Drury Lane, 1800

Abstract

This chapter sets the scene for the transformation of the West End in the nineteenth century. It commences with the attempted assassination of George III at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. This event is employed to look more closely at the theatre in 1800 and then broadens out to look at the wider world of the West End at the time. It argues that the modern notion of the West End as a distinct pleasure district barely existed at the start of the nineteenth century (only taking in the areas of the Strand and Covent Garden). The reader then discovers how this embryonic pleasure district emerged during the period from 1660 to 1800. The construction of Mayfair and St James’s in the eighteenth century was pivotal because it reveals how the West End existed to service the aristocracy, creating elite aristocratic shopping areas such as Bond Street. The peculiar arrangements for the provision of theatre are explained: Drury Lane and Covent Garden enjoyed royal patents which in theory prevented anyone else from performing the spoken word on stage. It also shows how this exclusive world was beginning to change at the end of the eighteenth century as more vulgar entertainments arose on the Strand and in Leicester Square.