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Home , Adolfo Pirelli, Alexander Gemignani, Bonaventura Bottone, Denis Quilley, George Hearn, Gershwin Theatre

RESEARCH PACKET

Casa Mañana Theatre Apprentice Program 2019 Prepared by Noah Putterman (Director) and Brad Weatherford (Asst. Director)

Production History Original Broadway production and List of Major • 1979 Broadway tour Productions The original production premiered on • 1980 West End Broadway at the Uris Theatre on March 1, • 1984 Houston Grand 1979 and closed on June 29, 1980 after 557 • 1989 Broadway revival performances and 19 previews. • 1993 West End revival

Directed by Hal Prince and choreographed • 1995 Barcelona by Larry Fuller, the scenic design was by • 1997 Madrid Eugene Lee, costumes by Franne Lee and • 1997 Helsinki lighting by Ken Billington. • 1999 Vancouver

For the 1979 Broadway production of • 2003 Toronto ’s “”, • 2004 West End revival legendary scenic designer Eugene Lee • 2005 Broadway revival completely gutted the Uris Theatre (now • 2007 São Paulo the ) to create a dark and • 2007 Film ominous turn-of-the-century • 2008 Madrid London. Stripping the auditorium down to it’s basic structural elements, he • 2011 Paris incorporated the metal beams and • 2012 West End revival catwalks into the design. Lee used a great • 2014 Quebec City deal of salvaged wood and metal materials • 2015 Johannesburg to give the theatre the gritty and opressed • 2015 Melbourne feeling of a run-down factory. A giant • 2016 Cape Town steam whistle was brought in from a foundry in New England, and it’s piercing • 2016 New Zealand tour shreik added a chilling accompaniment to • 2017 Off-Broadway the Demon Barber of Fleet Street’s • 2017 Moscow murders. (http://www.davidstarksketchbook.com/my_weblog/2013/07/a-love-for-set-design.html)

Note the paned-glass ceiling. Lighting instruments were positioned behind the windows to offer subtle theatrical shifts in mood or environment.

The cast included as Mrs. Lovett, as Todd, as Anthony, Sarah Rice as , Merle Louise as the Beggar Woman, Ken Jennings as Tobias, Edmund Lyndeck as , Joaquin Romaguera as Pirelli, and Jack Eric Williams as Beadle Bamford. T he production was nominated for nine , winning eight including Best Musical. and replaced Lansbury and Cariou on March 4, 1980.

The first national U.S. tour started on October 24, 1980, in Washington, D.C. and ended in August 1981 in Los Angeles, California. Lansbury was joined by Hearn and this version was taped during the Los Angeles engagement and broadcast on The Entertainment Channel (one of the predecessors of today's A&E) on September 12, 1982. This performance would later be repeated on Showtime and PBS (the latter as part of its Great Performances series); it was later released on home video through Turner Home Entertainment, and on DVD from Warner Home Video.

A North American tour started on February 23, 1982, in Wilmington, Delaware, and ended on July 17, 1982, in Toronto, . June Havoc and Ross Petty starred.

Original London production The first London production opened on July 2, 1980, at the West End's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, starring and Sheila Hancock along with Andrew C. Wadsworth as Anthony, Mandy More as Johanna, Michael Staniforth as Tobias, Austin Kent as Judge Turpin, Dilys Watling as the Beggar Woman, David Wheldon-Williams as Beadle Bamford, Oz Clarke as Jonas Fogg, and John Aron as Pirelli.

The show ran for 157 performances. Despite receiving mixed reviews, the production won the Olivier Award for Best New Musical in 1980. The production closed on November 14, 1980.

1993 London revival In 1993, the show received its first London revival at the . The production opened originally at the Cottesloe Theatre on June 2, 1993, and later transferred to the Lyttleton Theatre on December 16, 1993, playing in repertory and closing on June 1, 1994. The show's design was slightly altered to fit a proscenium arch theatre space for the Lyttleton Theatre. The director was and the Cottesloe Theatre production starred as Todd and Julia McKenzie as Mrs. Lovett, with as Anthony, Barry James as Beadle Bamford and Denis Quilley (who had originated the title role in the original London production in 1980) as Judge Turpin.

When the show transferred, Quilley replaced Armstrong in the title role. Sondheim praised Donnellan for the "small 'chamber' approach to the show, which was the composer's original vision for the piece." This production received Olivier Awards for Best Musical Revival, Best in a Musical (Armstrong) and Best Actress in a Musical (McKenzie), as well as nominations for Best Director and two for Best Supporting Performance in a musical.

1995 Barcelona production On April 5, 1995 it premiered in Catalan at the theater Poliorama of Barcelona (later moving to the Apollo), in a production of the Drama Centre of the Government of Catalonia. The libretto was adapted by Roser Batalla Roger Pena, and was directed by Mario Gas. The cast consisted of Constantino Romero as Todd, Vicky Peña as Mrs.Lovett, Ma. Josep Peris as Johanna, Muntsa Rivers as Tobias, Pep Molina as Anthony and Xavier Ribera- Vall as Judge Turpin, with critical acclaim and audience (Sondheim himself traveled to Barcelona after hearing the success it was having and was delighted with the production). Later it moved to Madrid. The show received over fifteen awards.

2002 Kennedy Center production As part of the Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration, Sweeney Todd ran from May 10, 2002 through June 30, 2002 at the Eisenhower Theatre, starring as Todd, Christine Baranski as Mrs. Lovett, Hugh Panaro as Anthony, Walter Charles (a member of the original cast), as Judge Turpin and Celia Keenan-Bolger as Johanna. It was directed by Christopher Ashley with choreography by Daniel Pelzig.

(Left: Brian Stokes Mitchell and Christine Baranski, Kennedy Center, 2002. Above: 2004 London Revival, directed by .)

2004 London revival In 2004, John Doyle directed a revival of the musical at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury, England, running from July 27, 2004 until October 9, 2004. This production subsequently transferred to the West End's Trafalgar Studios and then the Ambassadors Theatre.

This production was notable for having no orchestra, with the 10-person cast playing the score themselves on musical instruments that they carried onstage. This marked the first time in nearly ten years that a Sondheim show had been presented in the commercial West End. It starred Paul Hegarty as Todd, Karen Mann as Mrs. Lovett, Rebecca Jackson as The Beggar Woman, Sam Kenyon as Tobias, Rebecca Jenkins as Johanna, David Ricardo-Pearce as Anthony and Colin Wakefield as Judge Turpin. This production closed February 5, 2005.

In spring 2006, the production toured the UK with Jason Donovan as Todd and Harriet Thorpe as Mrs. Lovett. 2005 Broadway revival A version of the John Doyle West End production transferred to Broadway, opening on November 3, 2005 at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre with a new cast, all of whom played their own instruments, as had been done in London. The cast consisted of: Patti LuPone (Mrs. Lovett/Tuba/Percussion), (Todd/Guitar), Manoel Felciano (Tobias/Violin/Clarinet/Piano), (Beadle/Piano/Trumpet), Lauren Molina (Johanna/Cello), Benjamin Magnuson (Anthony/Cello/Piano), Mark Jacoby (Turpin/Trumpet/Percussion), Donna Lynne Champlin (Pirelli/Accordion/Flute/Piano), Diana DiMarzio (Beggar Woman/Clarinet) and John Arbo (Fogg/Double bass).

The production ran for 349 performances and 35 previews, and was nominated for six Tony Awards, winning two: Best Direction of a Musical for Doyle and Best Orchestrations for Sarah Travis who had reconstructed Jonathan Tunick's original arrangements to suit the ten-person cast and orchestra.

Because of the small scale of the musical, it cost $3.5 million to make, a sum small in comparison to many Broadway musicals and recouped in nineteen weeks. A national tour based on Doyle's Broadway production began on August 30, 2007 with (who had temporarily replaced LuPone in the Broadway run) as Mrs. Lovett and David Hess as Todd. Alexander Gemignani also played the title role for the Toronto run of the tour in November 2007.

2012 West End revival and starred in a new production of the show that played at The Chichester Festival Theatre, running from September 24 to November 5, 2011.

Directed by Jonathan Kent, the cast included Ball as Todd, Staunton as Mrs. Lovett, James McConville as Tobias, John Bowe as Judge Turpin, Robert Burt as Pirelli, Luke Brady as Anthony, Gillian Kirkpatrick as , Lucy May Barker as Johanna and Peter Polycarpou as Beadle Bamford. It was notably set in the 1930s instead of 1846 and restored the oft-cut song "Johanna (Mea Culpa)".

The production received positive reviews from both critics and audience members and transferred to the in the West End in 2012 for a limited run from March 10 to September 22, 2012. Comedian Jason Manford made his musical debut as Pirelli from July 2 to 28 and August 15, 18 and 24, 2012 while Robert Burt appeared at Festival Opera.

The West End transfer received six Award nominations of which it won the three; Best Musical Revival, Best Actor in a Musical for Ball and Best Actress in a Musical for Staunton.

2015 London revival produced the West End transfer of the Tooting Arts Club production of the show which ran at Harrington's Pie Shop in Tooting, London in October and November 2014. This production takes place in a pie shop that has been recreated for the occasion in Shaftesbury Avenue and ran from March 19 to May 16, 2015. The cast included Jeremy Secomb as Sweeney Todd, Siobhan McCarthy as Mrs. Lovett, Nadim Naaman as Anthony, Ian Mowat as the Beadle, Duncan Smith as the Judge, Kiara Jay as Pirelli and the Beggar Woman, Joseph Taylor as Tobias and Zoe Doano as Johanna.

2017 Off-Broadway revival The Tooting Arts Club production transferred to Off-Broadway, transforming the Barrow Street Theatre into a working re-creation of Harrington's pie shop. Previews began February 14, 2017 before officially opening night on March 1.

Like the London production, the transfer was directed by Bill Buckhurst, designed by Simon Kenny and produced by Rachel Edwards, Jenny Gersten, Seaview Productions, and Nate Koch, executive producer, in association with Barrow Street Theatre. The opening night cast featured four members of the London cast: Jeremy Secomb as Sweeney Todd, Siobhan McCarthy as Mrs. Lovett, Duncan Smith as the Judge and, Joseph Taylor as Tobias, alongside Brad Oscar as the Beadle, Betsy Morgan as Pirelli and the Beggar Woman, Matt Doyle as Anthony and Alex Finke as Johanna.

In April 2017, five of the cast members left the show, replaced by Norm Lewis as Sweeney Todd, as Mrs. Lovett, John-Michael Lyles as Tobias, Stacie Bono as The Beggar Woman and Pirelli, and Jamie Jackson as Judge Turpin. After Norm Lewis left, he was replaced by Hugh Panaro in the titular role. Other changes include Michael James Leslie as Judge Turpin.

Opera house productions The first opera to mount Sweeney Todd was the in a production directed by Hal Prince, which ran from June 14, 1984 through June 24, 1984 for a total of 10 performances. Conducted by John DeMain, the production used scenic designs by Eugene Lee, costume designs by Franne Lee, and lighting designs by Ken Billington. The cast included in the title role, Joyce Castle as Mrs. Lovett, Cris Groenendaal as Anthony, Lee Merrill as Johanna, Will Roy as Judge Turpin, and Barry Busse as The Beadle.

In 1984 the show was presented by the Opera. Hal Prince recreated the staging using the simplified set of the 2nd national tour. It was well received and most performances sold out. It was brought back for limited runs in 1986 and 2004. Notably the 2004 production starred as Mrs Lovett. The show was also performed by in 1998 in the UK starring Steven Page and Beverley Klein, directed by David McVicar and conducted by James Holmes.

In the early 2000s, Sweeney Todd gained acceptance with opera companies throughout the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, Israel, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Australia. , the popular Welsh bass-, performed the title role at Lyric Opera of in 2002, with Judith Christian, David Cangelosi, Timothy Nolen, Bonaventura Bottone, Celena Shaffer and Nathan Gunn. It was performed at the in London as part of the Royal Opera season (December 2003-January 2004) starring Sir Thomas Allen as Todd, Felicity Palmer as Mrs. Lovett and a supporting cast that included Rosalind Plowright, Robert Tear and Jonathan Veira as Judge Turpin. The Finnish National Opera performed Sweeney Todd in 1997-98. The Israeli National Opera has performed Sweeney Todd twice. The Icelandic Opera performed Sweeney Todd in the fall of 2004, the first time in Iceland. On September 12, 2015, Sweeney Todd opened at the Opera with Brian Mulligan as Todd, Stephanie Blythe as Mrs. Lovett, Matthew Grills as Tobias, Heidi Stober as Johanna, Elliot Madore as Anthony and Elizabeth Futral as the Beggar Woman/Lucy. Concert productions A "Reprise!" Concert version was performed at Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre on March 12–14, 1999 with Kelsey Grammer as Todd, Christine Baranski as Mrs. Lovett, Davis Gaines as Anthony, as Tobias, Melissa Manchester as The Beggar Woman, Roland Rusinek as The Beadle, Dale Kristien as Johanna and as Judge Turpin.

London's Royal Festival Hall hosted two performances on February 13, 2000, starring Len Cariou as Todd, Judy Kaye as Mrs. Lovett, and Davis Gaines as Anthony. A 4-day concert took place in July 2007 at the same venue with Bryn Terfel, , Daniel Boys and .

Director directed a semi-staged concert production of "Sweeney Todd" on May 4–6, 2000 at Avery Fisher Hall at , New York with the . The cast included George Hearn (a last-minute substitute for Bryn Terfel), Patti LuPone, Neil Patrick Harris, Davis Gaines, John Aler, Paul Plishka, Heidi Grant Murphy, Stanford Olsen and Audra McDonald. This concert also played in San Francisco, from July 19, 2001 to July 21, with the San Francisco Symphony. Hearn and LuPone were joined once again by Harris, Aler, and Olsen as well as new additions Victoria Clark, Lisa Vroman and Timothy Nolen. This production was taped for PBS broadcast. The same production played at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago on August 24, 2001, with most of the cast from the preceding concerts, except for Plishka and Clark, who were replaced by Sherrill Milnes and Hollis Resnik.

In 2014, Price directed a new concert production, returning to Avery Fisher Hall with the New York Philharmonic on March 5–8 with Bryn Terfel as Todd, as Mrs. Lovett, Philip Quast as Judge Turpin, Jeff Blumenkrantz as The Beadle, as Pirelli, Kyle Brenn as Tobias, Jay Armstrong Johnson as Anthony, Erin Mackey as Johanna, and Audra McDonald and Bryonha Marie Parham sharing the role of The Beggar Woman. McDonald was not announced as the Beggar Woman: she was a surprise, her name only being revealed at the time of the first performance. On the Saturday performances, Bryonha Marie Parham played the role of the Beggar Woman, while McDonald played it at the other performances. The concert was again filmed for broadcast on PBS as part of their series and was first aired on September 26, 2014.

