It wasn’t until 1737 that Robert Walpole, the first statesman to be regarded as Prime Minister of Great Britain, introduced the Licensing Act to make the censoring of plays one of the Lord Chamberlain’s official and compulsory duties. Up till then it had simply been a matter of practice, and obeying the whims of the monarch of the time, but Walpole firmed it up in law. I rather like the wording of the Licensing Act 1737:

“From and after the twenty fourth day of June, one thousand seven hundred and thirty seven, every person who shall, for hire, gain, or reward, act, represent, or perform, or cause to be acted, represented, or performed, any interlude, tragedy, comedy, opera, play, farce, or other entertainment of the stage, or any part or parts therein, in case such person shall not have any legal settlement in the place where the same shall be acted, represented, or performed, without authority by virtue of letters patent from his Majesty, his heirs, successors or predecessors, or without licence from the Lord Chamberlain of his Majesty’s household for the time being, shall be deemed to be a rogue and a vagabond within the intent and meaning of the said recited act, and shall be liable and subject to all such penalties and punishments, and by such methods of conviction, as are inflicted on or appointed by the said act for the punishment of rogues and vagabonds who shall be found wandering, begging, and misordering themselves, within the intent and meaning of the said recited act.” If you were found to be a rogue and a vagabond because you didn’t get a licence for your play you would be fined the sum of £50 – which in 1737 was a very big sum indeed.

Walpole and his government had been the subjects of a series of satirical jibes in the plays of both John Gay and, more particularly, Henry Fielding, whose “Historical Register for the year 1736” was considered by Walpole to be the ultimate insult. Among the satirical observations and the devious characters, it included a corrupt fiddler called Quidam (translated in my old Cassell’s compact Latin dictionary as a certain person or thing (known, but not necessarily named), who was clearly a caricature of Walpole himself. The main intention behind the new Act was to secure a basis from which the country could be governed without fear of ridicule generated by rogues and vagabonds on stage. The Act required the Lord Chamberlain to appoint an examiner who would read all new plays at least fourteen days before the first performance, any which he did not see fit to license being subsequently prohibited from the stage. Fielding, knowing the game was up, turned to novels.

The only voice of dissent in Parliament, whose protest has survived today, came from Lord Chesterfield who denounced Walpole’s Act, not only because it offended against freedom of expression and would involve more bureaucracy, but chiefly because the laws of the country, when applied to dramatists, were adequate protection against possible offence. “Our laws are sufficient”, he maintained, “for punishing any man that shall dare to represent upon the stage what may appear, either by words or the representation, to be blasphemous, seditious or immoral…If the stage becomes at any time licentious, if a play appears to be a libel upon the Government or upon any particular man, the King’s courts are open.” This last argument was frequently cited in the meetings of the 1967 Committee. He was also concerned at giving so much power to one, unelected, man: “A power lodged in the hands of one single man, to judge and determine, without any limitation, without any control or appeal, is a sort of power unknown to our laws, inconsistent with our constitution. It is a higher, a more absolute power than we trust even to the King himself.”

Holding the honour of being the first play to be banned under the Licensing Act is Gustavus Vasa, by Henry Brooke. Ostensibly it’s a story of Swedish patriots defending themselves against invasion by Danish and Norwegian troops; but in reality it’s a thinly disguised satire criticising Walpole for his tyrannical control over Parliament. The Lord Chamberlain at the time, the Duke of Grafton, awarded the play an outright ban from being performed anywhere in England, giving no reason other than “there was a good deal of liberty in it.” In the short term, Brooke did well from the debacle, as he arranged for a private publication of the play which created a lot of attention and he earned about £1000 from the sales – Lord Chesterfield bought ten copies. However, with his reputation at court in tatters, he found it difficult to get new plays performed. He wrote a couple of novels, but lived most of his life in penury.

The 1737 Act brought to an end the usefulness of the Revels’ Office; the Master’s judgements had usually been ignored in any case. There remained, nevertheless, a Master of the Revels until 1755; the last man to hold this post was Solomon Dayrolle, but there was no work for him to carry out. That’s because all the licensing had been delegated to the new Examiner of Plays, a role created by the 1737 Act – even though the ultimate responsibility still remained with the Lord Chamberlain. Whilst it was useful for an Examiner of Plays to be interested in the theatre – high on the “person specification” for the job interview, one would imagine – the Lord Chamberlain, with all his other Royal Household duties to perform, needn’t have been a theatre buff. As a result, the Examiner of Plays held real power over the censorship procedure, and usually the Lord Chamberlain would simply rubber-stamp the Examiner’s judgment. Not always though; in 1777, Edward Capell, the Deputy Examiner of Plays and puritanical Shakespeare fan, disapproved of Richard Sheridan’s The School for Scandal, and wanted it banned. But the Lord Chamberlain at the time, Lord Hertford, overruled him – just as well; how much poorer our lives would have been without the escapades of Sir Peter Teazle and the gossip of Lady Sneerwell.

Despite a review of the Act in 1832, a new Theatres Act in 1843, and Select Committees in 1853, 1866, and 1892, the position remained largely unchanged throughout the 19th century. It was not until the Joint Select Committee on Stage Plays (Censorship), 1909, that any new criticism against the censorship procedure was officially voiced. For the first time, a set of guidelines was suggested for the Examiner of Plays to follow; some of them were unofficially accepted, although none was legally enforced. The other main contention of the 1909 Committee was that the submission of new plays to the Lord Chamberlain should be optional, and therefore that the production of an unlicensed play should not be illegal.

However, the consequences of producing an unlicensed play that was found to offend public decency, would have been considerable. From the 1909 Committee Report: “If the Director of Public Prosecutions is of opinion that any unlicensed play which has been performed is open to objection on the ground of indecency, he should prefer an indictment against the manager of the theatre where the play has been produced, and against the author of the play. When notice has been given to the manager of the theatre by the Director of Public Prosecutions of his intention to take proceedings, it should be illegal for any further performances of the play to take place until the case has been heard and decided. The Court before which an indictment is preferred should be empowered to make one or more of the following orders according to the merits of the case:

(a) Prohibiting the performance of the play for such period as they may think fit, but for not more than ten years.
(b) Imposing penalties on the manager of the theatre.
(c) Imposing penalties on the author of the play.
(d) Endorsing a conviction on the licence of the theatre.”

But the findings of the 1909 Committee were largely ignored (apart from the suggested guidelines for the Examiner of Plays) and the Theatres Act 1843 remained unmodified.

In my next post, I’ll be looking at the Examiners of Plays and also a quick look back at the Restoration Era. See you soon!