City Women: Managers and Leading Ladies at the City of London Theatre, 1837–1848

Abstract

In the 1830s and 1840s, the female management of London theatres, conducted singly or in partnership, was surprisingly common. Charismatic actress-managers such as Madame Vestris and Mrs Keeley have long been familiar to students of British theatre, as too the establishments they managed. Much less well known is the City of London Theatre in Norton Folgate, one of several minor playhouses then active in the East End. Opened in the year that Victoria came to the throne (1837), during its first decade the City was unrivalled as a home for the so-called ‘wo-manager’. Although largely forgotten today, Lucy Honey, Eliza Vincent, Harriett Lacy, and Maria Honner added much to the cultural vibrancy of an important theatre district at a moment of significant social change. Stephen Ridgwell here explores an under-researched world of theatre enterprise, and argues that the marginality subsequently conferred upon these women in no way reflects their contemporary visibility and standing. The article also highlights the importance of Eliza Vincent’s collaborations with George Dibdin Pitt, a dramatist of growing interest to scholars across a range of fields, and proposes that further consideration of this partnership might usefully be undertaken.