Film adaptation A feature film adaptation of Sweeney Todd, jointly produced by DreamWorks and Warner Bros., was released on December 21, 2007. directed from a by John Logan. It stars as Todd (Depp received an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe Award for his performance), Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin, Sacha Baron Cohen as Signor Pirelli, as Anthony Hope, as The Beggar Woman, Jayne Wisener as Johanna, Ed Sanders as Toby, and Timothy Spall as Beadle Bamford. The film received high acclaim from critics and theatregoers and also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.

Stephen Sondheim Wrote the music and lyrics for (1994); (1991); (1987); Sunday in the Park With George (1984); Merrily We Roll Along (1981); Sweeney Todd (1979); Pacific Overtures (1976); The Frogs (1974); (1973); (1971, revised in London, 1987); Company (1970); (1964); and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962); as well as the lyrics for (1957); (1959); Do I Hear a Waltz?(1965), and additional lyrics for (1973). (1976); Marry Me A Little (1981); You're Gonna Love Tomorrow (1983) and (1992) are anthologies of his work as composer and lyricist. For films, he composed the scores of Stavisky (1974) and Reds(1981) and songs for Dick Tracy (Academy Award, 1990). He won Tony Awards for Best Score for a Musical for Passion, Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Follies, and Company. Sunday in the Park With George received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1985. He is on the council of the Dramatists Guild, which is a national association of playwrights, composers and lyricists, having served as its president from 1973 until 1981. In 1983, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990 he was appointed the first visiting professor of contemporary theatre at Oxford University and in 1993 was a recipient of Kennedy Center honors.

Visit Stephen Sondheim on the world wide web at www.sondheim.com

Interview with Stephen Sondheim

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naHgXkV-JlI)

On What Attracted Him to the Story: I saw a production of Bond’s play in 1973 at Stratford East and just immediately was taken by it. It was it wasn't really very scary but had a lot of charm and it was sort of sort of creepy. I looked into the rights, and I met Bond and asked him if I could make a musical out of it he said yes.

On the Style of Music in Sweeney Todd: Well in this case I was sort of paying an homage to Bernhard Herman who was the composer of many of the Hitchcock pictures (of his middle period anyway), and I had remembered a movie I'd seen when I was 15 years old called “Hangover Square” for which Herman had written music. It took place in Edwardian England and was a very creepy, creepy , and the music it's itself was sort of creepy. I had that in mind when I was writing this. I just wanted to scare audiences, I thought see if you can because it's very hard to scare people in the theater except turning out the lights and going boo, and I wanted to see if I could do it. On Creating Scary Music: “Well sure, but that's the the principal of composers like Herman who wrote such good scores for movies like “Psycho”. The tension that that he is able to build up. Or take John William’s score for “Jaws”. The music itself sets the audience's nerves on edge even if there's nothing going on on the screen, and Herman was a master at that, and I wanted to see if I could do that in the theater. That's why there's so much music in the piece. As long as you keep the music going, the audience forgets the melodramatics of the story (and you know what an over-the-top story it is because it's a pretty wild story), but if you keep the music going, they will be enthralled and believe what's going on the stage. It's underscoring. It’s all about underscoring, and sometimes it's sung and sometimes it's just underscoring.”

Themes Stephen Sondheim believes that Sweeney Todd is a story of revenge and how it consumes a vengeful person. He has asserted, "…what the show is really about is obsession." (Sondheim & Co., Second Edition, 1986, Zadan, Craig, p. 245, Harper & Row)

Unlike most previous representations of the story, the musical avoids a simplistic view of devilish crimes. Instead, the characters’ “emotional and psychological depths” are examined, so that Sweeney Todd is understood as a victim as well as a perpetrator in the ‘great black pit’ of humanity. (Manning, Peter (2014). "Sonheim's Sweeney Todd: A Study". Thesis, National University of Ireland: pp 7–14)

Hal Prince believed the musical to be allegorical of capitalism and its selfish qualities: "the factory... the terrible struggle to move out of the class in which you're born..." The Industrial Revolution, a fitting setting for the plot, highlighted this with its dehumanising characteristics of mass production and consumption. (“Sondheim Notes: Sweeney Todd.” Larry A. Brown. Retrieved on September 13, 2016.)

Both Sondheim and Prince’s interpretations present a disempowering view of human nature. Therefore, the eager consumption of the show by audiences can perhaps be explained by a “socially guilty” sensationalism (ibid) or a “desire deep down in every man’s heart” to delve into the darker side of ourselves.

Musical analysis Sondheim's score is one of his most complex, with orchestrations by his long-time collaborator Jonathan Tunick. Relying heavily on counterpoint and rich, angular harmonies, its compositional style has been compared to Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofiev, and Bernard Herrmann. Sondheim also utilizes the ancient Dies Irae in the eponymous ballad that runs throughout the score, later heard in a musical inversion, and in the accompaniment to "Epiphany".

According to Raymond Knapp, "Most scene changes bring back 'The Ballad of Sweeney Todd', which includes both fast and slow versions of the 'Dies Irae'" (Knapp, Raymond. "The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity (2009)". Princeton University Press). He also relies heavily on leitmotif - at least twenty distinct ones can be identified throughout the score. Sondheim himself has described the piece as a "black ",("National Initiatives: Great American Voices Military Base Tour – Sweeney Todd" Archived April 18, 2008, at the Wayback Machine. NEA.gov.)

Indeed, only about 20% of the show is spoken; the rest is sung-through. ("Archived copy". Archived from the original on November 13, 2009. Retrieved November 9, 2009.. CaliforniaChronicle.com.)

In his essay for the 2005 cast album, Jeremy Sams finds it most relevant to compare Sondheim's work with that similarly explore the psyche of a mad murderer or social outcast, such as Alban Berg's Wozzeck (based on the play by Georg Büchner) and Benjamin Britten's (1945). On the other hand, it can be seen as a precursor to the later trend of musicals based on horror themes, such as The Phantom of the Opera (1986), Jekyll & Hyde (1997), Little Shop of Horrors (1982) and Dance of the Vampires (1997), which used the description of the trend, "grusical", as its commercial label.

Theatre critic and author Martin Gottfried wrote on this subject: "Does so much singing make it an opera? Opera is not just a matter of everything being sung. There is an operatic kind of music, of singing, of staging. There are opera audiences, and there is an opera sensibility. There are opera houses. Sweeney Todd has its occasional operatic moments, but its music overall has the chest notes, the harmonic language, the muscularity, and the edge of Broadway theater." (Gottfried, Martin. Sondheim (Enlarged and Updated) (2000). Harry N. Abrams, Inc. p. 125.)

Donal Henahan wrote an essay in The New York Times concerning the 1984 New York City Opera production: "The difficulty with Sweeney was not that the opera singers were weaklings incapable of filling the State Theater with sound – Miss Elias, who was making her City Opera debut, has sung for many years at the Metropolitan, a far larger house. The other voices in the cast also were known quantities. Rather, it seemed to me that the attempt to actually sing the Sondheim score, which relies heavily on a dramatic parlando or speaking style, mainly showed how far from the operatic vocal tradition the work lies. The score, effective enough in its own way, demanded things of the opera singers that opera singers as a class are reluctant to produce." Henahan, Donal. "Music View; Why Can't Verdi Voices Handle Sondheim?" Archived March 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.. The New York Times, October 21, 1984.

Orchestration The original Broadway pit consisted of a 26 piece orchestra. (The number of percussionists may vary for different shows, though the percussion book is written for two players).

Strings: 6 Violins, 2 Violas, 2 Celli, 1 Double Bass, 1 Harp Brass: 2 Trumpets, 1 French Horn, 2 Trombones, 1 Bass Trombone Keyboards: 1 Organ/Celesta Woodwinds: Reed 1: Flute, Piccolo. Reed 2: Bb and Eb Clarinet, Flute, Piccolo. Reed 3: Bass Clarinet, Bb Clarinet. Reed 4: Oboe, English Horn. Reed 5: Bassoon. Percussion: (2 Players) 3 Timpani, Bass Drum, Xylophone, Vibraphone, Snare Drum, Tom Toms, Bass Drum with Pedal, Orchestra Bells, Tam-Tam, Chimes, 4 Suspended Cymbals, Wood Block, Crash Cymbals, Bell Tree, Tambourine, Washtub

An alternate orchestration is available from Music Theatre International for a 9 piece orchestra. It was written by Jonathan Tunick for the 1993 London Production.

Strings: 1 Violin, 1 Cello, 1 Double Bass Brass: 1 Trumpet in Bb, 1 French Horn Woodwinds: Reed 1: Clarinet; Reed 2: Bassoon Keyboard Percussion: Bass Drum, Bell Tree, Bells, Chimes, Crotales, Rachet, Side Drum, Snare Drum, Swiss Bell, Tam-Tam, Tambourine, Temple Blocks, Triangle, Tympani, Vibraphone, Whistle, Wood Block, Xylophone

Original orchestrator Jonathan Tunick revised his large orchestration for the 1993 London revival, adding a dirtier, grittier texture to the score's arrangements.

2012 London Revival: 15 piece orchestra.

Strings: 2 Violins, 1 Viola, 1 Cello, 1 Double Bass Brass: 1 French Horn, 2 Trumpets, 1 Trombone Woodwinds: Reed 1: Flute, Clarinet. Reed 2: Oboe, Cor Anglais. Reed 3: Clarinet. Reed 4: Bassoon. Keyboard Percussion

“Attend ” from PBS.ORG Producer: Mark Taylor, KQED Researcher: Christine Murray, Philomel Productions http://www.pbs.org/kqed/demonbarber/index.html

Penny Dreadful: From True Crime to Fiction True or False? Sinister, depraved, monstrous ... true? Was Sweeney Todd a real person, or was he an invented bogeyman? The character has gone from a minor madman in a 19th- century newspaper serial to the melancholy murderer in Stephen Sondheim's beloved Broadway musical. His macabre career as a maniacal frightener of young and old has spanned two centuries, but is it grounded in fact?

For generations, scholars and historians have debated the existence of the Demon Barber. Sweeney Todd's first known appearance in print was in an 1846 "penny dreadful," a type of horror tale of the era published in serial form, The People's Periodical. The razor-wielding barber who turned his victims into meat pies was a secondary character in the : A Romance, written by Thomas Prest. With its bloody killing spree, ghoulish villain and macabre recipe for disposing the evidence, "The String of Pearls" was perfect fodder for the Victorian imagination.

George Dibdin Pitt, a hack playwright of the time who commonly purloined other people's ideas, immediately dramatized Prest's story for the stage. Retitling it The String of Pearls: The Fiend of Fleet Street, Pitt advertised his production one year later as "Founded on Fact." The play, set in the reign of George II (the late 18th century), debuted on March 1, 1847, at the Hoxton Theatre, a London "bloodbath" - a theater specializing in sensational . Ever since, speculation has raged about whether the Demon Barber was man or myth.

There are no clear answers. No public records substantiate the existence of a London barber named Todd in the late 18th century or, for that matter, of a barber shop located on Fleet Street. But there were certainly enough bits and pieces of real-life horror floating around at the time, reported in "The Old Bailey" section of the London Times, as well as other daily newspapers. The public had an enormous appetite for all things gruesome and devoured local news accounts of deeds and nefarious crimes. And because news commonly traveled by word of mouth (much of the population was still illiterate), stories of shocking criminal exploits passed from person to person (with probable embellishment along the way) and were asserted to be "true fact."

To add to the confusion, many penny dreadfuls were fictionalized accounts of real crimes. And Thomas Prest, the writer who first set down Sweeney Todd's name in print, was known to hunt regularly through newspapers for his story ideas.

True Criminals There are several well-documented contemporaneous crimes that share similar themes with the Sweeney Todd legend and could possibly have served as inspiration for Thomas Prest. In December 1784, The Annual Register reported on a barbarous barber near Fleet Street who, in a jealous rage, cut his victim's throat from ear to ear before disappearing into the night.

The Newgate Calendar (or Malefactor's Bloody Register), a five-volume biographical record of notorious criminals housed at Newgate Prison published in the late 1700s, recounted the gruesome story of the renowned (and curiously, similarly named) mass-murderer Sawney Bean, the "Man-Eater of Scotland." Bean was executed along with his entire family for robbing passers-by, then murdering the victims and eating the corpses. Joseph Fouche, who served as Minister of Police in Paris from 1799 to 1815, graphically documented in his Archives of the Police a series of murders committed in 1800 by a Parisian barber. Fouche wrote that the barber was in league with a neighboring pastry cook, who made pies out of the victims and sold them for human consumption. While there is some speculation about the authenticity of this account, the story was republished in 1824 under the headline "A Terrific Story of the Rue de Le Harpe, Paris" in The Tell Tale, a London magazine. Perhaps Thomas Prest, scouring publications for ideas, read about the Paris case and stored it away for later use.

Or perhaps Prest was inspired by a libel suit in 1818 against scandalmonger James Catnatch. Catnatch regularly published rumors, innuendo, false stories and outrageous headlines to drum up business for his one-page news sheets. One banner declaring "A Number of Human Bodies Found in the Shop of a Pork Butcher" nearly drove Drury Lane butcher Thomas Pizzey out of business. Pizzey filed a libel suit against Catnatch in retaliation, which focused a great deal of attention on the publisher's corrupt catchpenny tricks. Court documents described Catnatch as an "evil, wicked" person with a "malicious mind and disposition." The butcher's good name was ultimately restored when the Clerkenwell Court found the publisher guilty and sentenced him to six months in the House of Correction for his crime.

Newspaper, Novel, Blood Fleet Street, the supposed home of the dreaded barber, has long been associated with newspapers, booksellers and the printing industry. Most English people could neither read nor write at the beginning of the 18th century, though literacy grew as printed materials became more readily available. The first newspaper, or "one-sheet," to be published in London was the Daily Courant, which ran from 1702 to 1735. Mass publications like the Courant found an increasing audience, and London had upwards of eight daily newspapers in publication at the century's close.

Books in the 1700s were terribly expensive, being printed and bound by hand, and sold in very limited editions. Few people could afford them, so they were available to the mass market only in serial form or in cheap pirated copies. Episodic stories, which eventually evolved into the English novel, were distributed to the public through newspapers and other printed entertainments. The novel as we know it actually materialized between 1715 and 1750, and was largely the achievement of four professional writers, all of them Londoners. These pioneering works include Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, Samuel Richardson's Pamela, Tobias Smollett's Humphrey Clinker and Roderick Random, and Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (the very same law enforcement pioneer who formed the Bow Street Runners).

