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A Biographical Case Study of Social Mobility in Victorian Britain

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ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output The knight from nowhere : a biographical case study of social mobility in Victorian Britain https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40324/ Version: Full Version Citation: Powell, Victoria Elizabeth (2018) The knight from nowhere : a biographical case study of social mobility in Victorian Britain. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email 1 ‘The Knight from Nowhere’: A Biographical Case Study of Social Mobility in Victorian Britain Victoria Elizabeth Powell Department of History, Classics & Archaeology Birkbeck, University of London Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) June 2017 2 Abstract This study re-examines social mobility in Victorian Britain, focusing on the experiences of the actor Henry Irving (1838-1905). Irving rose from ‘humble’ beginnings to become one of the most respected men in Victorian society, and was the first actor to receive a knighthood. The Victorians celebrated the possibilities of social mobility, or ‘self-making’ as they termed it, through independence, diligence and thrift, pointing to exemplary figureheads such as Irving. But self-making was a cultural fantasy, and this study tracks Irving’s experiences to investigate the realities of his unusual achievement. I explore life in the rural and urban places where Irving lived, and position him within cultures of education, theatre, and artistic bohemia. In this way I signal the importance of such contexts in modulating experience, behaviour, and bodily comportment. I demonstrate that the Victorians interpreted status through the effect of the presence of the body in social interaction and understood society as consisting of two groups, the polite and the vulgar. As Irving left behind the lower middle-class social circles of his youth that conditioned and constrained his bodily practices, and entered new social circles, he changed the way he spoke, presented himself and moved his body. Without this bodily reconditioning, I argue, Irving would not have achieved what he did. This is not just a biographical narrative of one individual’s life. Rather, it is a study of the importance of the particular in historical analysis. It is about how the individual negotiated wider processes, practices and ideas in Victorian Britain, and the ways in which these factors shaped his experience. I show how a focused analysis of one man, his body, his life experiences and his representation in auto/biography can yield new insights into power relations, cultures of class, and social mobility in the Victorian period. 3 Acknowledgements This thesis has been both a labour of love and an epic test of endurance. It would not have been possible without the generous funding of a Birkbeck College Research Studentship. Since 2009 when I began this project, I have felt truly grateful for the supportive research atmosphere of my alma mater, Birkbeck. The largest intellectual debt I owe is to my supervisor Matt Cook, whose kindness, patience, support, and encouragement has meant so much to me over the years. It has been a privilege to work with him. I would not be the historian I am today without his intellectual generosity, his guidance and advice, and his always-gentle and acute criticism of my work. Along the way I have received generous help from many staff in the history department at Birkbeck including Joanna Bourke, Julia Laite, Caroline Goodson, Daniel Pick, Carmen Mangion and Maria Margaronis. A warm thanks also to my PhD research colleagues for reading early drafts and chewing the fat with me over the years: Clare Makepeace, Madisson Brown, Hazel Croft, Gillian Williamson, Emma Lundin, Stef Eastoe and Mike Laycock. The process of research has been made significantly easier with the help of many librarians and archivists. Among those who have assisted me and patiently responded to my questions and requests for information include Helen Smith from the Henry Irving Foundation Centenary Project, Alison Spence at the Cornwall Record Office, the staff at Birkbeck library, the British Library, National Archives, V&A Theatre and Performance Collection, and the Garrick Club Collection. Special thanks to my wonderful friend Daisy Scalchi for an amazing edit job and supportive comments on my final draft. Thanks to my sister Natasha Powell, without whom I would be lost. And finally, I owe the most to Thomasina Woolley, who has endured more than any library widow should over the past few years. This thesis is dedicated to her. 4 Table of contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 3 Table of Contents 4 List of Abbreviations 6 List of Figures 7 Introduction 8 Methodology 10 Scope of the thesis 19 Sources 20 Structure of the thesis 26 Chapter One: Victorian Ideas on Class and Identity 29 The embodiment of class 33 The polite and the vulgar 45 Contextualising Irving’s multiple public identities 62 Conclusion 79 Chapter Two: Irving’s