• DOI:10.1086/388315
• Corpus ID: 159897178

The Stage Licensing Act of 1737

@article{Crean1938TheSL,
  title={The Stage Licensing Act of 1737},
  author={P. J. Crean},
  journal={Modern Philology},
  year={1938},
  volume={35},
  pages={239 - 255}
}

• P. Crean
• Published 1 February 1938
• History
• Modern Philology

THAT some reformation i the control of the playhouses was essential the march of events in the early decades of the eighteenth century shows. During this period the absolute but indefinable authority, which the lord chamberlain had traditionally exerted, proved ineffective to deal with the expansion of the theater, while at the same time the mutilated powers of the master of the revels threatened to make of his office a mere anachronistic survival. The confusion in which the whole question of the supervision of the theater was enveloped is shown by the controversy which the opening of a new playhouse by Thomas Odell in Goodman's Fields in 1729 occasioned. The proximity of the new theater to the city and to the industrial quarter near the Minories, where the woolen and silk trades congregated, made it a place of great resort. This very popularity, however, drew down upon the new venture the severe displeasure of the civic authorities. Not without reason, indeed; for with the success of the new enterprise a marked and undesirable change was to be seen in the environment of Ayliffe Street. A writer in the Gentleman's magazine,' referring to Odell's house, states that the street where it is built was formerly inhabited by Silk-Throwsters, RibandWeavers etc. who employed the Industrious Poor; immediately on setting up the Playhouse the Rents were raised and now there is a Bunch of Grapes hanging almost at every door, besides an adjacent Bagnio or two; an undoubted Proof that Innocence and Morality are not the certain Consequences of a Playhouse. The lord mayor and court of aldermen of the city of London, on the plea that they were apprehensive of the harmful results bound to follow from the continuance of a theater in Goodman's Fields, "more especially as affecting morals, lessening the industry and losing the time of those persons employed," presented a petition to the king begging the suppression of "an evil of so dangerous a consequence."2 Their request met with a favorable reception, as the response from the king I April, 1735, p. 191. 2 Grub Street journal, May 7, 1730.