This period witnessed a rising interest in the natural sciences. Rather than relying on theories passed down through generations, barber-surgeons began dissecting bodies; botanists went out into fields to collect samples; geologists dug up fossils with their own hands. The more bizarre the discovery, the more the public's curiosity was aroused. So-called Books of Wonder became highly popular, chronicling "strange but true" phenomena such as dwarves, hermaphrodites, and other "memorable accidents and unheard-of transactions." A generation later, when readers were illuminating their books with flickering oil lamps that cast spooky shadows across their heavy Victorian rooms, horror tales became an immensely popular form of entertainment. Monsters, vampires, ladies in distress, sensational criminals and unspeakable acts of terror populated a new type of publication geared toward the masses - the penny dreadful. Also known as bloods and shilling shockers, penny dreadfuls were inexpensive novels published in serial form, usually eight pages at a time. Distributed at newsstands and dry goods stores, they were cheaply made so they could be sold for a penny per copy, hence their name. Penny dreadfuls were gory and violent, with graphic, lurid illustrations. Henry James' The Turn of the Screw was a penny dreadful serialized in 1888. Michael Anglo notes in his book Penny Dreadfuls and Other Victorian Horrors, "There were dark dungeons and torture chambers, sepulchral vaults, secret panels and stairways, cobwebs, and bats. The eerie atmosphere, reeking of the charnel house, was designed to make the hackles rise, the flesh creep, and the blood curdle - no easy task in the days when people were inured to the gruesome and the macabre by the frequent public hangings and floggings, and the sight of criminals' decomposing corpses dangling on gibbets."

Like tabloid newspapers today, penny dreadfuls were churned out at a furious pace. Publishers unscrupulously culled their ideas from whatever sources they could find - popular fiction, legendary tales, newspaper accounts of petty crimes - and embellished these stories with as many gruesome details as possible. The sinister Sweeney Todd made his print debut in issue number 7 of The People's Periodical and Family Library, dated November 21, 1846. He appeared as the villain, an evil, murderous barber, in a serial written by Thomas Prest with the improbable title "The String of Pearls; or the Sailor's Gift. A Romance of Peculiar Interest." Todd was only a secondary character in this story, but his activities earned him the moniker of "the Demon Barber of Fleet Street" right from the first publication.

The Madding Crowd: 18th Century London Unplanned Housing "Here falling houses thunder on your head, And here a female atheist talks you dead." - Samuel Johnson

Every visitor to 18th-century London was impressed by the noise and the throngs of people. But the city itself was neither quaint nor clean. Most residents lived in appalling conditions. After the Great Fire of 1666, which destroyed more than 85 percent of the city, London was rebuilt in a hasty and haphazard manner. Then rapid surge in population - from 675,000 in 1750 to 900,000 just 50 years later - caused enormous pressure on city planners to get buildings up quickly. Houses and tenements were thrown together in a slapdash manner, with little attention to plans or codes. Buildings were patched up, subdivided, and subdivided again to cram as many people into as little square footage as possible, which left a jumble of narrow, unlit passageways between residences and shops. Walking through one of these stinking, airless alleyways - especially after dark - was terribly risky, since the convoluted pattern of streets provided excellent cover for lurking criminals.

According to Richard B. Schwartz's Daily Life in Johnson's London, "The city had become honeycombed with what were intended to be temporary dwellings but which grew to be permanent ones. The scarce available land was continually subdivided. Courts were built upon. Business establishments were cut up into tenements. Hovels and shacks were commonplace. Many of the poor crowded into deserted houses. A sizeable number of the city's inhabitants both lived and worked below ground level."

Commercial streets were no less hazardous. Many London buildings were made with such shoddy materials - crumbling bricks and knotty timber - that it was not unusual for them to collapse. Heavy, pendulous shop signs projected out from storefronts on large iron bars. The signs, regularly whipped by the wind, could create such force that the entire façade of a building would come crashing down. Often this happened on top of passers-by. The din and danger from these creaking signs led the city to pass many ordinances restricting their use.

Streets and Alleys London was filled with the smell of wet horses and the waste materials associated with them. Sanitation was unheard of. Water was unpurified, and raw sewage ran down city streets in open drains. It was common practice for people to empty their chamber pots out of their windows, and to leave garbage out in the street to rot. C.P. Moritz wrote in 1782, "Nothing in London makes a more detestable sight than the butchers' stalls, especially in the neighborhood of the Tower. The guts and other refuse are all thrown on the street and set up an unbearable stink." An amazing variety of filth slopped down London's cobblestone streets. Along with dirt, dust and animal manure, there was the ever-falling London rain to add to the mess. Cesspools of human waste collected in puddles everywhere. Dead animals (dogs, cats, rodents, even horses) were left to decay in the streets. In darker corners of the city, an occasional human corpse might even be found. To add to all this, horse- drawn carriages with heavy metal wheels often splashed through puddles, slopping the street's putrid muck all over strolling pedestrians.

Water and Waste In 18th-century London, water was delivered to the city's residents through hollowed-out tree trunks running beneath the streets. Wealthier customers could buy spring water from private companies, but most residents used the sluggish, murky water of the Thames. Like many European rivers, the Thames was both the source of the city's drinking water and the repository of its discharge. It was also crowded with boats and barges, since it served as the city's main thoroughfare for commercial shipping. No attempt was made to filter the water or protect it from pollution until the middle of the 19th-century.

In 1771, Tobias Smollet wrote, "If I would drink water, I must quaff the mawkish contents of an open aqueduct, exposed to all manner of defilement, or swallow that which comes from the River Thames, impregnated with all the filth of London and Westminster. Human excrement is the least offensive part of the concrete, which is composed of all the drugs, minerals, and poisons used in mechanics and manufacture, enriched with the putrefying carcases of beasts and men, and mixed with the scourings of all the wash-tubs, kennels and common sewers within the bills of mortality."

In fact, water was so suspect that in the first half of the century, a huge gin craze swept London. Gin was tasty, intoxicating, unregulated and cheap. The rule of the day was "Drunk for 1d., dead drunk for 2d., straw for nothing." Gin sellers set up on street corners and along highways, selling to any passer-by who expressed thirst. In London alone, there were 8,000 places where gin was openly sold. Henry Fielding wrote in 1751, "Gin...is the principal sustenance (if it may be so called) of more than a hundred thousand people in this metropolis. Many of these Wretches there are, who swallow Pints of this Poison within the Twenty Four Hours: the Dreadfull Effects of which I have the Misfortune every Day to see, and to smell too."

Sanitation in the 1700s was simply unheard of. Private bathrooms, later known as "water closets," did not exist until late in the century, and even then, they only appeared in the wealthiest of homes. Most London residents used chamberpots, dumping them right outside their windows. The raw sewage would accumulate and stagnate in cesspools until the night soil men came along to clear it all out.

There is no doubt that the sanitation systems, wells and public water supply systems became intermingled. A complex network of sewers did exist in London, but they were designed to carry rainwater rather than sewage. However, records of public complaints suggest that the drains carried much more than that - including the refuse of pigsties and slaughterhouses.

In addition, the city's underground pipes were poorly constructed, so water mains would regularly burst, creating sudden springs on city streets. These springs would carry and mix all of the city's debris together in a sort of running fetid soup that pedestrians would have to slosh through in order to get to their destination.

Coal was the main source of heat and energy in 18th-century England. In 1727, more than 700,000 pounds of coal were delivered to London alone. Residences and factories, tenements and shops, all regularly belched thick clouds of black soot into the city's air.

Coal, Fog, and the Smell of the Grave Much of London was built on top of rank and murky ground. Fleet Street actually started as a marketplace on the covered-over Fleet River, which was known for years by its awful stench. In addition, London cemeteries contained communal graves, or "poors' holes," which were deep enough for seven tiers of coffins, holding three or four coffins in each tier. These pits were left open until they were completely filled with bodies, so the pungent odor of putrefaction wafted about unchecked. Ministers often had to conduct their burial services from a comfortable distance. Churches were also sometimes afflicted by the smell of decaying corpses rising up from their crypts below.

The cinder smoke, mingled with the rank odor of the city's decaying garbage, open sewage, and decomposing corpses, and the stench emanating from the Thames created such a powerful stink that with a proper wind, London could be smelled from several miles away.

Untimely Death "With public executions and public exhibitions of heads and quarters as well as bodies hung in irons, it is clear that the eighteenth century confronted its mortality in a way that is both intense and direct." - Richard B. Schwartz, Daily Life in Johnson's London

With its overpopulation, bad sanitation, and out-of-control housing, London was a breeding ground for bacteria and disease, and death was common. Epidemics, infections and occasional food shortages led to an extraordinarily high mortality rate. Medicine was still quite primitive. In fact, in 1775, more than 800 deaths recorded in the Bills of Mortality were attributed simply to "Teeth." Lice and dirt were everywhere. Soot and grime covered overcrowded tenements. In these circumstances, unbridled disease ran rampant, and even the smallest wound could lead to death by infection.

The connection between personal hygiene and good health was not fully understood. Francis Place wrote that in the 1780s well-off women "wore petticoats of comblet, lined with dyed linen, stuffed with wool and horsehair and quilted...day by day till they were rotten." Baths were extremely rare - in fact, many people considered them harmful. In all six editions of Sir John Flyer's Inquiry into the Right Use of Hot, Cold, and Temperate Baths in England, he never once mentions bathing simply for the sake of cleanliness.

There was also a grave fear of fresh air, in part because of airborne diseases like "consumption," so windows were kept tightly shut. And because entire buildings were taxed according to the number of windows they contained, many landlords sealed them off, with disastrous results for their tenants. There was a seasonal pattern of death. In winter months, when thick, heavy, encrusted clothes were worn day and night, respiratory tuberculosis, influenza and typhus raged. Dysentery and diarrhea came around in the summer, when flies transmitted bacteria from filth to food and water was at its most foul.

Of every 1,000 children born in early 18th-century London, almost half died before the age of 2. Malnutrition, maternal ignorance, bad water, dirty food, poor hygiene and overcrowding all contributed to this extremely high mortality rate. And if an infant did survive, it then faced the perils of childhood - namely malnourishment and ongoing abuse. Many poor children were dispatched to crowded, backbreaking "workhouses" or were apprenticed to tradesmen who used them as unpaid laborers. A Parliamentary committee reported in 1767 that only seven in 100 workhouse infants survived for three years. Stephen Inwood notes in his book The History of London that "workhouse 'apprentices' swept London's chimneys, hawked milk and fruit round its streets, and labored unpaid in the worst branches of tailoring, shoemaking, stocking making, baking, river work and domestic service. Later in the century industrialization offered new outlets and London pauper children were packed off to work in the cotton- spinning mills of Lancashire and Cheshire."

Learned Pigs and Other Diversions The very deformities of London, which give distaste to others, from habit do not displease me. The endless succession of shops where Fancy mis-called Folly is supplied with perpetual gauds and toys, excite in me no puritanical aversion ... I love the smoke of London, because it has been the medium most familiar to my vision. I see grand principles of honor at work in the dirty ring which encompasses two combatants with fists, and principles of no less eternal justice in the detection of a pick- pocket...Where has spleen her food but in London? Humor, Interest, Curiosity, suck at her measureless breasts without the possibility of being satiated. - Charles Lamb, a letter to The Reflector, 1810.

With a population so vast and varied, so hungry for diversion, it is no wonder that London offered every conceivable entertainment to the paying customer. Freaks and curiosities of every kind were on commercial display, from hermaphrodites and dwarfs to operatic cats and acrobatic monkeys. Hand-to- hand combat, puppet shows, conjurers, strange inventions, quack doctors and cock fighting were all popular amusements. There was even a vogue for "learned" animals - pigs, mostly - who purportedly could perform arithmetic, play cards and tell fortunes.

When the real thing was not available, waxworks would do almost as well. Mrs. Salmon's Fleet Street exhibition of historical tableaux and horrific scenes in wax opened in 1711 and prospered for more than a century, until it was outdone by Madame Tussaud's new display in Baker Street. Sex tourists interested in visiting one of London's brothels could even buy a guide book, Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies (1773) to help them find a prostitute that would suit their taste and income.

Bethlehem Royal Hospital (Bedlam), a palatial asylum for lunatics in Finsbury Square, was open to the public until 1770 as a sort of human zoo. Visitors could pay a few pence to enter and gawk at the inmates for as long as they liked. Thousands of sightseers came each year, wandering through the wards and brutally teasing the patients in order to heighten the fun. At one point, Bedlam's governors felt that the sightseers were behaving so badly, they decreed "the doors be locked on public holidays against all visitors."

But it was the spectacle surrounding the punishment of criminals that was perhaps the most anticipated and popular form of mass entertainment. Whippings, floggings, being paraded through the streets in chains and enduring the "pillory" - an open forum for mockery and verbal abuse - were common punishments for petty crimes. Executions were an even more elaborate affair and quite often were set aside as public holidays. Occasionally, engraved invitations would be sent out. On average, around 35 criminals were hanged each year at the infamous Tyburn Tree, and later at Newgate Prison. Monday was the standard execution day so chaplains could spend Sunday evening preparing the condemned. Large crowds of rowdy, jeering onlookers - sometimes in numbers of 30,000 or more (80,000 was the record) - would arrive in the morning to follow the prisoner to the hanging platform. Men, women, children, gentry and paupers alike, all attended these executions in the hopes of witnessing a particularly dramatic declaration, a last-minute reprieve or a courageous, applause-worthy farewell from the doomed "malefactor."

Law and Disorder "The cream of criminal society are the pickpockets, who are to be found everywhere - even in the best company - often clean and well-dressed, so that they may be mistaken for people of some standing. In fact, they may actually be so, for there are men who have fallen into want by reason of extravagance and are reduced to this way of living. After them in order of rank come the highwaymen, who ride on horseback, and often, in their desire to relieve the victim of his purse put him in terror with an unloaded pistol...Then comes the third, the lowest and vilest class of criminal, the footpads. Tragic examples may be read almost daily in English newspapers of poor people met on the road who have been brutally murdered for a few shillings..." - C. P. Moritz, 1782

Dark, circuitous alleys coupled with tall, shadowy buildings and the ever-present shroud of fog made London a criminal's paradise. Outrageous murders, robberies and assaults of all kinds were commonplace. There was no organized law enforcement to speak of - the idea of a uniformed policeman patrolling the streets in order to prevent crime was considered too French (the originator of this scheme) and an affront to the Englishman's liberty. In fact, it was common practice for victims of a crime to pursue the perpetrator, often capturing and delivering the offender to authorities all by themselves.

Thief Taker, Constable, Police For most of the 18th century in England, the word "police" had the general meaning of the management of a particular territory, usually a town or city. Policing was perceived as a local government task, and like other areas of local government, it was a volunteer effort. Local men who took on the position of constable had only a rudimentary understanding of the law. They served in this position for a limited period, usually in their spare time and frequently without pay.

Essentially, constables were neither a preventive nor a detective police force. They had a variety of tasks, the most important of which was the collection of county taxes. Constables were charged with moving offenders from place to place, such as taking an accused prisoner to court. In the process, they sometimes had to house the offender temporarily in their homes.

There was a great deal of hostility to constables in the execution of their duties, and it did not always stop at verbal threats and abuse. And though some could be trusted, many were corrupt. More often than not, they were merely inept and ineffective.

