenses were being issued in Britain per annum and production of gin had increased by over 50% in little more than five years.

As business took off, the gin shop owners began to give their premises a makeover. Realising that their customers needed a respite from their often dark, squalid homes, they set about making their premises as light and bright as possible. Their interiors were brilliantly lit and large, etched-glass windows were fitted to the shop-fronts so passers-by were stopped in their tracks by the light flooding out onto the dark street. Inside, mirrors lined the walls to create a sense of space and reflect the light. To the poor, these gin shops, with their bright façades and glitzy interiors were like palaces and became known as such. Charles Dickens visited some of London’s gin palaces while writing
Sketches by Boz
(1836) and described the one thus:

‘All is light and brilliancy... and the gay building with the fantastically ornamented parapet, the illuminated clock, the plate-glass windows surrounded by stucco rosettes, and its profusion of gas-lights in richly-gilt burners, is perfectly dazzling when contrasted with the darkness and dirt we have just left. The interior is even gayer than the exterior. A bar of French-polished mahogany, elegantly carved, extends the whole width of the place; and there are two side aisles of great casks, painted green and gold, enclosed within a light brass rail, and bearing such inscriptions as “Old Tom, 459”, “Young Tom, 360”, “Samson, 1421” – the figures agreeing, we presume, with gallons...

‘Beyond the bar is a lofty and spacious saloon, full of the same enticing vessels, with a gallery running round it, equally well-furnished. On the counter, in addition to the usual spirit apparatus, are two or three little baskets of cakes and biscuits, which are carefully secured at the top with wicker-work to prevent their contents being unlawfully abstracted. Behind it are two showily-dressed damsels with large necklaces, dispensing the spirits and “compounds”.’

Dickens’ description of a gin palace in the 1830s is surprisingly familiar. To this day, the Victorian gin palace survives throughout London and beyond and with it endure the myriad pleasures and problems associated with social drinking in Britain. The current alcoholic craze may not be for gin, but it presents the authorities with the same social problems as befell their predecessors. Despite the Government’s best attempts, it appears that drinking to excess is an endemic part of British society and will never be eradicated.

While the gin palaces thrived, the old taverns were gradually being replaced by the forerunner of today’s pub – the beer house. In 1830, the Beer Act lifted restrictions on producing and selling beer and just like the gin palaces before them, beer shops began to spring up on street corners. Trade was good and successful shop owners expanded their premises, sometimes dividing up the bars into ‘Public’ (for the workers), ‘Saloon’ (for management) and ‘Private’ (for their most influential patrons). The most favoured tipple at the beer shops and public houses of Spitalfields was Porter, a dark beer that had been developed in the eighteenth century. London Porter was strong and got the drinker in an inebriated state without them having to spend too much money. Consequently, it became extremely popular with the working classes: by 1835, The Black Eagle Brewery in Brick Lane was producing 200,000 barrels a year. Porter remained popular with the labouring classes until World War 1, when grain rations all but prevented the production of strong beers in England and the market began to be taken over by Irish brewers such as Guinness.

By the 1850s, there were literally thousands of pubs, beer houses and gin palaces in London. In working class areas like Spitalfields, there could be four or five down one street. Naturally, the sheer number of pubs, particularly in cities, made competition fierce. Publicans sought new ways to encourage more customers through the doors and once inside, to stay for as long as possible. One of the most successful strategies involved putting on entertainment. An ever-increasing variety of acts were booked and nineteenth century drinkers could expect to be entertained by singers, jugglers, magicians, comedians, contortionists, the list was endless. It was from these pub entertainments that one of the most popular of all Victorian pastimes was born – the Music Hall.

Music Halls were an integral part of the social lives of the working class. However, they vanished almost as swiftly as they arrived. Despite the valiant efforts of a few music hall groups and distant memories of a television programme called
The Good Old Days,
the British Music Hall is now obsolete. This is in a way unsurprising because it epitomised a moment in history that is now almost beyond living memory. However, in its heyday, the Music Hall was an incredibly important element of society.

