File 767 P69B C838 1829
Acquired March 2024
A collection of seven copper theater passes or tickets for London theatres dating between 1762 and approximately 1820, all blank on the obverse sides except for the token for the Box Prince’s Side (BPS 1796) which is decorated with a chain of small linked circles around the perimeter. The 1788 token for a box at Covent Garden is the only token with a hole in the center.
66 762 C697
Acquired November 2023
“The full face of Clifford, based on a fashionably swathed neck-cloth and high coat-collar, fills the design. The mouth is open as if shouting. The eyes and part of the cheeks are covered by circles representing huge spectacles. Each contains a symmetrical view of Covent Garden Theatre seen from the stage, showing pit, three tiers of boxes, and the centre of the two galleries (the ‘pigeon-holes’ not appearing), all crowded. The views differ only in the performers on the stage, two actors on the right (one clearly Kemble, probably as Macbeth), and on the left two actors and a file of soldiers. Superimposed on the middle of each circular design is a large ‘O’ (left) and ‘P’ (right). Round the broad rims of the spectacles: (left) ‘Old House Old Prices & No Private Boxes’ and (right) ‘Old House Old Prices & No Pigeon Holes’. On the bridge across the nose: ‘N.P.B.’ (No Private Boxes, see British Museum Satires No. 11421).”–British Museum online catalogue.
809.11.17.01
Acquired December 2023
File 767 P69B C838 1822 2/7
Acquired August 2021
“The stage of Covent Garden Theatre is seen from the right with a small part of the pit in the left foreground; the boxes and galleries adjoining the stage form the background on the left. The pittites are standing and blow trumpets, spring rattles, ring bells, and shout. Those in the crowded boxes behave in the same way; with one exception all are men. Two men occupy each of the two boxes over the stage-door; they watch passively. The musicians’ seats are empty, but candles burn beside their open music-books, and one of the orchestra stands facing the audience, threatening them with fist and baton. On the stage three men stand together addressing the audience. The man in the centre holds out a paper: ‘Riot Act’; he says: “We shall Read the riot act”. Behind them stands Kemble wearing a tail-coat and white trousers, appealing to the audience with his hands meekly together as if in prayer. Large notices and placards hang from the galleries and boxes: ‘Old Prices’ [five times]; ‘Harris will but Kemble won,t’; ‘No Kembles No more insults’; ‘Kemble remember the Dublin Tin Man’; ‘No Foreign Sofas’; ‘Iohn Bull against Iohn Kemble’; ‘No Catalani’; ‘Old Prices’ [three times]; ‘No Italian Private Boxes’; ‘£6000 for Caterwauling’; ‘Catalani’, below a print of a cat dressed as a woman, and singing ‘Me Yo’ from a music-book; ‘No Catalani!! Mountain– Billington, and Dickons for ever’; ‘Ol Price for ever No caterwauling’; ‘Old Prices No Catalani’; a gigantic placard: ‘Statement– £ Subscribed — £80-000 Fire Office — 50-000 Old Materials — 25-000 155-000 New Theatre —- 150-000 Managers of it —- 5-000′ Held up by a ‘John Bull’ in the pit who blows a trumpet: ‘No Catalani No Pigeon Holes Old Prices No Private Boxes’. A man shouts from a box: “Off Off Off Off”; he springs a rattle.”–British Museum online catalogue.
809.09.00.06++
Acquired January 2020
File 767 P69B C838 1756 4/29
Acquired June 2019
File 767 P69B C838 1755 4/24
Acquired June 2019
Acquired November, 2010 by the Lewis Walpole Library.