Patriotic Palaces of Pleasure? the Popular Music Industry in 1900 John Mullen
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Patriotic Palaces of Pleasure? The Popular Music Industry in 1900 John Mullen To cite this version: John Mullen. Patriotic Palaces of Pleasure? The Popular Music Industry in 1900. Victor Sarafian and Rosie Findlay. The State of the Music Industry, 13, Presses de l’Université de Toulouse, 2014, Civilisations. hal-02509986 HAL Id: hal-02509986 https://hal-normandie-univ.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02509986 Submitted on 17 Mar 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Patriotic Palaces of Pleasure? The Popular Music Industry in 1900. Music was never simply music; songs were never simply songs. Both were produced and used by particular people in particular historical periods for particular reasons.1 If we want to know what music hall means, we must know how it works, for meaning is constructed in action and through relationships.2 The centre of musical entertainment in Britain at the turn of the 20th century was music hall. It is true that musical comedy was still in its heyday, that minstrel shows (though they had declined in number) still had considerable success, and that gramophone records were gradually picking up sales among the wealthier classes; but the cheapest, most popular, genre was the music hall. Around a million tickets a week were sold in London alone. The front page of local newspapers around the country advertised the week’s programme at the local hall, while music hall stars were interviewed in the inside pages for the enjoyment of their crowds of fans. A number of authors have uncovered the history of the Victorian music hall and the gradual emergence of a true entertainment industry3; there has been little work done, though, on early 20th century music hall4. This paper will try to sketch a portrait of the popular music industry in the one year of 1900, and the most important processes which were underway. Two main dynamics have been identified in the Victorian music industry. Firstly, the concentration of capital, which meant the increasing domination of large companies, (music 1 Peter Bailey (Ed.), Music-hall, the Business of Pleasure, Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1986, p. vi. 2 Ibid., p. xix. 3 In particular Peter Bailey op.cit.; Peter Bailey, Popular Culture and Performance in the Victorian city, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998 ; J. S. Bratton (Ed.), Music Hall : Performance & Style, Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1986. 4 But see Ronald Pearsall, Edwardian Popular Music, London, David & Charles, 1975. publishers and chains of variety theatres in particular), and the development of a national market for entertainment based on touring acts. Its corollary was, as in every sector of the economy, a more precise division of labour and a professionalization of many aspects of work which had previously been more informally organized. Secondly, the continuing obsession across society with “respectability” and the fear of “vulgarity” strongly influences the content and structure of the entertainment, as well as ensuring a seemingly endless debate about the exact demands of respectability and moral uprightness. The year 1900 arrived as each of these two processes was well-advanced, but not yet exhausted. I The consolidation of a national industry a) Centralization and profit A survey of the industry in 1900 shows that there was a tremendous amount of money being made. The music halls (or “variety theatres”), now several hundred in number, were growing in size and in capitalization. The logic of major investment was gradually replacing that of the self-made music hall proprietor who retained the common touch.5 As Peter Bailey notes: Combinations of houses ... produced the largest operation of its kind with the formation of Moss Stoll Empires in 1900 with a capitalization approaching £2 million and forty outlets nationally, subject to centralized management and nationally integrated programming. Something like a third to a half of all remaining halls were under some form of syndicate control, many of them booking their artists through Moss Stoll. 6 5 Peter Bailey, “A Community of Friends” in Peter Bailey (Ed.), Music-hall, the Business of Pleasure,..., p. 34. 