York Guides

Tate Wilkinson's management of the York circuit began in January 1766. After his disastrous appearance in York during Race Week of 1765, he stayed in the city while Baker's company appeared in Beverley, and then joined them to appear in Hull. He returned to York and was preparing to leave, it 'being the last place of wishing to stay at, or even deign to visit in future'14 because of his hostile reception in August, when he was surprised to be asked by a group of the Theatre's patrons to perform in the Charity Schools' Benefit. His performance was a success, and it led to the suggestion, by a group of gentlemen led by a Mr Tasker, that, as 'the York theatre was in a very declining state, even to the disgrace of the city: - dirty scenes, dirty clothes, all dark and dismal'15; largely because of Baker's age and ill-health and the large debt he had incurred in rebuilding the Theatre, Wilkinson, 'universally acquainted with theatrical matters', be asked to act as manager for Baker. An agreement was reached whereby Wilkinson lent Baker £1,400 and received from him interest on his loan, a weekly salary as manager of £l-lls-6d, Benefit performances at York, Hull and Newcastle, and was adopted as Baker's heir to the 'theatrical property'. He acted as 'regent' until Baker's death in 1770, when he became 'sole monarch of the Theatre'.16

In 1766, Wilkinson set about making 'many improvements in point of management . . . such as regarded regulation, alteration, new discipline, with necessary et ceteras'." One of them concerned the conduct of Benefit nights. The winter season at York was divided - the 'public weeks' of the Races and Assizes excluded - into subscription nights and Benefit nights. Members of the audience could buy a ticket to the subscription nights at a much reduced rate, in effect a season ticket. Benefits were usually held on Saturdays. Each actor had a night in York, Hull and, when it joined the circuit in place of Newcastle, Leeds, on which the takings, after the house charges had been paid, were divided between him and the manager. Married couples in the company, who were paid a joint salary, had to share a Benefit between them. The more status an actor had in the company, the more freedom he had to choose his night and the plays to be presented. Wilkinson, with the greatest freedom of choice, always had his York Benefit on Easter Tuesday, and usually brought out at least one new piece, often a spectacular pantomime, so ensuring a good house. Benefits provided an essential boost to a player's salary. Wilkinson's accounts for 1784 survive and they indicate that for his own York Benefit he received £44-10s-Od as his personal share as well, of course, as another £44-10s-Od as manager. The next best Benefit receipt that season was for Mr and Mrs Smith, who received £44-9s-6d; they were, at the time, the best paid actors in the company, with a joint salary of £2-16s-6d a week. Mr Creswell's was the poorest Benefit, at £6-lls-Od, and his weekly salary was only 18s. Od. In addition to their salaries and as a part of their Benefit, players would sometimes receive 'presentations' from certain members of the audience, in the form of extra payments for their boxes. Sometimes an eminent person or group of people - often the officers of a regiment - would 'bespeak' a Benefit night, that is, give it special patronage and choose the pieces to be performed. They would, by their patronage, ensure a good house. When Wilkinson took over the management of the York Theatre, he found it was usual for actors to tout for custom for their Benefits, delivering playbills themselves to likely customers, 'running after, or stopping a gentleman on horseback to deliver his benefit bills and beg half a crown' and 'attending the assembly-rooms and presenting their petitions'.18 At the end of the Benefit performance, the beneficiary would thank the audience from the stage for their kindness in attending. Wilkinson was outraged by 'that degrading and painful custom', and stopped it. Part of his concern was that 'not any performer of the least distinguished reputation, gentleman or lady, would ever professionally visit the York or Hull theatres where such despicable compliance was to be exacted'. He clearly intended introducing London stars to the circuit from the beginning.

A further stage in Wilkinson's bid for respectability for his company was his obtaining a Royal Patent for his theatres in York and Hull in 1769, at a cost of nearly £500. This legalised them - the only other provincial theatres with this privilege, granted in 1768, were Bath and Norwich - and allowed the company to style itself 'His Majesty's Servants'. The York Theatre opened as the Theatre Royal on Saturday, 8 April, 1769.

It was during the summer Race and Assize Weeks that York received most of its visits from London-based stars, as then the two Patent Houses, Covent Garden and Drury Lane, were closed and only the Haymarket was open. York was well placed for the occasional visits of stars travelling to or from major engagements in other provincial towns, as it is situated halfway between London and Edinburgh and was a convenient place at which travellers could break their journey. Visiting stars included the great names of the period, among them: Ned Shuter, the comedian, who visited York in 1773; Mrs Yates, considered to be the greatest player of heroines in 18th century classical tragedy, in 1785; Miss Elizabeth Farren, who was renowned for her 'fine ladies' in comedy, in 1789; and Mrs Alexander Pope, who played Portia to Wilkinson's Shylock in 1792. There were also a number of performers who returned to York as stars, having been members of the York stock company before achieving fame in London. They included:Mrs Crawford,who appeared twice in May 1786, and who had been with the company as Mrs Dancer in 1753, 1754 and 1756; John Philip Kemble, who visited in 1788, 1791 and 1798; Mrs Dorothy Jordan in 1791; John Fawcett in 1803, who had been in the stock company from 1787 until his success at Covent Garden in 1791; and Mrs Sarah Siddons in 1789, 1796 and 1799. These stars may be said to have been trained by Wilkinson, whose reputation for providing 'a kind of nursery-school for the London stage' was well established. He did not allow his actors to be lured to London without putting up a fight to keep them, however, and he commented somewhat bitterly on a perennial problem confronting any provincial theatre manager:19

whenever any provincial actor or actress makes any stride in the opinion of the audience, fame increasing as she goes, immediately sets a London manager to level his dart and say, that bird is mine - I will have it.