Constables had an obligation to pursue any felonies reported to them and occasionally engaged in primitive detective work. Lucky victims might even find a magistrate, or judge, who was interested in prosecuting the crime committed against them. But this was rare. If a victim could not follow up in person, the offense was likely to languish unpursued. The only remaining choice would be to engage a thief taker. Thief takers were private individuals, much like bounty hunters, who lived off rewards from courts and victims for bringing offenders to justice. However, thief takers were not always trustworthy. Jonathan Wild was a notorious thief taker hanged at Newgate Prison for being in league with the very criminals he was charged with catching.

The first effective police force in England was organized by Henry Fielding (1707 - 54), the novelist and self-styled "principal Westminster Magistrate," and his brother, Sir John Fielding, "the Blind Beak." The brothers were disciplined, committed magistrates who were dedicated to the idea of justice and serving the public interest. They spurned the bribes that gave "the trading justices" their name and went to great lengths to reform the young offenders and prostitutes who came before them. They encouraged victims to come forward with descriptions of criminals and their deeds, they developed a primitive system of record-keeping, and they shared this information with other magistrates. Their methodical efforts effectively banded eight Westminster constables together into the pioneering police force that became known as the Bow Street Runners.

The Bow Street Runners gained the trust of a disillusioned public and soon became widely revered. Reports of crimes and descriptions of offenders flooded in from all over the country. The London office became a central clearinghouse for data about serious crimes. Information was collected and circulated throughout England in the form of a newspaper called The Hue and the Cry. Trial and Punishment The workings of a criminal court in the 18th century were quite different from what we expect today. For one thing, the magistrate often acted more as public prosecutor and chief detective than impartial judge. Between 1750 and 1850 most criminal cases were characterized by face-to-face confrontation between the prosecutor and the accused. Defense counsel rarely appeared. The assumption was that the accused had no need of counsel, since the burden of was on the prosecution and the accused was a greater expert on the truth. When clarification was needed, the trial judge was expected to assist the accused with advice.

Prisoners were not allowed to see the evidence against them before trial, and, once in the courtroom, were not allowed to testify (since they could not be trusted to uphold an oath). They were also not entitled to sum up their defense for the jury, though the prosecution was given the opportunity to make a final statement. Before trial, the prisoner was expected to submit a written defense that was to be read aloud in court. This was a grave disadvantage for the poor and the ignorant, who frequently could neither read nor write.

Some prisoners "stood mute," refusing to answer "guilty" or "not guilty" to the charges against them. In such cases, they would be stretched out on the ground and pressed with crushing lead weights until they spoke. Sometimes they died in the process.

Defense counsel, according to evidence of the Old Bailey Sessions Papers, began to make very rare appearances in criminal trials during the 1730s, but for the 18th century and the early part of the 19th century their role was not strictly defined. It was not until the late 19th century that cross- examination was consistently practiced, with objections to leading questions - but there was still a willingness to allow so-called expert witnesses to give decisive opinions on the whole question of guilt.

Up until 1774, prisoners who were discharged or found not guilty through trial usually had to pay back the expenses related to their imprisonment - these were known as "jailor's fees." Because many could not afford to pay, they found themselves re-imprisoned, this time as debtors. It was a vicious circle.

Punishment

In an age virtually without police, the machinery of law was uncompromising and brutal. In total, 240 offenses were punishable by death, and hanging was prescribed for accessories as well. Punishments ranged from standing in the pillory to branding and whipping to burning (for particularly shameful crimes, like treason). A number of 18th century theorists believed hanging was not punishment enough for felons and proposed "breaking on the wheel" instead. In 1752, a law was passed that required "some further Terror and peculiar mark of Infamy be added to the Punishment of Death" for murder. The convicted murderer was to be kept on bread and water in a special cell, and after execution, his body was to hang in chains before the public, then go to the surgeons for dissection. "Dr. Samuel Johnson was one who saw that capital punishment satisfied a sinister human craving for power over others' lives, but did not really deter crime. Undiscriminating severity simply made criminals more cunning and more desperate, and confused small crimes with great ones." - Clive Elmsley, Crime and Society in Society in England 1750-1900.

Juries were generally loath to convict people for property crimes, since the penalty of death seemed disturbingly harsh. In fact, many victims declined to pursue matters through the legal system out of a sheer unwillingness to see the perpetrators hanged for their offense. However, imprisonment was not considered a reasonable alternative to capital punishment, since it placed young criminals into contact with older, hard-bitten ones, encouraging partnerships. The ingenious idea of transportation became an alternative punishment beginning around 1718. Criminals were deported to the remote colonies of Maryland and on the American shore and, later in the century, were sent off to settle New South Wales, Australia.

Bloodletting: Barber Surgeons and Early Medicine Early Practitioners A mery chylde he was, so god me save Wel coude he let blood, clyppe, and shave. - Chaucer

For centuries, surgery was a craft rather than a profession, and it was often practiced by barbers. In fact, up until the time of Sweeney Todd, a London resident would commonly visit a barber-surgeon for the treatment of a health problem. Besides providing grooming services, barber-surgeons regularly performed dental extractions, bloodletting, minor surgeries and sometimes amputations.

The association between barbers and surgeons goes back to the early Middle Ages when of surgery and medicine was carried out by the clergy. But in 1215, a papal decree ruled that priests could no longer partake in any shedding of blood. Because barbers were accustomed to using a razor, it was presumed that they would be skillful in carrying out any treatment that involved cutting the skin, and so the practice was taught to them.

During the 14th and 15th centuries, the Black Plague wiped out a vast number of university-trained physicians, and barbers became increasingly relied upon for medical procedures. "Flying barbers" traveled from town to town, setting up tents and offering their services. In 1540, Henry VIII united the Company of the Barbers and the Fellowship of Surgeons with a royal decree and created one unified trade guild - the Company of Barber-Surgeons. Barbers and surgeons remained joined in this way for more than two centuries.

The practice of surgery was still in its primitive stage, but new discoveries were being made often. Barbers and surgeons regularly performed anatomical dissections on corpses to further their knowledge and master their craft. Though the guild ultimately divided, associating blood and dissection with the barber could have contributed to the lingering fear of barbers during this period.

In many versions of the Sweeney Todd story - including the 1973 Christopher Bond play - Sweeney Todd is identified as a barber-surgeon. In Bond's version, when Sweeney returns to London, he stages a public competition against another tradesman to see which of them could perform not only the best shave, but also the most deft tooth-extraction.

The Humours Eighteenth century medical practices were primitive and were based on an only rudimentary understanding of the human body. Medicine had changed very little from the days of its pioneering theorists, the ancient Greeks and Romans - Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen. Galen's theory of the four vital "humours" - blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile - was the basis for almost all medical practice. Most doctors did not study their patients' symptoms. Instead, they assumed that if a person was ill, one of their humours was out of balance, and treated the patient accordingly.

Bleeding was the most common course of treatment. The theory went that if you removed the patient's blood, the body would be relieved of that overproduced humour and could then function more freely with what was left. Doctors applied leeches to suck the blood away, or they would engage in "bloodletting" - slicing small cuts in the flesh to allow blood to drain off into bowls. This treatment was recommended for a variety of diseases, including inflammatory fevers, coughs, headaches, rheumatism, abscesses and some forms of heart disease. Bloodletting was also routinely performed as a preventive measure. The diary of an 18th century medical practitioner was typically filled with notes such as "The wight with the Shivered Skull now awake, but very confused in his wits; did bleed him seven ounces, and throw up a Clyster these to divert his blood from his head.”

To encourage blood flow during a bloodletting procedure, the barber-surgeon commonly gave his patient a pole to hold and squeeze. He also used a strip of cloth as a tourniquet, later applied as a bandage when the operation was finished. Originally, when it was not being used, the pole with the bandage wound around it was hung at the barber-surgeon's door as a sign. Later, for convenience, instead of using the actual pole, an imitation was painted and hung outside of the shop. This was the beginning of the modern barber pole.

Surgical Procedures Surgery in the 18th century was hazardous for everyone involved. There were no anesthetics and very little understanding of infection, so even if a patient survived the operating table, they very often died during recovery. Pain management came in the form of a whisky bottle - most patients got drunk to prepare themselves for their operations. Surgeons' assistants often had to physically restrain the patient from leaping off the table and running away. Speed was essential in performing surgery. William Cheldson, the most expert surgeon of his generation, was documented as extracting a stone from a bladder in less than 30 seconds. Nevertheless, the writhing patient screaming, vomiting, fainting, splattering blood and moaning incoherently were the standard sights and sounds of the 18th century surgical theater. One surgeon, John Abernathy, almost never managed to operate without vomiting.

Barbers and Surgeons Part Ways The alliance between barbers and surgeons was always an uneasy one. For centuries, barbers were not interfered with in the practice of surgery and dentistry. But as knowledge progressed and surgeries became more complicated, it became evident that they were attempting too much. It was impossible to expect ordinary human beings to competently practice surgery, dentistry and the various tonsorial operations. People began to complain that the barber-surgeons were making them sick instead of well.

Many barber-surgeons resorted to quackery in order to cover up their ignorance of medicine and anatomy. These abuses came to the attention of the mayor and council of London. The surgeons began to forge to the front of the guild and became increasingly jealous of the privileges accorded the barbers. Every time a surgeon was given a diploma entitling him to practice his profession, the diploma had to be signed by two barbers. The surgeons resented this, but the barbers were very much favored by the monarchs and preserved their privileges until the middle of the 18th century. Henry VIII, Charles II and Queen Anne presented the barber-surgeons with valuable gifts and raised many of them to high offices. As the practice of medicine advanced, the barbers became less and less capable of performing the triple functions of barber-surgeon-dentist. The surgeons wished to be separated entirely from the barbers, and they petitioned parliament to sever the ancient relationship. By an act of parliament, which received the sanction of the king, the alliance between the barbers and surgeons was dissolved in June 1745.

Henry VIII also decreed that the barber-surgeons were entitled to receive the bodies of four executed criminals for dissection for the study and practice of "Anatomies." These dissections were performed publicly four times a year in the Barber-Surgeons Hall, which still stands today in London. Before this decree, physicians only knew about human anatomy from books and theoretical diagrams. Surgeons-in- training dissected animals to perfect their skills at cutting flesh and stitching up wounds, but until the 18th century, no one had trained regularly on the human body.

Dissections were heavily regulated by the Company of the Barber- Surgeons. Only barbers, surgeons, physicians and apprentices were allowed in to observe and learn. There were many rules about what tools could be used and what clothing would be worn by the surgeon performing the dissection. The biggest hazard in this practice was procurement and maintenance of the corpses. While the barber-surgeons guild was entitled to the bodies of four executed criminals per year, there were often fights at the gallows over the bodies. According to the Annals of the Barber-Surgeons, "The practice was for the Beadles to attend at the gallows and select bodies as they pleased. Their opponents were generally the hangman, who himself trafficked in these uncanny goods, the relatives of the criminal, and the populace who were encited by the relatives to resist the Beadles. Many were the unseemly fights which took place over these bodies, and oftentimes when the Beadles secured a 'subject' and were driving off with it in a coach, they were attacked and beaten, and the body rescued from them. The hangman appears to have been entitled to the dead man's clothes, for on more than one occasion the Company gave him compensation for them, they having been torn to pieces in the brutal struggle for possession."

Another hazard referred to in the Annals of the Barber-Surgeons was the discovery that a corpse was not actually a corpse at all. A ruling recorded by the guild in 1587 reads "That if any body which shall at any time hereafter happen to brought to our Hall for the intent to be wrought upon by the Anatomists of our Company shall revive or come to life again as of late hath been seen, the charges about the same body so reviving shall be born levied and sustained by such person or persons who shall so happen to bring home the body. And further shall abide such order or fine as this House shall award." The most notable instance of this kind occurred in 1740 when a 16-year-old boy named William Duell was hanged, then while being prepared for dissection was found to still be living. He recovered fully and was returned by the Company of Barber-Surgeons to Newgate Prison.

As knowledge progressed and more and more discoveries were made about human physiology, anatomies became an increasingly necessary tool in the training of surgeons, and demand for corpses increased dramatically. Four bodies per year was simply not enough. This crisis in "subject matter" led to desperate measures on the part of surgeons. Grave-robbing, though extremely dangerous and punishable by death, became a common part of the surgeon's practice. The diary of one surgeon-in- training dated December 24, 1751 notes "My dissection of the trunk now finished and to wonder where the next subject is to come from; can see that we shall perforce have to Raid that Miserable Graveyard again, unless the Doctor can obtain a copse (sic) from the authorities. It is Intolerable that the progress of our Art should depend upon such uncertain foundations. Have heard that one Professor Rondelet of Montpelier University did for want of subjects dissect the body of his own child before his class; the which I can well believe."

The Play’s The Thing: From Melodrama to Musical For almost two centuries, the enduring legend of maniacal barber Sweeney Todd and his savory human pies has inspired terror in the hearts and minds of the public, whether through the printed page or the theatrical stage.

1825 - The French story of a murderous barber appears in Tell-Tale Magazine under the title "A Terrible Story of the Rue de la Harpe."

1846 - Thomas Peckett Prest serializes the story, retitled “The String of Pearls.” It is published in one of London's penny dreadful newspapers. (The title came from a necklace that Sweeney steals from one of his victims.) Weekly installments of the barber's homicidal exploits become immensely popular.

1847 - The String of Pearls is dramatized by George Dibdin-Pitt. His melodrama, subtitled "The Fiend of Fleet Street," is set in London during the "Reign of George II," or the second half of the 18th century. The play opens at the Britannia Theatre, where audiences demand bloodcurdling entertainments, and is advertised as being "Founded on Fact."

1848 - The enormous success of Dibdin-Pitt's play spawns dozens of imitations. In some, the hero is a dog whose master has met his end via Sweeney's blade. The faithful dog haunts the barber's doorstep and eventually leads authorities to the fiend. These bloody melodramas were continuously produced in and around London throughout the remainder of the 19th century.

1936 - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by George King, becomes the first film version of the story. Todd Slaughter, the film's star, makes a career out of portraying Sweeney Todd on stages around the world.

1959 - The Royal Ballet Company produces a ballet version, with music by Malcolm Arnold and choreography by John Cranko.

1973 - Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Christopher Bond opens at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. This version is seen by composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who recruits book writer to collaborate with him on a musical treatment of Bond's play.

1979 - Sondheim and Wheeler's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street opens at Broadway's Uris Theatre in a production directed by and starring Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou. The recipient of eight Tony Awards, Sweeney Todd is instantly recognized as a landmark in musical theater inspiring productions in both theater and opera companies around the world.