6 Peter Bailey, “Kipling’s Bully Pulpit : Patriotism, Performance and Publicity in the Victorian Music Hall” in Kipling Society Journal, 85:341, 2011, p.28. In June, Oswald Stoll floated the Leicester Palace theatre on the stock exchange, as many other theatres had already been.7 Regular notes in the trade newspaper, The Era, report the dividends being paid to shareholders. In June, the Grand Theatre of Varieties in Gravesend declared an interim dividend of 12 per cent. The Oxford paid 10 per cent.8 The Palace theatre in the West End made an annual profit of £31 300 and paid a final dividend of 18 per cent.9 By far the highest profits were made in these West End music halls around Leicester Square, which were profiting from the rapid development of public transport.10 The year 1900 may have been, though, the high point from the point of view of profitability. Dividends paid out declined after this date, according to Andrew Crowhurst’s detailed study.11 The theatre chains had many advantages: they could sign up top stars for an entire season, thus preventing competitors from using the big names in their advertising; they could by- pass theatrical agents and negotiate directly with the stars; and they could buy from foreign networks a monopoly of touring artistes from those networks. They were prepared to pay key stars high salaries. Marie Lloyd, in 1900, earned forty pounds a week, forty times the UK average wage.12 Smaller establishments often went to the wall. In September, The Era announced that the Marylebone was to be demolished after forty years as a music hall. The paper commented “those who understood the trend of events felt that such a small establishment as the Marylebone could not keep 13 pace with the times.” 7 The Era, 23 June 1900. 8 The Era, 26 May 1900. 9 The Era, 13 October 1900. 10 Felix Barker, The House that Stoll Built, London, Frederick Muller, 1957, p. 12; A detailed analysis of music hall profitability from 1890 to 1920 is provided in chapter 3 of A.J. Crowhurst’s unpublished thesis: “The Music Hall 1885-1922”, Cambridge, Cambridge University, 1992. 11 Andrew Crowhurst, op. cit., p. 163. 12 Midge Gillies, Marie Lloyd, the One and Only, London, Gollancz, 1999. 13 The Era, 1 September 1900. b) Building and refurbishment The profitability of the sector led to the building of many grand new music halls. The London Hippodrome was opened in January, featuring hundred thousand gallon water tanks which could be filled for spectacular swimming shows. In June, the Earl of Euston laid the foundation stone of a new hall, the Euston. The establishment, blessed by the rector of Tooting at the founding ceremony, included a stage 47 feet deep and 54 feet wide.14 The newly built Portsmouth Empire opened in the summer,15 while in Bristol the Colston Hall, destroyed by fire in 1898, was rebuilt by 1900 to hold between four and five thousand people. The Era noted the increase in the number of suburban music halls, when they reported the opening in June of a new establishment, the Empress, in Walthamstow.16 The following month, the London district of Balham also saw the opening of a new hall. The trade press of 1900 abounds with reports of ambitious refurbishment, improvement and redecoration. The names given to the variety theatres of this time – the Alhambra, the Empire, the Coliseum – emphasized the grandness and the image of luxury. Red plush seats were a must, and each new establishment tried to outdo the others. If the theatres were meant to feel “home” to the audiences, it was an imagined, luxurious home. The Gaiety in Nottingham, when management added three additional boxes and transformed the balcony into “a grand circle and lounge”, installed blue velvet upholstery throughout, a “lavish scheme of decoration in the Japanese style” and improved electric lighting.17 For its part, The Euston selected decorations “in a very light buff, pink and gold, and in the renaissance style”.18 The Tivoli opted to build a new archway which we are told was “designed in harmony with the oriental architecture of the hall”, as well as constructing a new 14 Lloyds Weekly Newspaper, 17 June 1900. 15 The Era, 18 August 1900. 16 The Era, 2 June 1900. 17 The Era, 11 August 1900. A very small number of its patrons could boast electric lighting in their own homes at this time. 18 The Era, 1 December 1900. annexe to the dress circle lounge “in the style of Louis XVI”, but with electric fans.19 The Cleethorpes Empire was also refurbished during the year, and opted to combine luxury and respectable patriotism. Its decor now boasted on one side a figure of the Queen and on the other the Prince of Wales. The Gaiety in West Hartlepool and the Hippodrome in Blackpool were just two among many others to close for improvements. All these trappings of “luxury” and of the “exotic” illustrate the reflection of Peter Bailey: “music hall was a site and occasion for liberality, profusion and plenitude”.20 c) Rising professionalization The industry was ever more professional, and theatres were tightly run businesses.