This is a post about some of the more off beat entertainments available to Victorian Marlow residents. For other forms of fun, see the links at the end...
First up, we will head to the Town Hall, (later better known as part of the Crown Hotel) in March 1858. We will be clutching event tickets provided by bookseller George Cannon at whose premises we consulted a seating plan. Heading up the stairs to the assembly room, we will surrender our tickets and find our way to our seats. This entertainment is here for one night only and so singular that we will not want to miss a moment thanks to an obscured view. So I think we will have splashed out 3 shillings a piece on stalls tickets. Those at the back will have paid only a shilling each. What we have come to see is William Woodman's Olio of Oddities. It's described as an original "musical and polyphonic entertainment". Mr Woodman will before our eyes perform a whirlwind of mimicry, making nearly "100 instantaneous metamorphoses of voice, character and costume." He will transform into all kinds of popular and topical personages, some of which will probably leave us scratching our heads but the alternating gasps and laughter of the audience will carry us along. I hope you remembered what Mr Cannon told us and ordered the carriage for 10pm to carry us home.
While we are in the 1850's we might notice posters advertising the regular visit of Wombwells Menagerie to Crown Meadow. (Riley Park) This comes to town during the October Fair of course but it often drops by at other times, as did other similar attractions. I don't think we will enjoy seeing the caged lions and shackled elephants but there was a time such a visit was regarded as educational and wholesome. In 1859, a subscription was raised in the town so that 100 boys and 60 girls of the National Schools could attend the Menagerie. On the subject of exotic beasts, in November 1838, we may see a few souls hanging around on Marlow Bridge. What are they waiting for? Isaac Van Amburgh of course. Not heard of him? You obviously need to head to a stationer and read the newspaper. American Van Amburgh is an extremely famous lion tamer and the man regarded as responsible for making trained wild animals part of a circus. His British tour this year is a sensation. He actually rides lions like a horse. Even Queen Victoria has been to a performance of his. Someone has circulated hand bills in Maidenhead which suggest Van Amburgh is going to ride a lion through the streets of Marlow, onto the bridge. Then on the signal of a trumpet the lion will dive into the Thames and swim to Maidenhead. Possibly with Mr Van Amburgh on board. Unfortunately for those waiting, it is a hoax, and no lions are in town. A couple of hundred people are said to have waited at Maidenhead Bridge for the arrival of the lion tamer alas.
A different kind of menagerie is on view if we set ourselves down at Thames Bank House (later known as Lymbrook, and Thames Lawn) in 1876. The house is hosting one of its occasional bazaars in aid of church funds. We will have to dodge the enthusiastic ladies hosting the bric a brac and craft stalls - unless of course you are short of a tea cosy or a tray cloth or two? We are heading to Alfred Heneage Cocks Museum of Curiosities adjacent to his menagerie. The later is a private collection of British wild animals now captive, from otters to hedgehogs and polecats. What we would like to see is the museum though. It's a collection normally only available to his friends to view but many of his artefacts are loaned to museums in London and later to temporary displays at the Institute (the Library building). Inside we will be able to see items from archaeological digs around Cock Marsh and further afield, as well as all sorts of ethnographic displays. Mr Cocks spent much time in Finland and "the Northern countries" and purchased lots of woodcraft, tapestries and other interesting items from those living in rural communities there. Entry here costs 6d, the same as the Menagerie. Don't worry, we will release the local wildlife on the way out. While you enjoy a cup of tea, I will take the chance to visit head gardener Mr Bridgman's plant stall. All plants a shilling. Mr Bridgman is a talented man, and later takes care of "the enclosure" (or the grassy area in the Causeway as we know it) as well as an area fronting Marlow Station. I think we can get some tips from him relating to his prize winning fruit trees at least.
Incidentally Alfred Heneage Cocks features at many Marlow entertainments of some kind or another - some serious, some less so. He could perform comic songs as well as deliver lectures. My money would be spent on witnessing his clog dance at an 1878 evening entertainment. We are told that "the elasticity of Mr A H Cocks with his huge clogs was really quite wonderful".
Coming out on St Peters Street and winding back a few years to 1872, we will head to the Music Room. That is the Masonic Centre today. We are stopping by to enjoy a performance by celebrated illusionist Signor Bosco. It's guaranteed as a most tasteful performance that includes mind reading, and ventriloquism.