“The barber himself was a long, low-jointed, ill put-together sort of a fellow, with an immense mouth and such huge hands and feet that he was, in his way, quite a natural curiosity; and what was more wonderful considering his trade, there was never such a head of hair as Sweeney Todd's. We know not what to compare it to; probably it came close to what one may supposed to be the appearance of a thick-set hedge in which a quantity of small wire had got entangled.” - The String of Pearls by George Dibdin-Pitt

Up until Christopher Bond's 1973 retelling of the story, Sweeney Todd was a cartoonish, outrageous monster, slashing his way through customers with the exclamation "I'll Polish Him Off!" In early versions of the story, many characters are morally bankrupt, but Sweeney is downright wicked. He kills his first victim for a necklace brought from an exotic land by a sailor. This is the String of Pearls of the original penny dreadful title.

Following standard melodramatic conventions, George Dibdin-Pitt's play of the Sweeney tale contains shocks, thrills and several false endings. Constantly lurking about and cackling, the demon barber eludes capture and escapes at the brink of doom on nine different occasions. At one point, driven mad by what he thinks are the ghosts of his victims, Sweeney breaks down on the witness stand and confesses his wicked deeds to the judge. Sentenced to prison, he leaps at the last minute from the clutches of justice, returning to his shop in search of his treasures. While rooting around in the cellars, he is confronted and overtaken by the surprisingly still-alive romantic sailor-hero of the play's opening, but Sweeney outsmarts him and escapes - again - this time through a secret trap door.

It was Christopher Bond who added another dimension to the Sweeney character and gave him a dose of humanity. The barber's evil plot made more sense when seen as a twisted revenge fantasy being perpetrated against the corrupt society that destroyed his family and deprived him of his freedom. The cruel irony he faces as he holds the beggar woman at the end of the play causes Sweeney to tearfully repent and offers the character some redemption. Bond shows us that he is a madman, but he is human after all.

Mrs. Lovett In all of the early versions of the Sweeney Todd story, including the Dibdin Pitt melodrama, the depraved acts of murder and mayhem are Sweeney's twisted plot alone. Mrs. Lovett is a secondary character, an unfortunate neighbor and reluctant accomplice whom the barber intimidates into helping him. She is greedy, no doubt - she expects half of all the profits from their evil trade - but she is no mastermind. In fact, in Prest's original String of Pearls, Sweeney cuts up the bodies himself, a pieman who never leaves the basement kitchen does all of the cooking, and Mrs. Lovett is simply the oblivious sales force. She is a business partner and has no romantic interest whatsoever in Sweeney Todd.

In later versions of the story, Mrs. Lovett is a collaborator in Sweeney's dreadful business. But though she enjoys the notoriety brought on by her delicious pies, she is plagued by a guilty conscience, which causes her to "seek solace" in the occasional glass of brandy. In these tales, Sweeney poisons Mrs. Lovett's drink, and she conveniently drops dead just as the secret ingredients of her pies are revealed to the gobbling public.

In Dibdin-Pitt's melodrama, Mrs. Lovett turns out to be one of Sweeney's early victims. When she tries to collect her share of the profits and get out of the business, Sweeney stabs her in a rage and throws her into the bakehouse fire. In fact, Mrs. Lovett is disposed of before the halfway mark of the play - she dies in the second act of a four-act production. Christopher Bond fleshes out Mrs. Lovett in his retelling, giving her a sneaky intelligence. It is she who preserves Sweeney's barbering tools after he is sent away, and she is the one who informs him about the fate of his family upon his return. And it is Mrs. Lovett who is the architect of the devious pie-making plot. Bond also gives her an open romantic interest in the barber, which better explains her willingness to cook up his victims.

Tobias Ragg In George Dibdin-Pitt's melodrama, there is a bit of class warfare brewing under the surface, and becomes one of many heroes at the end of the play. He begins as Sweeney's apprentice, sold into pseudoslavery by his destitute mother. Sweeney treats him terribly, and when Tobias begins to notice the extraordinary number of unclaimed hats and umbrellas piling up in the barbershop, Sweeney locks him up in Jonas Fogg's lunatic asylum. Tobias eventually escapes with the help of another young apprentice, Jarvis, who has broken out of his own entrapment in Mrs. Lovett's dungeon kitchen. In the original play, it is Jarvis who is offered all the pies he can eat by Mrs. Lovett, and who discovers their true recipe when he bites down on a hair and a button. In the Bond version, the Tobias character subsumes all of the other apprentices and minor-heroes, and he unearths the ghastly truth alone.

Interestingly, it is the two apprentices - Tobias and Jarvis - who successfully bring Sweeney to justice in Dibdin-Pitt's melodrama. The play ends with the boys wrestling Sweeney into his evil, trick barber chair. At that same moment, the romantic hero - the sailor with the original string of pearls - enters the shop, revealing himself to still be alive despite having been dumped twice in earlier scenes by the demon barber's chair. Sweeney meets his final demise with a cacophonous shriek as he is flung into the dungeon by his very own chair, acting of its own accord. The lovers, Johanna and the sailor, are restored to one another, and Tobias Ragg and his fellow apprentices are set free.

In Christopher Bond's play, Tobias becomes the street-hawking apprentice of a rival barber-surgeon, Alfredo Pirelli. After Pirelli turns up missing, Mrs. Lovett offers the boy a job helping to sell her pies. Ignorant of their true contents, Tobias is a masterful promoter, and works eagerly for all the pies he can eat. He is, however, bothered by the strange smell coming from the piehouse cellars. When Mrs. Lovett begins to fear he may suspect the truth, she asks Sweeney to get rid of him. Instead, Sweeney convinces her to enlist his help with the making of the pies. Once he is locked in the cellar, Tobias' curious nose leads him to his staggering, gruesome discovery.

Johanna The heroine and fiancée of the sailor in Prest's String of Pearls, Johanna originally had no relation to Sweeney Todd other than circumstance. Nevertheless, through all the retellings over the years, Johanna has consistently been portrayed as an intelligent, strong-minded and courageous girl. In most versions of the story, she sets out on her own to find her missing lover, hiding her true identity, eavesdropping and digging up clues. In some early penny dreadfuls, Johanna, disguised as a boy, is even hired by Sweeney to be his apprentice after Tobias has been packed off to the asylum.

Christopher Bond strengthens the relationship between Johanna and Sweeney Todd, making her his long-lost daughter, though she is not aware of their relationship until the final moments of the play. Imprisoned in the house of the disgusting Judge Turpin, her self-appointed guardian, she refuses the old man's overtures of marriage and pursues, with characteristic single-mindedness, her true love, Anthony Hope. When the despicable Beadle locks her up in the lunatic asylum, she is the one who shoots Jonas Fogg, enabling her and her lover to escape. Though she is no damsel-in-distress, it is important to note that Bond unravels the plot in such a way that Johanna is never fully aware of Sweeney's heinous crimes.

Judge Turpin In many penny dreadful versions, Sweeney Todd is ultimately captured, and a judge sentences him to death for his crimes. In the Dibdin-Pitt melodrama, a lazy, corrupt judge appears in the final act, but he has very little significance to the story. More prominent is Dr. Aminadab Lupin, a lecherous preacher who is often drunk and chasing after women, while acting pious and quoting scriptures. He is the precursor of Judge Turpin. Dr. Lupin lusts after Johanna and flirts recklessly with Mrs. Lovett, at one point promising to marry her. Described in the credits as "A wolf in sheep's clothing," he is the comic element in the midst of Dibdin-Pitt's horror-tragedy. Late in the play, a minor character reveals that Dr. Lupin is actually married already - to a woman from the West Indies. The hidden wife then makes a surprise entrance with her five dark children - at which point the stage directions call for Lupin to "run about, followed by blacks."

The Beadle The Beadle does not exist in any of the early versions of the demon barber story, nor does he appear in the Dibdin-Pitt melodrama. But he is clearly born out of the duplicity and hypocrisy displayed by such penny dreadful characters as Dr. Lupin and Jonas Fogg. In the Christopher Bond play, the Beadle is a cunning ally of the judge in his plot against Sweeney Todd, and he achieves an equal level of dastardliness himself. The Beadle also serves as another tasty victim for the demon barber. As in the original String of Pearls, the growing intensity of the odor rising from the basement kitchen underneath Mrs. Lovett's pie shop begins to arouse suspicion, so the Beadle is sent to investigate. It doesn't take long for Sweeney to even the score.

Anthony Hope Originally called Mark Ingestrie in Prest's String of Pearls, Anthony Hope is the hero of the play and Johanna's true love. In early dreadfuls, Mark Ingestrie is a mariner five years at sea. He returns with a valuable necklace, which Sweeney covets and (apparently) kills for. Once Ingestrie disappears over the back of Sweeney's trick barber chair, the main story is set into action, with Johanna hot on the trail of her missing lover, and other minor-heroes continually on the brink of uncovering the evil deeds of the demon barber. As in all melodramas, the romantic hero is indestructible. After three seemingly catastrophic confrontations with the razor-wielding barber (one in each act), Mark Ingestrie reappears alive and well in the final scene of the play. Right is restored, Sweeney Todd is disposed of and the lovers are reunited. A happy ending for all.

Bond makes his hero more complex. Anthony Hope is still a sailor, but he is no longer Sweeney's adversary. He is a sympathetic friend to the barber, helping him to re-establish his life and grooming trade. And even though he catches glimpses of Sweeney's darker side, he is never fully aware of the barber's deadly rampage. Likewise, Sweeney does not view Anthony Hope as a threat. Unlike earlier penny dreadfuls, the barber never tries to get the sailor into his terrible chair. Anthony's main concern is outmaneuvering the crooked Beadle and the conniving Judge Turpin so that he can be with Johanna. Sweeney and Anthony even devise a plan together to rescue Johanna from Jonas Fogg's asylum. Ultimately, it is Anthony who breaks the news to his love about who her father is and, out of respect for Sweeney, insists that the two of them pay a call on the barbershop to ask for his blessing on their marriage.

Adolfo Pirelli does not appear in early versions of the Sweeney Todd legend. Christopher Bond invented this quack barber-surgeon to give Sweeney a way to show off his barbering prowess. Later in the play, Pirelli, a corrupt and contemptible inhabitant of London (like so many of the characters), tries to blackmail Sweeney, setting off the demon barber's killing spree. Pirelli is also the inspiration for (and presumably the initial filling of) Mrs. Lovett's meat pies.

Beggar Woman The Beggar Woman is original to the Christopher Bond play, though she may have some roots in earlier versions of the legend. In the Dibdin-Pitt melodrama, there is a minor character named Mrs. Oakley who is Johanna's mother. While Mr. Oakley, Johanna's father, helps bring about Sweeney's downfall, Mrs. Oakley is more of a device to show how effective Dr. Lupin has been in fooling his neighbors into thinking he is a decent, upstanding man. Another minor female character in the Dibdin-Pitt play is Mrs. Poorlean, who is a serving wench in the prison where Sweeney is briefly incarcerated. She is described in the credits as being "an unfortunate woman." Her misfortune seems to be that she has lost two husbands and enjoys the attentions of the degenerate Dr. Lupin.

In the Bond play, the Beggar Woman is a mysterious oracle whose warnings herald the dark intrigues of the pie shop. And the revelation of her true identity brings about the climactic transformation of Sweeney Todd at the end of the play.

19th Century Melodrama (from Brockett, Oscar G. History of the Theatre. 5th edition.)

Origins Although melodramatic works, most often in the form of tragicomedy or pastoral, can be traced back to classical Greece, the term melodrama did not come into widespread use until after 1800. […] The popularity of Pixerecourt’s works (in combination with Kotzebue’s) established melodrama as the dominant dramatic type of the nineteenth century.

Basic Characteristics • A virtuous hero (or heroine) who is relentlessly hounded by a villain and is rescued from seemingly insurmountable difficulties only after he or she has undergone a series of threats to his or her life, reputation, or happiness. • An episodic story unfolds rapidly after a short expository scene. • Each act ends with a strong climax. • All important events occur on stage and often involve elaborate spectacle (such as battles, floods, or earthquakes) and local color (such as festivals, dances, or picturesque working conditions) • They typical plot devices include disguise, abduction, concealed identity, and strange coincidence • Strict poetic justice is meted out, for, although he may succeed until the final scene, the villain is always defeated. • Comic relief is provided by a servant or companion to one of the principal characters. • Song, dance and music provide additional entertainment or underscore the emotional values of scenes. • Simple, powerful stories; unequivocal moral tone; elements drawn from popular entertainment • Responsible for bringing into the 19th century theatre a large popular audience comparable to that enjoyed by motion pictures and television in the 20th century.

English Melodrama • Was characteristically three acts, accompanied by a musical score • Until the 1820s, majority of melodramas were rather exotic (usually either set it some remote time or place, or because they featured the supernatural or highly unusual.) • Pierce Egan’s Life in London (1821) dramatized by Egan and others as Tom and Jerry, or Life in London, began a trend toward melodrama of contemporary life and local color. o Egan’s work featured a number of well-known places in London, and told a story based on everyday events. • Trend begun by Egan was developed by Jerold, Fitzball and Buckstone. o Douglas William Jerrold (1803-1857) - “nautical” melodramas; Black-Eyed Susan, one of the most popular plays of the century o Edward Fitzball (1792-1873) – initiated the trend of melodramas based on actual crimes. o John Baldwin Buckstone (1802-1879) – helped to popularize the “domestic” melodrama. • Domestic themes began to dominate after 1830. • Until around 1840, melodrama mostly appealed to the “unsophisticated” theatregoer. • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) – introduced the “gentlemanly” melodrama, to attract a more discriminating audience

Crime and Punishment Criminal law One topic which touched most citizens was the criminal law. In 1811 there had been a brutal multiple murder in the east end of London, which brought about a debate about policing. Until then the law had been enforced, with varying degrees of efficiency, by unpaid constables and watchmen appointed by each parish. London began to be seen as the haunt of violent, unpunished criminals, which was bad for trade. The Metropolitan Police At last, in 1829, the Metropolitan Police force was established, their headquarters in Scotland Yard, just off Whitehall. Their uniform made them look more like park‐keepers than soldiers, to allay the fears of those who feared law enforcement by a centrally controlled military such as existed on the continent. They walked their beats in top hats and blue swallow‐tailed coats, armed only with truncheons. It took several years for them to be popularly accepted; some people looked back with regret to the old days of corruption and inefficiency. But even the City of London agreed, after initial resistance, to remodel its own police force on New Police lines.

The Metropolitan Police Act of 1839 gave them wide powers. Small boys could be arrested for bowling hoops or knocking on doors, street musicians could be arrested just for playing. But London became a safer and quieter place. In 1869 their powers were extended to allow them to raid brothels and similar dens of vice.

In 1851 opponents of the Great Exhibition gloomily foretold that it would attract criminals, assassins and revolutionaries from all over Europe. In the event, the law enforcement officers greatly outnumbered the criminals. Only 12 pickpockets were arrested, foreign visitors were astounded to see the Queen walking calmly through the crowds without a military escort, and several of the foreign detectives who had crossed the Channel to watch for suspected foreign criminals went to watch for them on English race courses, instead.

