Precarious Professions: Insolvency and Bankruptcy among Theatrical Artistes in Victorian and Edwardian England

Abstract

In this article Bernard Ince analyzes the characteristics and causes of personal insolvency and bankruptcy among professional theatrical artistes in the Victorian and Edwardian periods, 1830 to 1913, within England and Wales. This offers an illuminating development of the author's previous studies of the impact of bankruptcy laws on the Victorian theatre and the pattern of failures in theatre management over this period. It identifies key points of convergence and divergence between the trends in failure of managers and artistes, considering reasons for these variations and for the number of failures overall. It concludes that prominent among the many causes of insolvency in artistes were touring company failures and irregularity of employment, which goes some way to explain why a higher percentage of artistes than managers were engaged in at least one occupation unrelated to theatre work. The article also provides a necessary methodological foundation for future study of an area that has often been overlooked. Bernard Ince is an independent theatre historian who has contributed earlier studies of tne Victorian and Edwardian theatre to New Theatre Quarterly.