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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2010
In 1708 an actress named Mary Morein filed a bill of complaint in the Court of Chancery against William Pinkethman. Morein's name appears nowhere in The London Stage, and there is no entry for her in the Biographical Dictionary. Other than the lawsuit testimony by and against her, I am aware of no evidence about her. Thus the lawsuit is of interest because it documents the existence of an otherwise unknown performer at a stormy time in the history of the London theatre. Perhaps more important, however, it contains significant factual evidence about the employment conditions of minor actresses, and gives specific figures for what such a person might earn by performing at the Fairs.
1 All quotations from the lawsuit are from P.R.O. C7'229'34. Leslie Hotson lists this suit as no. 109 in his appendix to The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1928), 326, but he does not discuss it. I have silently expanded contractions in all quotes from the complaint and answer. Morein's name is sometimes spelled “Moorin’ in Pinkethman's answer. Pinkethman's clerk also refers to her as “Mary then Mary Morein,’ a standard formula for denoting a woman's maiden name. But this must be an error, since Mary was joined in her complaint by her husband, Lawrence Morein.
2 Downes, John, Roscius Anglicanus, ed. Milhous, Judith and Hume, Robert D. (London: The Society for Theatre Research, 1987), 104–05.Google Scholar
3 The name Dimmock or Dymock Morris appears in Drury Lane lighting bills of 1714 to 1716 now at the Folger Library (Folger MSS. W.b. 110 and W.b. 111). See A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, … and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, ed. Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans, vol. 10 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), 323. We have records later in the century of a Mr. Dimmock or Dymuck who served as doorkeeper and billsticker for Covent Garden Theatre and a “Young Dimmock” who acted at Drury Lane-perhaps they are descendants of the Dymocke whom Morein and Pinkethman mention? See Biographical Dictionary, vol. 4 (1975), 421. “Margaret” Kent could possibly be an error for “Mary” Kent, a minor actress at Drury Lane during this period who later worked with Pinkethman at his Greenwich Theatre.
4 See the entry for Pinkethman, in the Biographical Dictionary, vol. 11 (1987), 320–31.Google Scholar
5 Rosenfeld, Sybil, The Theatre of the London Fairs in the ISth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960).Google Scholar
6 During the years we are examining here, plays were banned at Bartholomew Fair in 1700, 1701, 1702, 1703; the fair was limited to three days in 1708. Since we have records of performances of plays and other entertainments at the fair during several of these years (and no records of arrests or finings), we can conclude that the bans were ineffectual.
7 Rosenfeld, 9.
8 Downes, 108.
9 Rosenfeld notes, “For the first time the troupe from the theatres included two actresses, Mrs Willis and Mrs Baxter” (18). She errs, perhaps, since this is Mrs. Baxter's first recorded performance, and thus we cannot ascertain whether or not she was a patent company actress. She was sworn as a royal servant on IS January 1707/8 (see P.R.O. LC 5/166, p. 211), and her name appears intermittently in ads for Pinkethman's Greenwich Theatre.
10 London: J. Morphew, [1707]. Newberry Library copy. This broadside and an announcement for its publication in the Post Boy of 28–30 August 1707 are our evidence for Pinkethman's offering this summer. See Avery, Emmett L., ed., The London Stage, 1660–1800, part 2, vol. 1 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960) for 30 August 1707.Google Scholar
11 Pinkethman was most fond of delivering epilogues astride asses—and elephants. Judith Milhous describes the animal acts during the years 1702–1705 in Thomas Beturton and the Management of Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1695–1708 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979), 177.
12 London Spy, part 10 (London: J. How, August 1699), 10. The anonymous Life of Lavinia Beswick, alias Fenton, alias Polly Peachum (1728) confirms this estimate of a minor actress's salary, even nearly thirty years later, by saying that the future star of The Beggar's Opera was admitted to a regular London company starting at 15s per week.
13 P.R.O. LC 7/3, folio 2–4, 8–20. Milhous, Judith transcribes these documents in Thomas Bettenon, 225–46.Google Scholar
14 Hume, Robert D., “The Origins of the Actor Benefit in London,” Theatre Research International 9 (1984): 104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15 For an analysts of this document see Milhous, and Hume's, “The Drury Lane Actors’ Petition of 1705,” Theatre Notebook 39 (1985): 62–67.Google Scholar The editors of the Biographical Dictionary incorrectly date this document as 1708 in their entry on Mrs. Knight.
16 Other minor players who disappear from the ads and rosters after the order of 1707 are Philip Griffin, Jane Lucas, Mr. Funs, Mrs. Babb, and Mrs. Temple.
17 See P.R.O. LC 5/154, p. 300.
18 See P.R.O. LC 5/166, p. 211.