By 1860 boroughs and counties outside London had their own police forces. They were still locally organized, because of the in‐built English resistance to the idea of a central force such as existed on the Continent, but they were partly funded by grants from the central government.

Criminal trials Few trials lasted longer than two days. Public interest, stirred up by the popular newspapers, could be intense. Tickets were issued to those who knew the right people, such as diplomats and fashionable ladies, but even so the court room could be so crowded that the ticket‐holders had to share the dock with the accused.

The prisons What could you expect after arrest? – a very gloomy future.

In the previous century Jeremy Bentham had dreamt up a novel idea for a prison construction: a 'Panopticon', built in a star shape with radiating wings, so that daylight and fresh air reached every cell and, more importantly, the warders could oversee every wing from a central core. They were certainly an improvement on the old medieval prisons. Bentham’s first creation, Millbank, had been built in 1821. Pentonville prison was built on the edge of the built‐up area of north London, on a semi‐circular radial plan, in 1842.

Every prisoner had a cell to himself, with adequate washing facilities, which present‐ day inmates of overcrowded prisons might envy. But they would not envy the prison regime, known as the ‘separate system’. It involved depriving a prisoner of all human contact; shutting him up in his cell except for brief exercise periods, masking his face, and forbidding him to speak. This compulsory silence was believed to lead to moral regeneration as the wretched prisoner contemplated his moral failings. There were, it had to be admitted, quite a few suicides.

Transportation The huge number of capital offences with which the reign began had been pruned to only two, murder and treason, by 1861. When death was no longer the inevitable sentence for minor crimes, what was to be done with the prisoners? The colonies came in useful here. The main receiving territory was Australia: an average of 460 convicts were sent there each year, but some were sent to Gibraltar, or fever‐ridden Bermuda. In 1853 the colonies refused to accept England's convicts any longer, and sentences were converted to hard labor in English prisons instead. The hulks

There was a shortage of prison accommodation. Long term prisoners were transferred to provincial prisons, or to the dreaded Hulks – decommissioned warships anchored in the mud off Woolwich. They were dark, damp and verminous. Few prisoners managed to escape.

Executions Executions were still public. Thomas Cook ran excursion trains to promising executions. 30,000 people watched the hanging of a notorious pair of murderers, in 1849, including Charles Dickens, who watched from the roof of a house overlooking the gallows. He then famously sent a letter to the Times, condemning public executions and their use as popular entertainment. It took another 20 years before hangings would be conducted within prison walls.

The common law England was proud of its individuality. Napoleon had imposed a codified system of law throughout his continental Empire, based on Roman law. In theory any citizen anywhere in his domain could consult a written source and see where he stood. Of course it was not so easy as that, and the legal profession continued to make a good living, interpreting the law to non‐lawyers. England never accepted Roman law. The English preferred their own system of ‘common law’, which was, they felt, appropriate to the rugged English character. It relied on what judges had decided in previous cases on the same point of principle, which was not always easy to identify. The law relating to wills and land, in particular, became so obscure that a parallel system grew up, more nearly related to the idea of abstract justice: it was called ‘equity’. Again, it relied on decisions by earlier judges, and since one judge’s idea of justice might vary from another’s, not much clarification resulted. Cases in the courts of equity could drag on for many years. The costs of employing lawyers put such cases out of the reach of all but the richest.

(The British Library - https://www.bl.uk/victorian-britain/articles/victorian-prisons-and-punishments)

Types of Punishment - Transportation and Penal Servitude The alternative to hanging was transportation, where convicted criminals were sent to the colonies to serve their sentence. Any criminal with a sentence of 7 years or longer could be transported. Later in the Victorian Period this was replaced with Penal Servitude.

After the 1853 Penal Servitude act, only long-term transportation was retained and transportation was finally abolished after the Penal Servitude act of 1857, although some were still transported after this date.

Penal servitude means 'Serving a sentence that is meant to punish the prisoner'. Penal Servitude was a term of imprisonment that usually included hard labour and was served in this country. This gradually replaced transportation following the 1853 and 1857 Penal Servitude Acts.

The sentence for penal servitude could range from 3 years to life; it was for those convicts who would have been transported for less than 14 years. It could also be used as an alternative sentence for those liable to transportation of 14 years or more.

Sentences of 7 years transportation or less were substituted by penal servitude for 4 years; 7 to 10 years transportation by 4 to 10 years; 10 to 15 years by 6 to 8 years' penal servitude; over 15 years' transportation by 6 to 10 years' penal servitude; transportation for life by penal servitude for life.

Therefore records tended to put transportation and penal servitude together. This clumsy system of converting transportation to penal servitude equivalents was theoretically ended by the Penal Servitude Act of 1857; subsequently prisoners were sentenced directly to penal servitude if found guilty of offences that formerly warranted transportation. However, in practice, convicts were still being transported as late as 1867, so there continued to be a hazy overlap between the sentencing of transportation and penal servitude for many years.

In some cases the Bedford Gaol records list both 'penal servitude and transportation' as the sentence. It is likely that prisoners sentenced to 7 years or more, before 1853, were transported but after 1867 served their sentence in English prisons. Between 1853 and 1867, for sentences of 7 years or more, either sentence or elements of both could have been used.

Only by tracing what happened to individuals is it possible to determine where their final sentence was actually served. For examples within the GAOL databases, try searching on Henry Catlin (1843); William Jones (1861); and Walter Pratt (1864).

Evidence from the records held at Fremantle Prison, Western Australia, show that prisoners sentenced to Penal Servitude but who were, in fact, transported, could return to England at the end of their sentence.

(http://vcp.e2bn.org/justice/page11360-types-of-punishment-transportation-and-penal-servitude.html)

Convict Life In Australia After the convicts had been formally handed over into the charge of the governor, the prisoners were often segregated, with the most hardened criminals being sent to special prisons or areas. The rest acted as servants to the settlers or carried out hard labour in gangs.

By day, the prisoners were supervised by a military guard and convict overseers and, at night, they were locked up in small wooden huts behind stockades. Convict discipline was harsh. For those convicts who committed further offences in the colony, punishments were brutal. There was the cat o'nine tails: fifty lashes was a common punishment. Equally feared was time on the chain gangs where, shackled in ankle irons or chains (weighing ten pounds or more), convicts were employed in the back-breaking work of making new roads.

If convicts continued to cause trouble in Australia, they were sent to more isolated penal colonies or prisons. At remote places such as Norfolk Island, Port Macquarie and Moreton Bay, discipline could be very severe. There they were forced to work from dawn to dusk at backbreaking tasks. If they disobeyed or tried to escape, they were whipped, chained in irons or sometimes executed. At Norfolk Island the 'harshest possible discipline short of death' was imposed. So unpleasant were the conditions, that rebellions and uprisings were a regular occurrence.

Most convicts were assigned to settlers and 'emancipated' (freed) convicts, after an application for a convict servant or worker was lodged with the Governor. Well behaved convicts could apply or petition the governor to have their families brought out from England and, in some cases, they could be assigned to work for their free settler families.

Female convicts were usually assigned to domestic service. Troublesome female prisoners were sent to the Female Factory, where they made rope and span and carded wool. The accommodation was very basic and barrack like. In time, the work done in the female factories became less difficult with needlework and laundry becoming the main duties.

Many women would marry as quickly as possible. Martin Cash described how this would happen in 1828 in . .."any man wanting to marry one of the girls would apply. The girls were lined up at the Factory and the man would drop a scarf or handkerchief at the feet of the woman of his choice. If she picked it up, the marriage was virtually immediate."

Large numbers of boy convicts aged between 9 and 18 were sent to Tasmania in the early 1830s. They were often too small for the rough work of land clearance and road building. As their number grew, a separate Boys' Establishment was built at Point Puer. Conduct registers were kept and convicts that worked hard could obtain their 'ticket of leave' (a document given to convicts when granting them freedom to work and live within a given district of the colony, before their sentence expired or they were pardoned). Under a TOL, church attendance and appearance before a magistrate was compulsory, but they could own property.

Conditional Pardons freed convicts and were granted on the condition that convicts did not return to England or Ireland. Absolute Pardons allowed convicts to return to England as their sentences were totally cleared. Certificates of Freedom were introduced in 1810 and issued to convicts at the completion of their sentence.

(http://vcp.e2bn.org/justice/page11384-convict-life-in-australia.html)

The Arrival of Prisoners at Botany Bay Penal Colony Botany Bay is an inlet of the Tasman Sea in eastern Australia, near the city of Sydney, New South Wales. Near the bay are the facilities for the Kingsford Smith International Airport. Botany Bay National Park and the Towra Point Nature Reserve are also located at Botany Bay. In 1770, the inlet (which was initially called Stingray Bay) was the landing site of British explorer and navigator James Cook (1728–1779) and his ship, the HMS Endeavour. Captain Cook's landing is generally considered the beginning of England's exploration and eventual colonization of Australia. The name Botany Bay was given to the bay in reference to the abundance of plant life (as in botany, the scientific study of plants) that was discovered by Cook's crew.

In 1788, British naval officer Arthur Phillip (1738–1814) captained another English fleet consisting of eleven ships into Botany Bay to establish a penal colony for England and its colonies. Finding a better site north of Botany Bay, and with a French expedition in fast pursuit, Phillip sailed to Sydney Cove (an area now called New South Wales). About 780 prisoners were delivered to the site. Two more fleets of ships with convicts arrived in 1790 and 1791. From 1788 to 1823, the site at New South Wales was officially recognized as an English penal colony. It consisted of convicts (who were called transportees), marines, and wives of the marines. Although never built at Botany Bay, the Australian penal colony at Sydney Cove was popularly referred to as Botany Bay by the people of England.

During this time, Phillip, who was now the colony's governor, established a system where all convicts were worked according to their abilities to help develop the British colony. They worked as carpenters, cattlemen, farmers, nurses, servants, and at other necessary occupations. The prisoners constructed public facilities such as bridges, buildings, hospitals, and roads, and worked at various occupations for free settlers and landowners.

About 162,000 male and female prisoners were sent to Botany Bay between 1788 and 1868, the last year that convicts were sent there. Most prisoners at Botany Bay were from England, Ireland, or Scotland, but some were from other colonies of England such as Canada, India, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and the countries of the Caribbean Sea. Many prisoners were sent to Botany Bay for such crimes as desertion, insubordination and mutiny (in the case of soldiers), and larceny and robbery (for the general population). People convicted of crimes were often sent to Botany Bay in order to reduce the population of England, as a way to deal with increasing poverty, and to purge the country of its most undesirable citizens.

By 1868, the English population of Australia stood at about one million. By this time, the population of the country was large enough so that the island country could sustain itself without the introduction of additional convicts.

The Industrial Revolution began in England in the middle part of the eighteenth century. It greatly strengthened many sectors of the English economy. However, it hurt the rural areas when young workers left to pursue the enormous monetary opportunities available in urban factories. Even the industrializing cities of England did not have enough jobs for all the potential job seekers. For example, between 1750 and 1770, the city of London doubled in population. By the end of the century, England had large numbers of able-bodied but unemployed people concentrated in its largest cities. With this condition growing, crime became an increasing problem in England.

Most historians contend that the English government sent prisoners to Botany Bay as a way to deal with overpopulation, poverty, and an overcrowding prison population in England. The costs of transporting convicts to Australia were considered less than the cost of continuing to deal with them on English soil. Other historians state that convicts were sent to Botany Bay in order to provide the inexpensive labor needed to establish a colony in Australia. A colony in Australia would provide England with a naval base, enhance overseas trade, and provide flax and timber products (which were both important to England's economy).

Due to the lack of equipment and materials sent with the prisoners onboard the ships and the small number of skilled workers (such as bricklayers and carpenters) included among the convicts, it is generally considered that the Botany Bay Penal Colony was established to reduce the unwanted and undesired criminal population from England and its colonies. For whatever reason, removing prisoners from England and its colonies to the remote island of Australia was a good way to solve the growing problem of criminals on English lands.

(https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/arrival-prisoners- botany-bay-penal-colony)

Beadles In some parts of London constables were assisted in their duties by beadles. A beadle was a minor officer employed to communicate orders and execute them, and can be found in a wide range of eighteenth-century institutions. In terms of policing, beadles carried out an important role in the City of London and Westminster, the focus of this section. Beadles also appear frequently in the records on this website as parish officers, responsible for summoning Coroners' Inquests and carrying out the orders of churchwardens and overseers of the poor, and as officers of Bridewell Hospital, implementing the orders of the Court of Governors.

Within the City, beadles were long-established ward officers. The office was a full-time job with a salary, and many served in the post for years, sometimes also acting as constables. Many had subordinates, called warders, who acted as their assistants. Their responsibilities included a range of policing activities: organising and supervising the night watch; controlling crowds; prohibiting the sale of goods on Sundays; prosecuting nuisances; arresting and prosecuting prostitutes, beggars and vagrants; and even arresting men and women on more serious charges. The Minutes of the Bridewell Court of Governors include many men and women accused of petty offences who had been committed directly by ward beadles (from 1785, however, beadles lost the power to make commitments on their own). https://www.londonlives.org/static/Policing.jsp Magistrates and Judges In the 19th century the passing of sentences and the punishing of criminals was carried out either by the Justices of the Peace/Magistrates for summary and less serious indictable offences or by High Court Circuit Judges, who presided over the more serious crimes, including capital offences.

Lay Magistrates or Justices of the Peace Lay magistrates, or Justices of the Peace, date back to the 12th century, when Richard I commissioned certain knights to preserve the peace in unruly areas. They were known as Keepers of the Peace, acquiring the title of Justices of the Peace in 1361, by which time they had authority to arrest suspects, investigate alleged crimes and punish offenders. The act provided that JPs should meet to conduct local business four times a year. This was the origin of Quarter Sessions.

For centuries, they also had local administrative responsibilities. They fixed wages, built and controlled roads and bridges, and oversaw other local services. Those appointed to the Commission were usually land owners or men of great substance, whose social position and economic power meant their authority would not be questioned. As landowners, the JPs had the reputation of being particularly tough on poachers.

Usually their study of the law did not go very deep and 'Stipendiary magistrates' were introduced in the mid-eighteenth century in London. They were legally qualified, either as barristers or solicitors. This was largely to replace the corrupt JP's. In the early 19th century they were also appointed to some of the other large metropolitan areas to complement, not to replace, the lay bench.

The movement of population to the towns, in the 19th century, saw the 'county families' move out of the newly urbanised districts into neighbouring countryside and, in the second half of the 18th Century, a large number of clergymen served as Justices to make up the numbers. Many of these clerical Justices played an important part in improving conditions in county gaols. In 1832, of the 5,300 active JPs, one in every four was in holy orders.

The 'Circuit' Judges Whereas the JP's or Magistrates had only local responsibilities, a circuit or high court judge could preside over legal matters brought to court in any location. And, just like today, they also had a professional grounding in the law.