Childhood 81 Irving’s 1883 biography 82 Irving’s family background and childhood 86 Irving’s move to London 106 Conclusion 113 Chapter Three: Irving’s Adolescence 115 Irving’s education 117 Irving’s network in his teenage years 141 Conclusion 156 Chapter Four: Irving’s Early Career in the Theatre 158 The mid-Victorian theatre 160 Friends, patrons, networks 173 Conclusion 193 5 Chapter Five: Irving the Bohemian Gentleman 195 Learning to be a gentleman 196 Policing Irving’s authenticity 218 Irving the artistic genius 230 Conclusion 245 Conclusion 248 Bibliography Primary Sources 252 Secondary Sources 262 Figures Figure 1: ‘Irving as Hamlet’ (part 1) 284 Figure 2: ‘Irving as Hamlet’ (part 2) 285 Figure 3: ‘Essence of Shakspeare, Bottle by Digby Grant’ 286 Figure 4: ‘Honoris Causa’ 287 Figure 5: ‘Henry Irving’ 288 Figure 6: ‘Henry Irving’ 289 Figure 7: ‘Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt.’ 290 Figure 8: ‘John Lawrence Toole’ 291 Figure 9: ‘Charles James Mathews’ 292 Figure 10: ‘Charles James Mathews as Dazzle in London Assurance’ 293 6 List of Abbreviations TNA The National Archives GRO General Register Office ESW England, Scotland and Wales HLC Honnold/Mudd Library for the Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA THM Victoria & Albert Museum Theatre and Performance Collection LMA London Metropolitan Archives HTC Harvard Theatre Collection IOR India Office Records BL British Library ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 7 List of Figures Fig. 1 ‘Irving as Hamlet’ (part 1), cartoon, publication unknown 304 (n.d.). No. 40. Percy H. Fitzgerald Archive of Newspaper Cuttings, Garrick Club Collection, London. Fig. 2 ‘Irving as Hamlet’ (part 2), cartoon, publication unknown 305 (n.d.). No. 40. Percy H. Fitzgerald Archive of Newspaper Cuttings, Garrick Club Collection, London. Fig. 3 ‘Essence of Shakspeare, Bottle by Digby Grant’, cartoon, 306 publication unknown (n.d.). No. 53. Percy H. Fitzgerald Archive of Newspaper Cuttings, Garrick Club Collection, London. Fig. 4 ‘Honoris Causa’, cartoon, Punch, 25 June 1892. 307 Fig. 5 ‘Henry Irving’, photograph (c.1856), reprinted in Laurence 308 Irving, Henry Irving: The Actor and His World (London: Faber, 1951), facing page 33. Fig. 6 Henry Irving, photograph (early 1870s) reprinted in 309 Jeffrey Richards, Sir Henry Irving: A Victorian Actor and His World (Hambledon: Continuum, 2006) plate 1, facing page 148. Fig. 7 ‘Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt.’ by (George) Herbert 310 Watkins, albumen print, (1857) NPG P301(36) © National Portrait Gallery, London Fig. 8 ‘John Lawrence Toole’ by (George) Herbert Watkins, 311 albumen print, arched top (late 1850s), NPG P301(137). © National Portrait Gallery, London Fig. 9 ‘Charles James Mathews’ by Hennah & Kent, albumen 312 carte-de-visite (1860s), NPG x21241. © National Portrait Gallery, London Fig. 10 ‘Charles James Mathews as Dazzle in London Assurance’ 313 by (George) Herbert Watkins, albumen carte-de-visite, (1858), NPG x21240 © National Portrait Gallery, London 8 Introduction On the evening of the fourth of July 1883 six hundred people came together in the magnificent grandeur of St James’s Hall in London for a banquet to celebrate the professional achievements of the actor Henry Irving (1838-1905). The occasion was called to wish Irving well on the eve of his departure for his theatre company's first tour of the USA. The guests included many of the most powerful and eminent men of the time, including aristocrats, courtiers, politicians, lawyers, academics, artists and men of letters, officers of the armed services, bankers and businessmen. Surrounding Irving were seated the Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Coleridge (1820-1894), Admiral Sir Henry Keppel (1809-1904) and General Sir Dighton Probyn (1833-1924), the painter Lawrence Alma- Tadema (1836-1912), the American diplomat James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), the politician and former viceroy of India Viscount Baring (1826-1904), the celebrated physicist Professor John Tyndall (1820-1893) and other prominent and distinguished 1 men. Celebratory banquets were not in themselves unusual occurrences in the Victorian period. What was more unusual about this particular gathering was the social background of the man that it honoured. Henry Irving’s beginnings would be described as ‘humble’ in nineteenth-century parlance, and indeed his contemporaries used this term about his social background.2 He was born John Brodribb in 1838 in the village of Keinton Mandeville in Somerset, and assumed the stage name Henry Irving in 1856.3 His father Samuel appears to have failed as a commercial traveller before he moved to London and found work as a clerk.4 Samuel’s various occupations never yielded a plentiful income for the Brodribb household, and it is likely that for this reason Irving’s education was very basic: he received two years of private schooling before joining a firm of solicitors as an 1 Austin Brereton, Henry Irving: A Biographical Sketch (London: David Bogue, 1883), 98.
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