Time for more refreshments. There's a string of people carrying delicious looking cakes away from the Institute - their bake stall is legendary. It's 1890 and there's a fete on in aid of the building fund. I chose this year for a visit because the Institute building is new and the town is so proud of it I am sure we will find someone to give us a tour of the recreation room and all the rest. But I did promise unusual entertainments so for now we will head out the back - there's more land than in our day - and through to the grounds of Cromwell House. Don't worry, we aren't tresspassing. The dividing wall has been knocked through on purpose to allow visitors to enjoy Edwin Clark's Observatory in the grounds of Cromwell House. Temporarily dismissing an inconvenient wall is a Marlow speciality. Edwin is a scientist, inventor, engineer, and mathematician as well as an amateur astronomer, as far as he can be an amateur at anything.
I like the late Victorian period so let's pop to the 1890's. The Institute is still raising money for it's Building Fund. In October 1890, the event aiming to separate us from our shillings is a series of Tableaux Vivants at the Music Room again. Not an unusual event of its time, you can see families putting these on at Christmas or school children attempting to dazzle their parents with their ingenuity on open days. I don't expect many of us have taken part in one recently. A group of amateur performers will come out from behind a make shift curtain and arrange themselves into a still life scene. They will then hold the pose as you marvel at their recreation of a famous scene from a book, or a Bible story or a painting. Just imagine you pressed pause on a video and voila. Then they will rearrange themselves into a new image. This may go on a while. I think we will slip out and find something more active. Perhaps a football match at the Crown Meadow? That may not be unusual entertainment granted, but I want you to help me with some research while we are there. We will head in through the Oxford Road entrance. It's December 1898 and this date has been chosen because it's when Marlow Football Club gets to use it's new iron and wood grandstand for the first time. We will have to pay 3d extra for a seat here but that's so the bunch of supporters that bought the stand second hand from Southampton St Mary's FC can be paid back for their investment. When they have recouped the cost, in 1908, they hand ownership to the Football Club for free. The reason I bought you here is to count the spectators while the stand is at full capacity. You see when it's first proposed to buy the stand, the local papers say it will host 250 but later on it is said on more than one occasion to hold 400. (The former is almost certainly correct, as it corresponds with the assessment made of the stands condition before purchase by architect J H Deacon.) It's 110ft long and seating is on three tiers. That's a pretty swish stand so I think we should find out how fancy it really is. I'm sure the gentlemen attending won't mind. Or the ladies. Yes there are a few, or as the Maidenhead Advertiser put it in 1891, "a fair sprinkling of the fairer sex". What do you mean you have prior engagement to attend a tableaux vivant?!
Let's make the last stop something high brow. This is yet another event in aid of Institute funds. The celebrated war artist and war correspondent Frederic Villiers will be at the Music Room in February 1897 to give a lecture on his work. Frederic's art can usually be seen in The Graphic and The Illustrated London News. He has taken his sketchbook quite literally to the front lines, one of the few correspondents said to be willing to do so. He travels throughout the world reporting on events such as the 2nd Afghan and Boer Wars, the Anglo Egyptian War in 1882, and others. At this lecture Frederick will tell us of an idea he has, to take a machine capable of taking moving picture images to the front line of a real battle. The year after visiting Marlow he will attempt this very thing, during a campaign in Sudan. He is aboard a gun ship on the Nile during the Battle of Omdurman, with his "machine." Unfortunately a nearby explosion will rock the boat and upset Frederic's equipment ruining his footage. He goes back to drawings until 1912 when he does manage to capture some footage. There were plenty in Marlow thrilled at his stories, but also a few expressing doubt moving pictures could be captured at the front. At the time, it seems they were right.
Here is some links to other posts dealing with Victorian entertainment:
Marlow Fair here
Bathing in the Thames and swimming races here
Marlow horse racing here
Cycling and the bicycle gymkhana here
The sorry youth of today - 1896 style here
General posts about life in old Marlow here
Selected Sources
The Ethics of Performing Animals, Aflalo, Frederick George, 1900
History of Magic and Magicians digitised by Archive.org. Accessed October 2020.
Villiers, Frederick. Peaceful Personalities and Warriors Bold (Harper and Brothers, 1907) Accessed via Archive.Org Jan 2019
Villiers, Frederick. His Five Decades of Adventure. (Harper and Brothers, 1920) Accessed via Archive.Org Jan 2021.
Reading Mercury 6 March 1858, 21 December 1872, British Library Archive, accessed via the BNA.
South Bucks Free Press October 1 1859 & 9 December 1898 as above
Bucks Herald September 23 1876, as above
Maidenhead Advertiser 22 April 1891, as above
Sussex Advertiser 5 November 1838. As above.
Written and researched by Kathryn Day.
© MarlowAncestors.