The year 1286 saw the start of a judiciary with professional, legal experience when a serjeant (high ranking defender or advocate) became a judge. For many years after this, serjeants were selected as judges until they were overtaken in popularity by barristers and solicitors.

During the turbulent 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, Judges stood apart from political issues and were largely unaffected by the changes in government. By the early Stuart period, assize judges on the six circuits in England, were mainly dealing with the most serious crimes not normally handled by the local Quarter Sessions. This situation remained into the 19th century.

Although specific punishments available depended on the offence for which the defendant was convicted, the judges had considerable flexibility in choosing punishments, often leading to a haphazard and inconsistent sentencing across the country.

In trial cases where lawyers were not present (a common occurrence in the early 19th century), judges also played a major role in conducting trials. They examined witnesses and the accused. Their summing up of the case often clearly stated their views on what the potential outcome should be. Sometimes judges would also place pressure on juries, asking them how a verdict had been reached or asking them to reconsider it.

(http://vcp.e2bn.org/justice/page11442-magistrates-and-judges.html)

Mid-19th Century Life in London Clothes and fashion Men's Dress By the early 19th century men's fashions had also undergone a radical change. The coat still finished in long tails at the back but was cut higher in front. The waist-length square-cut waistcoat showed beneath it. The lining of the shoulders and upper chest of the coat was sometimes quilted to improve the fit. In the early 19th century some dandies wore boned corsets to give them a small waist.

Gradually men adopted long trousers rather than knee breeches. Trousers became increasingly fashionable in the first quarter of the 19th century. At first they were only worn for day and informal dress but by the 1820s they were acceptable for evening wear. Breeches continued to be worn at court.

The tall hat from the late 18th century was still worn and developed into the top hat which was worn for day and formal dress throughout the 19th century. Hair was carefully styled into a windswept look or worn short and curled.

During the second half of the 19th century men retained the white waistcoat and black tail-coat and trousers of the early 19th century for evening wear. For day wear they wore a frock coat with straight trousers, a short waistcoat and a shirt with a high stiff collar. The single- or double-breasted frock coat fitted quite closely to the torso and had a waist seam. The skirts were straight and finished at mid-thigh or below. The front of the coat was square cut. Hair was still styled but by the late 19th century it was short and cut close to the head. Many men had beards and moustaches.

Women's Dress As the 19th century progressed women's dress gradually revealed the actual form of the body. In the 1820s and 1830s the waistline deepened, returning to its natural position. As the natural waist returned the bodice required a tighter fit and in contrast the skirt became fuller and bell- shaped. There were several different sleeve styles but short puffed sleeves were generally worn for evening and long sleeves for day. Corsets continued to be worn. These were lightly boned and quilted, with a deep busk. Several layers of petticoats with frilled hems, sometimes of horsehair, were worn to support the full skirts. Some petticoats of the 1840s were feather-quilted. Later examples of the 1850s and 1860s were made of 'crin' and steel hoops. The term 'crinoline' is derived from the French word crin which means horsehair.

(Left: This fashion plate from 'Ladies' magazine of 1801 shows the characteristic high waistline of the time. Museum no. E.249- 1955. © Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

(Below: Dress with a pattern that complements the shape created by the cage crinoline worn underneath it. Museum no. T.702-1913. © Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Bonnets or hats were worn outdoors and linen caps indoors. During the 1820s hair styles became very elaborate with raised top knots and the crowns of bonnets or hats were designed to accommodate them. By the middle of the century, by contrast, hairstyles had become smooth with a central parting finished with ringlets on either side of the face and a small bun at the back or simply swept back from the face to a chignon (a mass of hair arranged on a pad at the back of the head and held in place with a net or snood). Bonnets and hats continued to be worn until the 1860s when small, elegant styles appeared which simply perched on top of the head. Even smaller hats appeared in the 1870s when hairstyles rose in the form of elaborate chignons. In the 1880s and 1890s hairstyles remained `up' but did not retain the heights or bulk of the 1870s styles. Small hats decorated with birds and feathers and artificial flowers were fashionable.

In the 1860s the skirt was very full and worn over a cage crinoline, a petticoat supported by a frame of steel hoops that held it away from the legs. A boned corset was worn over a chemise. Large shawls were sometimes worn indoors or outdoors instead of a coat or cloak. The 1870s to 1880s introduced styles that revealed the natural silhouette. A popular style was the `princess line' dress, which was made without a waist seam to reveal the figure. Skirts fitted tightly and required streamlined all-in-one underwear combinations. Corsets became longer and were more rigidly boned. The busk, known as the spoon busk because of its shape, extended to the stomach. Sleeves were tight. In the 1880s a bustle pad, or a tier of stiffened horsehair or fabric frills, was introduced. After 1887-1888 the bustle went out of fashion. Hair was curled on top and taken into a bun at the back. Often a ringlet was brought forward over the shoulder as a finishing touch.

1840s - Women 1840s fashion is characterised by low and sloping shoulders, a low pointed waist, and bell- shaped skirts that grew increasingly voluminous throughout the decade. Evening dresses were often off the shoulder. Hair was parted in the centre with ringlets at the side of the head, or styled with loops around the ears and pulled into a bun at the back of the head. Paisley or crochet shawls were fashionable accessories, as were linen caps with lace frills for indoor wear, and large bonnets for outdoors. Capes with large collars were fashionable. 1840s - Men Very fashionable men sported low, tightly cinched waists, with rounded chests and flared frock-coats that gave them a rather hour-glass figure inspired by Prince Albert. They also wore tight trousers and waistcoats, with high upstanding collars and neckties tied around them. Hair was worn quite long, but swept to the sides. Moustaches and side-burns were popular.

1850s - Women In the 1850s, women's skirts were domed and bell-shaped, supported by crinoline petticoats.They often featured deep flounces or tiers.Long bloomers and pantaloons trimmed with lace were popular.Tiered cape-jackets were fashionable, as were paisley patterned shawls.Deep bonnets were worn and hair was swept into buns or side coils from a centre parting.

1850s - Men Men wore matching coats, waistcoats and trousers, with hairstyles characterised by large mutton-chop side-burns and moustaches, after the style set by Prince Albert.Shirts had high upstanding collars and were tied at the neck with large bow-ties.High fastening and tight fitting frock coats were also very fashionable; though a new style called the sack coat (a thigh-length, loosely fitted jacket) became popular.The bowler hat was invented around 1850, but was generally seen as a working class hat, while top-hats were favoured by the upper classes.

1860s - Women 1860s women's dress featured tight bodices with high necks and buttoned fronts. White lace was popular for collars and cuffs, as were low sloping shoulders that flared out into wide sleeves. The skirt continued to be full and bell-shaped until around 1865 when it began to lose its volume at the front and move its emphasis towards the back. Hair was worn with a centre parting tied into low chignons at the nape of the neck, with loops or ringlets covering the ears. Ornaments for evening wear included floral wreaths, ostrich feathers, pomegranate flowers, wheatears and butterflies.

1860s - Men In the 1860s it was fashionable for men's coats and jackets to be single-breasted and semi-fitted, extending to the mid thigh. Waistcoats were often collarless and single-breasted, and trousers were occasionally cut from a narrow check cloth. High, starched collars were worn with cravats and neck-ties. Hair was parted from the centre and moderately waved. A particular hairstyle, known as 'Dundreary whiskers' or 'Piccadilly weepers', were long pendant side-whiskers worn with a full beard and drooping moustache.

1870s - Women 1870s women's fashion placed an emphasis on the back of the skirt, with long trains and fabric draped up into bustles with an abundance of flounces and ruching. The waist was lower in the 1870s than the 1860s, with an elongated and tight bodice and a flat fronted skirt. Low, square necklines were fashionable. Hair was dressed high at the back with complicated twists and rolls, falling to the shoulders, adorned with ribbons, bands and decorative combs. Hats were very small and tilted forward to the forehead. Later in the decade wider brimmed 'picture hats' were also worn, though still tilted forwards. 1870s - Men Coats and jackets were semi-fitted and thigh-length. Generally, both jackets and waistcoats were buttoned high on the chest. Shirt collars were stiff and upstanding, with the tips turned down into wings. Hair was often worn parted in the centre, and most forms of facial hair were acceptable, though being clean shaven was rare.

Women's clothes 1830s-1860s Women's skirts swelled between 1840 and 1860. At first the skirts were supported by several petticoats, one of which was of a stiffened silk or of a silk and horsehair fabric, known as crinoline. When the frame of pliable steel hoops was invented in 1856, it was known as the cage crinoline. It would have been very heavy and cumbersome to wear a full-length coat over a crinoline skirt, so mantles, shawls or short jackets were more convenient for outdoor wear. Fibres used were all natural ones such as cotton, wool and silk. Making the very tight bodices and sleeves of women's dresses required far more skill than the straight-seamed skirt.

(Victoria and Albert Museum)

Diet, Food and Drink If you were not at the bottom of the heap, then things were quite a lot better. In some ways Victorians had a healthier diet than we do now because they ate much more nutrient-rich food and consumed far less sugar and processed food.

A typical breakfast might consist of stoneground bread smeared with dripping or lard (consisting largely of healthy monounsaturated fats), accompanied by a large bunch of watercress, rich in vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients. There were plenty of cheap, seasonal vegetables to be found in the markets, including onions, cabbage, leeks, carrots and turnips. The main fruits were apples in the winter and cherries in the summer. The Victorians also ate lots of healthy, fibre-rich nuts, such as chestnuts and hazelnuts, which were often roasted and bought from street-corner sellers.

Meat was relatively expensive, though you could buy a sheep's head for about 3d (£2.50 in modern money). Instead they ate plenty of omega-3-rich oily fish and seafood. Herrings, sprats, eels, oysters, mussels, cockles and whelks, were all popular, as were cod and haddock. (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37654373)

Life expectancy The crude average figures often used to depict the brevity of Victorian lives mislead because they include infant mortality, which was tragically high. If we strip out peri-natal mortality, however, and look at the life expectancy of those who survived the first five years, a very different picture emerges. Victorian contemporary sources reveal that life expectancy for adults in the mid-Victorian period was almost exactly what it is today. At 65, men could expect another ten years of life; and women another eight (the lower figure for women reflects the high danger of death in childbirth, mainly from causes unrelated to malnutrition). This compares surprisingly favourably with today’s figures: life expectancy at birth (reflecting our improved standards of neo-natal care) averages 75.9 years (men) and 81.3 years (women); though recent work has suggested that for working class men and women this is lower, at around 72 for men and 76 for women.

Victorians: Religion Predominant at the start of the 19th century, by the end of the Victorian era the Church of England was increasingly only one part of a vibrant and often competitive religious culture, with non-Anglican Protestant denominations enjoying a new prominence. The period also saw the greatest burst of church building since the Middle Ages. (Left: The elaborate Gothic interior of St Mary’s Church, Studley Royal, North Yorkshire)

A Christina Country Throughout the 19th century England was a Christian country. The only substantial non- Christian faith was Judaism: the number of Jews in Britain rose from 60,000 in 1880 to 300,000 by 1914, as a result of migrants escaping persecution in Russia and eastern Europe. Within the overwhelming Christian majority there were, however, many varieties of belief – and many disagreements.

(Left: A cartoon of Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford and Winchester, a fierce opponent of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, which he famously challenged at a debate in 1860. Wilberforce’s reaction to Darwin’s ideas is one example among many of the immense controversy evolution caused among religious believers.)

Expanding the Church The Church of England ended the century as it had begun: as the country’s established church. Nonetheless, it had changed enormously. At the beginning of the century the difficulty of creating new parishes – a process that until 1843 required an Act of Parliament – meant that the Church was poorly represented in England’s new manufacturing cities. The government had begun to remedy this. In 1818 it had voted £1 million to be spent on new churches, which was followed by another £500,000 in 1824, producing a surge in church building. The enthusiasm for building or restoring churches continued in Victoria’s reign, galvanised by the ‘High Church’ Oxford Movement: between 1851 and 1875, 2,438 churches were built or rebuilt. St Mary's, Studley Royal, North Yorkshire, an aristocratic showpiece built in the 1870s, is a fine example of what could be achieved with sufficient funds. Improving the Clergy One result of these changes was a major increase in the number of Church of England clergymen, from 14,500 in 1841 to 24,000 in 1875. Their beliefs and practices were by no means uniform. At one extreme were the Evangelicals, who focused on the Gospel teachings rather than ritual, and emphasised preaching and Bible study. At the other, High Churchmen revived rituals, images, incense and vestments not seen in England since the Reformation.

(Left: Rotherwas Chapel in Herefordshire belonged to the Catholic Bodenham family and had been used for Catholic worship since 1606, but it was only in 1829 that restrictions on Catholics were lifted. The Victorian additions to the interior in 1868 are the chapel’s most striking features.)

Other Denominations Legislation in the 1820s had removed some of the barriers that had excluded Christians outside the Church of England – such as Catholics and Methodists – from most public offices and degrees at Oxford or Cambridge.

Pressure for further change was encouraged when the 1851 census revealed that out of a population of nearly 18 million, only 5.2 million attended Church of England services, with 4.9 million attending other Christian places of worship. The rise of non-Anglican Protestant denominations – including Methodists, Baptists and Quakers – is particularly striking: between them they represented nearly half the worshipping nation. This blow to the Church of England led to pressure for further reforms, culminating in an 1871 Act of Parliament that abolished all religious requirements for attendance at universities.

(Right: Charles Darwin shares his likeness with an ape in this 1874 cartoon from the ‘London Sketchbook’, produced in reaction to the publication of ‘The Descent of Man’ (1871), his second book on evolutionary theory following ‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859). His theory of human evolution completely altered understanding of the natural world, challenging the literal truth of the Bible and the nature of Christian belief. © Alamy)

Growing Doubt – and Faith The 19th century was also the first time in England that a substantial number of public figures openly declared that they had no religious beliefs.

Study of the scriptures as historical texts, and scientific advances such as Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution made it more difficult for many educated people to accept the literal truth of the Bible. Some intellectuals and writers rejected the teachings of Christianity altogether. Others, such as the poet Alfred Tennyson, clung to their faith, ‘believing where we cannot prove’.

But the 19th century was far from irreligious. As the old certainties crumbled, new faiths emerged, such as Spiritualism, established in England by the 1850s, and Theosophy, which drew on Buddhism and Hinduism. http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/story-of- england/victorian/religion

Barbers The 19th century barber was a professional in a time of change. He still performed some of the duties of the barber surgeon who preceded him, but he was on his way to becoming the barber of today. This time of fluctuation and change meant that barbers in metropolitan areas had a slightly different experience than their peers in more rural areas. Barber schools were non-existent at the time; apprenticeship was the way to learn the art of barbering.