Tate Wilkinson had a difficult time with two of these returning stars. Mrs Jordan had been with the York company for three years, following her arrival in England from Dublin in 1782. She excelled in 'hoyden' or tomboy roles, and was very popular in the 'breeches parts' when,playing a man, she was able to show off her legs with some degree of decorum. Her first London appearance was at Drury Lane as Peggy in The Country Girl on 15 October, 1785. Fame came to her, too, from being mistress to the Duke of Clarence, later William IV, for 20 years. She had a reputation for being temperamental, and Tate Wilkinson referred to her as 'Mrs Wilful!'.20 Her 1791 appearance in York well illustrated her temper. She was to perform on each of the six nights of the summer Assize Week and give one extra performance during the following week, during which there was to be a Musical Festival. She began by refusing to play one of the parts advertised for her and further antagonised the populace by performing The Country Girl which 'was not held by the ladies in York in estimation, but termed rude and vulgar'. The week proceeded without the audiences receiving her as enthusiastically as she expected and with Mrs Jordan retaliating by showing 'an indifference ... as to how she acted' and 'a contemptuous opinion of her judges'. She complained to Wilkinson of the York audience and company:

She said she had a double weight to carry on her shoulders, a stupid audience, and a stupid company of actors; there was not any comprehension or an idea in the whole company before or behind the curtain.

Her pique by the end of the week was so great (although she received £160 for the six appearances) that she refused to appear on the one night arranged in the following week, and declared - although she changed her mind later - that she would never appear in York again.

Wilkinson was left in a difficult position by Mrs Jordan's defection and, in filling the gap in his programme, he had a fraught encounter with another of the stars who had trained with him. John Philip Kemble had been a member of the York stock company from 1779 to 1781, when he left to join the Dublin company. In August 1791 he was staying in York at the home of the Lord Mayor, on his way to take up an engagement with his brother, Stephen, at the Newcastle theatre. Having been let down by Mrs Jordan, Wilkinson discovered that Kemble was in York and asked if he would perform. Kemble at first refused, but changed his mind,21 agreeing to replace Mrs Jordan on the one night out¬standing and to perform on three additional nights.

he said he would stand in Mrs Jordan's place, and receive the thirty guineas. I said pounds, as was Mrs Jordan's agreement for that night . . . but Mr Kemble said there was an end of the matter, for guineas it must be or the business was at an end; and as I was jammed into a corner I instantly said guineas let it be. . . I was as docile as a young elephant.

Kemble soon changed his mind again. York was full of visitors that week, because of the Musical Festival, and it became apparent that the receipts at the Theatre were likely to be high. Kemble therefore insisted on receiving half the receipts on each night he appeared, and Wilkinson felt obliged to agree. For the four nights he appeared, Kemble received 'bordering on' £150. This was less than he could have hoped for as his third appearance was to a small audience, that being 'the principle night "of the [music] Festival at the Assembly rooms'.

Sarah Siddons was, without doubt, the greatest star to appear in York. William Hazlitt, eminent dramatic critic for various London papers from 1813 to 1830, wrote of her in The Examiner on 16 June, 1816:

The homage she has received is greater than that which is paid to queens. The enthusiasm she excited had something idolatrous about it; she was regarded less with admiration than with wonder, as if a being of a superior order had dropped from another sphere to awe the world with the majority of her appearances. She raised Tragedy to the skies, or brought it down from thence. It was something above nature. We can conceive of nothing grander. She embodied to our imaginations the fables of mythology, of the heroic and defiled mortals of older time. She was not less than a goddess, or than a prophetess inspired by the gods. Power was seated on her brow, passion emanated from her breast as from a shrine. She was Tragedy personified. She was the stateliest ornament of the public mind, she was not only the idol of the people, she not only hushed the tumultous shouts of the pit in breathless expectations, and quenched the blaze of surrounding beauty in silent tears, but to the retired and lonely student, throughlong years of solitude, her face has shone as if an eye had appeared from heaven; her name has been as if a voice had opened the chambers of the human heart, or as if a trumpet had awakened the sleeping and the dead. To have seen Mrs Siddons, was an event in everyone's life.

She first appeared at Drury Lane in 1775, but was a failure. She went next to the provinces and appeared with the York company for a month, from Easter to Whitsuntide, in 1777. Wilkinson said of her appearances then:22

I never remembered so great a favourite, as a York actress, as Mrs Siddons was in that short period.

Wilkinson wanted her to stay with his company, but she took up an engagement with Mr Younger's company in Manchester, and appeared in Liverpool in the summer. She joined John Palmer's company in Bath in October 1778 and returned to Drury Lane in October 1782, to be acclaimed as the greatest English tragic actress. She first visited York as a star in 1786, and played 11 nights, between 29 July and 28 August. On Thursday 3 August she performed Belvidera in Otway's Venice Preserved to a house of £192 which, Wilkinson claimed, was 'the greatest receipt . . . she ever acted to at any Theatre, at that time out of London'.23 She also performed four nights at Leeds and Hull and one at Wakefield that season, and for the 17 nights 'received from her profits no less a sum than eleven hundred pounds'. Wilkinson was to feel the after-effects of her visit adversely when her performances 'absolutely killed the whole succeeding year'.24 'Since the Siddonian fever,' he wrote, 'the York Theatre has seldom been well attended'. The contrast, he intimated, between a Siddons and a circuit actress was too great. The policy of introducing star performers from London was bound, too, to cause disaffection amongst the leading members of the local company, who found their favourite roles taken from them and played by the visitor. This starring system was to become so prevalent in the 19th century that the circuit company's main function came to be merely providing support tor stars. The sense of identity with, and loyalty to, a local company, such as the York one, were to be eroded.