1 Encyclopœdia Britannica, 11th ed. (1911), s.v. “Music Halls.”

2 For descriptions of song and supper rooms, see the appropriate citations in Senelick, L., Cheshire, D. F., and Schneider, U., British Music Hall 1840–1923: A Bibliography and Guide to Sources (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1981).Google Scholar For a contemporary account of Evans's not listed therein, see T., , “A Gastronomic Survey of the Dining Houses of London,” Bentley's Miscellany (New York: Jemima M. Lewer, 1839), 3: 477–78.Google Scholar Herbert Spencer in “Manners and Fashion” (1857) suggested that the popularity of night clubs and taverns among gentlemen resulted from the increasing stiffness and stateliness of dinner parties and society soirées.

3 Quoted in Earl, John, “Building the Halls,” in Music Hall: The Business of Pleasure, ed. Bailey, Peter (Stony Stafford: Open University Press, 1986), 1.Google Scholar

4 Morton, W. H. and Chance Newton, H., eds., Sixty Years' Stage Service, Being a Record of the Life of Charles Morton, “The Father of the Halls” (London: Gale & Polden, 1905), 4–5.Google Scholar

5 Stuart, Charles Douglas and Park, A. J., The Variety Stage: A History of the Music Halls from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (London: T. Fisher Unwin, [1895]), 39–40.Google Scholar

6 Scott, Harold, The Early Doors: Origins of the Music Hall (London: Nicholson & Watson, 1946), 43.Google Scholar

7 Earl, , “Building the Halls,” 4.Google Scholar

8 Rice, Charles, The London Theatre in the Eighteen-thirties, ed. Sprague, Arthur Colby and Shuttleworth, Bertram (London: Society for Theatre Research, 1950), v.Google Scholar

9 Rice, , The London Theatre, vii.Google Scholar

10 Central Archives of the British Museum, Minutes of the Trustees Meetings 1837–1875; Letter File 1837–1875.

11 All quotations from the Rice diaries are drawn from the 1840 and 1850 volumes, with the permission of the Harvard Theatre Collection. They reproduce his eccentric spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.

12 Kennick, Thomas, Comic Singing Made Easy: with Useful & Practical Hints, Suitable for Artist and Amateur… (London: William Challoner, 1869), 11.Google Scholar

13 Yeo, Eileen and Thompson, E. P., The Unknown Mayhew (New York: Pantheon Books, 1971), 481–8.Google Scholar

14 Nicholas Nickleby, chapters 2, 4. Comments about the topography of Rice's London are based on contemporaneous city maps and The A to Z of Victorian London, ed. Ralph Hyde (Lympne Castle, Kent: Harry Margary, 1987).

15 Soutar, Robert, ed., A Jubilee of Dramatic Life and Incident of Joseph A. Cave, Author, Manager, Actor, and Vocalist (London: Thomas Vernon [1892]), 58.Google Scholar

16 “Shisey” or “shicey” was Rice's favorite term of derogation. It comes from the German Sheisse, shit, by way of Yiddish. Eric Partridge in his slang dictionaries failed to trace “shice” earlier than 1853, but Rice's usage suggests that it was common in the theatrical profession long before then.

17 Harrison, Brian, “Pubs,” in The Victorian City: Images and Reality, ed. Dyos, H. J. and Wolff, Michael (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973), 161–90.Google Scholar

18 Bratton, J. S., The Victorian Popular Ballad (London: Macmillan, 1975), 25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 The Universal Songster; or, Museum of Mirth … (3 vols.) (London: Jones & Co., 1835), 1: 65.

20 Hollingshead, John, My Lifetime (2 vols.) (London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1895), 1: 49.Google Scholar

21 Arthur Lloyd's Popular Comic Song Book (London: C. Sheard, c1860), 22.

22 Harry Liston's New Comic Song Book (London: C. Sheard, c1860), 12.

23 Bradley, John L., ed., Rogue's Progress: The Autobiography of “Lord Chief Baron” Nicholson (Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 298.Google Scholar

24 Bailey, Peter, Leisure and Class in Victorian England: Rational Recreation and the Context for Control, 1830–1885 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), 146.Google Scholar

25 Morton, and Newton, , Sorry Years' Stage Service, 7.Google Scholar

26 Cheshire, David F., “A Chronology of Music Hall 1819–1923,” Theatre Quarterly 1, 4 (October-December 1971): 42.Google Scholar

27 Marriage certificate from St. Catherine's House, London.

28 Sketches by Boz, ch. 43.

29 Central Archives of the British Museum.

30 The reformer J. Ewing Ritchie had to admit that there was nothing objectionable in the songs he heard there, but complained that the spectators were led to drink by their mere presence in the house. Ewing Ritchie, J., The Night Side of London (London: William Tweedie, 1858), 177–78.Google Scholar

31 Pearsall, Ronald, Victorian Popular Music (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1973), 50.Google Scholar

32 Central Archives of the British Museum.

33 Death certificate from St. Catherine's House, London.