The Barber Surgeon From the earliest times, there were those who cared for the personal needs of others, whether that meant trimming their hair, shaving their beards, or lancing their boils (some barber tools were much different than they are today). Monks and priests needed someone who could help to maintain their specific haircutting needs, and doctors were forbidden from performing surgeries. Enter the barber. His shop became the place where people could go to have advanced procedures such as bloodletting and cupping performed, as well as having their hair cut. Dentists were not common yet, so barber surgeons performed these duties as well, cleaning and pulling teeth as needed.

The End of an Era By the end of the 1700s, barber surgeons and physicians were battling more and more often about who was responsible for which duties. The Church was no longer complaining that doctors could not perform surgeries, and the general populace was viewing doctors in a more professional light. In 1745, surgeons split from the barber guild, and in 1800, the Royal College of Surgeons was founded. This left barbers to the less invasive duties of grooming their clients. Late in the 19th century A. B. Moler founded a school for barbers in Chicago. The school was the first for barbers, and became an extremely successful enterprise. Lessons were simple, focusing on shaving and cutting hair. More complicated lessons would be added much later.

Modern Barbering The 19th century barber paved the way for the modern barber. Where he left off, modern barbers have picked up the mantle. Now barbers are knowledgeable about the more scientific aspects of the field, including hair, skin, and scalp care. As barbers left the fields of surgery and dentistry, their skills became more appreciated as the professionals that they are. Being a barber in the 19th century was far from glamorous. These men performed tasks for their fellow countrymen that few others were brave enough to tackle. But their skills and perseverance paved the way for the barbers of today to focus on hair and skin care. (https://ourworldisbeauty.com/19th-century-barber/)

Health & Medicine in the 19th Century (Right: 'Patent electric-medical machine', Davis and Kidder, Britain, 1870-1900. Science Museum/Science and Society Picture Library)

Early Victorian ideas of human physiology involved a clear understanding of anatomy (at least among experts; but the populace often had hazy knowledge of the location and role of internal organs), allied to a concept of vital forces focused on the hematological and nervous systems that now seems closer to the ancient 'humours' than to present-day models. Little was known of biochemistry or endocrinology. Traditional ideas of the body, whereby women were regarded as smaller versions of men, and 'turned outside in' (i.e. with internal rather than external sexual organs) were gradually superseded by a binary concept of sexual determinism, in which difference governed all aspects of physiology, health and social behavior. As the body was also defined as a closed system of energy, physical, mental and reproductive expenditure were held to be in competition. Hence the notions that male sexual 'excess' led to debility and female reproductive health was damaged by intellectual study. Hence, too, must have derived the Victorian prescription for many ailments: rest.

In the early Victorian period disease transmission was largely understood as a matter of inherited susceptibility (today's 'genetic' component) and individual intemperance ('lifestyle'), abetted by climate and location, which were deemed productive of noxious exhalations (a version of environmental causation). Water- and air-borne infection was not generally accepted.

Thus the 1848 edition of Buchan's Domestic Medicine, with its colored frontispiece showing the symptoms of smallpox, scarlet fever and measles, listed among the general causes of illness 'diseased parents', night air, sedentary habits, anger, wet feet and abrupt changes of temperature. The causes of fever included injury, bad air, violent emotion, irregular bowels and extremes of heat and cold. Cholera, shortly to be epidemic in many British cities, was said to be caused by rancid or putrid food, by 'cold fruits' such as cucumbers and melons, and by passionate fear or rage.

Treatments relied heavily on a 'change of air' (to the coast, for example), together with emetic and laxative purgation and bleeding by cup or leech (a traditional remedy only abandoned in mid-century) to clear 'impurities' from the body. A limited range of medication was employed, and the power of prayer was regularly invoked.

Diseases such as pulmonary tuberculosis (often called consumption) were endemic; others such as cholera, were frighteningly epidemic. In the morbidity statistics, infectious and respiratory causes predominated (the latter owing much to the sulphurous fogs known as pea-soupers). Male death rates were aggravated by occupational injury and toxic substances, those for women by childbirth and violence. Work-related conditions were often specific: young women match-makers suffered 'phossy jaw', an incurable necrosis caused by exposure to phosphorous.

In Britain, epidemiological measuring and mapping of mortality and morbidity was one of the first fruits of the Victorian passion for taxonomy, leading to the clear association of pollution and disease, followed by appropriate environmental health measures. A major breakthrough came during the 1854 cholera outbreak, when Dr John Snow demonstrated that infection was spread not by miasmas but by contaminated water from a public pump in crowded Soho. When the pump handle was removed, cholera subsided. It was then possible for public health officials such as Sir John Simon to push forward projects to provide clean water, separate sewage systems and rubbish removal in urban areas, as well as to legislate for improved housing - one goal being to reduce overcrowding. The number of inhabitants per house in Scotland, for example, fell from 7.6 in 1861 to 4.7 in 1901. Between 1847 and 1900 there were 50 new statutes on housing, ranging from the major Public Health Acts of 1848 and 1872 to the 1866 Lodging Houses and Dwellings (Ireland) Act, the 1885 Housing of the Working Classes Act and the 1888 Local Government Act. On a household basis, the indoor water-closet began to replace the traditional outdoor privy.

Scientific developments in the 19th century had a major impact on understanding health and disease, as experimental research resulted in new knowledge in histology, pathology and microbiology. Few of these advances took place in Britain, where medical practice was rarely linked to scientific work and there was public hostility to the animal vivisection on which many experiments relied. The biochemical understanding of physiology began in Germany in the 1850s, together with significant work on vision and the neuromuscular system, while in France Louis Pasteur laid the foundations of the germ theory of disease based on the identification of micro-bacterial organisms. By the end of the century a new understanding of biology was thus coming into being, ushering in a new emphasis on rigorous hygiene and fresh air, and a long-lasting fear of invisible contagion from the unwashed multitude, toilet seats and shared utensils. British patent applications around 1900 include devices for avoiding infection via the communion chalice and the new-fangled telephone.

Technological developments underpinned this process, from the opthalmoscope and improved microscopes that revealed micro-organisms, to instruments like the kymograph, to measure blood pressure and muscular contraction. By mid-century, the stethoscope, invented in France in 1817 to aid diagnosis of respiratory and cardiac disorders, became the symbolic icon of the medical profession. However, the most famous British visual image, Luke Fildes's The Doctor (exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1891) shows a medical man with virtually no 'modern' equipment.

Surgery advanced - or at least increased - owing largely to the invention of anaesthesia in the late 1840s. Significant events include a notable public demonstration of the effects of ether in London in October 1846 and the use of chloroform for the queen's eighth confinement in 1853. Anaesthetics enabled surgeons to perform more sophisticated operations in addition to the traditional amputations. Specialised surgical instruments and techniques followed, for some time with mixed results, as unsterile equipment frequently led to fatal infection.

Antiseptic surgical procedures based on the practical application of Pasteur's laboratory work were developed by Joseph Lister (1827-1912) using carbolic acid (phenol) from 1869 in Edinburgh and in 1877 in London. Aseptic procedures followed, involving sterilisation of whole environments. Successful outcomes, such as Edward VII's appendicitis operation on the eve of his scheduled coronation, helped pave the way for the 20th-century era of heroic surgery.

In 1895, at the end of the era, came Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of X-rays, and in due course the photo of Roentgen's wife's hand became a potent sign of medical advance through scientific instruments. But overall the 19th century is notable more for systematic monitoring of disease aetiology than for curative treatment.

A growing medical industry Like other learned professions, medicine grew in size and regulation. In the early Victorian era it was dominated by the gentlemen physicians of the Royal College (founded 1518), with surgeons and apothecaries occupying lower positions. The British Medical Association was established in 1856 and from 1858 the General Medical Council (GMC) controlled entry through central registration. In the same spirit, the profession also resisted the admission of women, who struggled to have their qualifications recognized. Partly in response to population growth, however, numbers rose; for example, from a total of 14,415 physicians and surgeons in England and Wales in 1861, to 22,698 (of whom 212 were female) in 1901. At the turn of the century the GMC register held 35,650 names altogether, including 6580 in military and imperial service. The number of dentists rose from 1584 in 1861 to 5309 (including 140 women) in 1901. A growing proportion of qualified personnel worked in public institutions, and a new hierarchy arose, headed by hospital consultants. This reflected the rise in hospital-based practice, for this was also the era of heroic hospital building in the major cities, accompanied by municipal and Poor Law infirmaries elsewhere. These were for working-class patients; those in higher economic groups received treatment at home.

A secondary aspect of growth and regulation was the steady medicalization of childbirth, so that over this period traditional female midwives were superseded by male obstetricians, with all their 'modern' ideas and instruments. Under prevailing conditions, however, intervention through the use of forceps, for example, often caused puerperal fever and the high maternal mortality, which was a mid-century concern.

Largely through the endeavors and energy of Florence Nightingale, whose nursing team at Scutari captured the public imagination amid military deficiencies in the Crimean War, hospital and home nursing was reformed, chiefly along sanitary lines. Rigorous nurse training also raised the social status of the profession and created a career structure largely occupied by women.

Despite these and other improvements, death rates remained relatively steady. Roughly one quarter of all children died in the first year at the end of Victoria's reign as at the beginning, and maternal mortality showed no decline. In some fields, however, survival rates improved and mortality statistics slowly declined. Thus crude death rates fell from 21.6 per thousand in 1841 to 14.6 in 1901. Here, the main factors were public hygiene and better nutrition thanks to higher earnings - that is, prevention rather than cure. Although doctors made much of their medicines with Latin names and measured doses, effective remedies were few, and chemical pharmacology as it is known in 2001 only began at the end of the Victorian era. From the 1870s (animal) thyroid extract was used for various complaints including constipation and depression, while from 1889 animal testicular extracts were deployed in pursuit of rejuvenation and miracle cures. At the same date aspirin was developed to replace traditional opiate painkillers.

As a result, many conditions remained chronic or incurable. These limitations, together with the relatively high cost of medical attendance, led to the rise (or extension) of alternative therapies including homeopathy, naturopathy ('herbal remedies'), hydropathy (water cures), mesmerism (hypnotism) and galvanism (electric therapy) as well as blatant fraudulence through the promotion of useless pills, powders and coloured liquids. From 1866 notions that disease was caused and cured by mental or spiritual power alone were circulated by the Christian Science movement.

Treating mental illness Another highly popular fashion was that of phrenology, which claimed to identify temperamental characteristics such as aggression or lust ('amativeness') by means of lumps and bumps on the individual skull, and facial physiognomy. Psychology itself retained largely traditional concepts such 'melancholic' and 'choleric' tendencies, but in 1846 the term 'psychiatry' was coined to denote medical treatment of disabling mental conditions, which were generally held to have hereditary causes.

The Victorian period witnessed an impressive growth in the classification and isolation (or strictly the concentration) of the insane and mentally impaired in large, strictly regulated lunatic asylums outside major cities, where women and men were legally incarcerated, usually for life. Opened in 1851, the Colney Hatch Asylum in Middlesex housed 1250 patients. Wealthier families made use of private care, in smaller establishments.

Two major figures in the Victorian mental health field were James Conolly, author of The Construction and Government of Lunatic Asylums (1847) and Henry Maudsley, whose influential books included The Physiology and Pathology of Mind (1867).

Regarded at the time as progressive and humane, mental policies and asylum practices now seem almost as cruel as the earlier punitive regimes. Men and women were housed in separate wards and put to different work, most devoted to supply and service within the asylum. The use of mechanical restraints such as manacles and muzzles was steadily phased out in favor of 'moral management', although solitary confinement and straitjackets continued to be used. By the end of the era therapeutic hopes of restoring patients to sanity were largely replaced by programs of control, where best practice was judged by inmates' docility. As part of the passion for measuring and classifying, patient records and photographs were kept, in order to 'illustrate' the physical evidence or effects of different types of derangement. Particular attention was paid to female patients, whose lack of approved feminine qualities was tautologically taken to 'prove' their madness. Over the period, sexualised theories of insanity were steadily imposed on mad women, in ways that were unmistakably manipulative. Towards the end of the 19th century, the term 'neurasthenia' came into use to describe milder or temporary nervous conditions, especially among the educated classes.

Throughout the era, since disorders of both body and mind were believed to be heritable conditions, the chronic sick, the mentally impaired and the deranged were vigorously urged against marriage and parenthood. (Victoria and Albert Museum)

Cocaine for children? Cocaine was legal, even as late as this ad (1885), and was not considered harmful in moderate doses. Many other drugs, now restricted by law, were also legal then, including opium, which was sold under city permit on the streets of Victoria.

In the nineteenth century many substances were used as medicines, some of which are now known to be harmful over the long term, such as mercury and lead. "Patent medicines", like these Cocaine Toothache Drops, were very popular and required no prescription; they were indeed "For sale by all druggists."

Advances in medical science By the 1860s, the practice of medicine was going through many changes. The germ theory of disease was a controversial idea and not yet widely accepted. The first of the general anesthetics , chloroform and ether, had recently become available, making surgery potentially lifesaving rather than life threatening, though the routine use of antiseptics was still some years in the future.

Many medical practitioners still subscribed (at least in some form) to the ancient theory of the "four humors" developed by the Roman physician Galen (131-199 AD). According to this theory, the body is made up of four humors - blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. The relative amounts of each humor in the body determined state of health and temperament (a person with more blood was "sanguine"; with more phlegm "phlegmatic"; with black bile "melancholic"; and if yellow bile predominated, "choleric" or "bilious"). Too much or too little of any humor was said to cause illness, which could be cured by restoring the balance. Many nineteenth century medicines and practices were intended to do this. (http://www.web.uvic.ca/vv/student/medicine/medicine19c.htm)

Life and Death “In the mid-19th century the high death rate amongst young children brought average life expectancy in London down to just 37 years.” “The biggest cause of death in London remained consumption or tuberculosis and lung disease.” -Beverely Cook, Curator of Social History, (https://www.londoncatalyst.org.uk/newsite/wpcontent/uploads/2014/11/LondonCatalystMofLpoverty essay2013-doc.pdf)

Public Health Patterns The overall pattern of Victorian causes of death broadly resembles that found in developing countries today, with infection, trauma and infant/mother mortality in the pole positions, and non-communicable degenerative disease being relatively insignificant. Common causes of death 1. Infection including TB and other lung infections such as pneumonia; epidemics (scarlet fever, smallpox, influenza, typhoid, cholera etc.), with spread often linked to poor sanitation: and the sexually transmitted diseases. 2. Accidents/trauma linked to work place and domestic conditions. Death from burns was an important cause of death among women, due largely to a combination of open hearth cooking, fashions in dress, and the use of highly flammable fabrics. 3. Infant/mother mortality. This was generally due to infection, although maternal hemorrhage was another significant causative factor. 4. Heart failure. This was generally due to damage to the heart valves caused by rheumatic fever, and was not a degenerative disease. Angina pectoris does not appear in the registrar general’s records as a cause of death until 1857 – and then as a disease of old age - although the diagnosis and its causes were recognized. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672390/)