Music Halls first began to emerge in the mid-nineteenth century. In December 1848, a pub landlord named Charles Morton acquired the Canterbury Arms in Upper Marsh, close to Lambeth Palace. Morton had previously worked in theatre and decided to provide entertainment at his new pub in the form of ‘harmonic meetings’, where gentlemen were invited to come and listen to singers in an informal atmosphere. The harmonic meetings proved to be very successful and in order to increase business, Morton organised ‘Ladies’ Thursdays’, which were so successful that he used the profits to build a new hall on the bowling green at the back of the old pub. The Canterbury Arms’ motto was ‘One quality only – the best’ and Charles Morton worked hard to maintain a high standard of entertainment. He employed an in-house choir and regular soloists to perform operatic favourites and guests were provided with baked potatoes (for which The Canterbury became renowned) to soak up the alcohol. In addition to the musical entertainment, Morton operated a bookmaker’s from the pub to satisfy his guests who enjoyed a flutter at the races.

In 1856, Morton ploughed his profits back into the business and rebuilt The Canterbury in a much larger and grander style. The new building comprised a main hall and a gallery and was decorated in a sumptuous, palatial style. The walls were adorned with paintings of such quality and value that The Canterbury was nicknamed ‘The Royal Academy Across the Water’ by one of its patrons. Out went the baked potatoes as the new hall had large tables at which visitors were served a more varied menu.

The increased size of the stage meant that more ambitious productions could be staged.
Gounod’s Faust
was sung for the first time in England at The Canterbury and Morton was responsible for introducing Londoners to the work of Offenbach. Not all the entertainment in The Canterbury was so highbrow; interspersed between opera and ballet performances were displays of tightrope walking, bicycle tricks and animal shows. It was this variety that became the essence of Music Hall as a genre.

Landlords across London took note of the success of Charles Morton’s Canterbury Music Hall and soon similar establishments were springing up all over the capital. In 1857, Edward Weston converted the Six Cans and Punch Bowl Tavern on High Holborn into Weston’s Music Hall and a year later, the Royal Panopticon of Science and Art in Leicester Square was converted into the exotically-named ‘Alhambra Palace’ and promptly let to an American circus because the owner, one E. T. Smith, could not obtain a theatre licence. However, a year later, Smith managed to obtain a licence and promptly gave the circus their marching orders. He then set about converting the interior into a theatre. The circus ring became the dining area and the original Panopticon organ, which had loomed over the hall for decades, was sold to St Paul’s Cathedral. In the gaping hole that was left, Smith built a stage. The Alhambra Palace Music Hall opened in December 1860 and one of its first major attractions was a trapeze act performed by Jules Leotard, the man who gave his name to the style of dancewear.

Following the success of his first venture across the river in South London, Charles Morton decided to go west and in 1861, opened the Oxford Music Hall on the site of an old tavern called the Boar and Castle Inn, close to the junction of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. Morton used The Canterbury as a blueprint and The Oxford was an instant success. Spurred on by this, Morton decided to sell The Canterbury to a man named William Holland, who promptly redecorated the hall and invited patrons to come and spit on his new thousand guinea carpet! The sale of The Canterbury made Morton financially very secure, but this was to be short-lived as, a month after the sale went through, The Oxford was gutted by fire. Inadequately insured, Morton was forced to sell what remained of the building in an attempt to recoup his losses and never built another music hall.

By the 1870s, there were over 300 music halls all over London. Some were purpose built, like the Alhambra Palace and The Canterbury, others had been straight theatres in a previous life and others were literally the back rooms of pubs. The sheer diversity of the music hall venues meant that there was also a great diversity of talent. Obviously the established stars worked the larger halls almost exclusively while the less popular acts and artists still honing their skills were left to work in the smaller establishments.

This hierarchy provided a good training ground for would-be music hall stars and because the profession did not require any expensive qualifications it attracted a great many talented performers from less than privileged backgrounds. In fact, most of the stars from the heyday of the music hall were from Bethnal Green and Whitechapel rather than Kensington and Chelsea. The most famous star of all happened to be a cousin of Spitalfields landlord Johnny Cooney. Her name was Marie Lloyd.

Marie Lloyd was born Matilda Victoria Wood on 12 February 1870 in Hoxton. She loved performing in front of an audience from an early age and while still a child, toured with a minstrel group called the Fairy Bells. As she reached adulthood, Matilda realised that she wanted to make a career out of performing and thus began the laborious task of creating a fan base in the local music halls. Her first performance was at the Grecian Saloon in Islington where she sang a couple of songs under the exotic stage name of Bella Delamare. Matilda was paid nothing for this performance, but it did secure her a trial at Belmont’s Sebright Hall in the Hackney Road. The proprietor was impressed enough to immediately offer her a week’s engagement in return for the princely sum of 15 shillings.