John Ward, born in 1703, was a well known strolling player of his day, and later the grandfather of the hugely popular actress Sarah Siddons.
And that warm, and rather wet, Tuesday evening in September must have been a splendid affair, with the blacked-up Ward playing Othello with histrionic relish and dash. Between each act - and perhaps as a way of lightening the unfamiliar, and hugely emotional, dramatic load - there were “several entertainments of singing” by Mrs Elrington (who played Desdemona, as if she hadn't got enough on her hands), with violin accompaniment by a Mrs Wilton. The performance began at 6pm and cost Two Shillings and Sixpence for a pit seat, and One Shilling for a gallery seat; a great deal of money in 1746. John Ward had at last broken the taboo, and by all accounts it was a hugely successful event.
But the task of ensuring that Shakespeare's name was secure in the world of theatre fell to the aforementioned actor David Garrick.
David Garrick was a very talented, rather vain, somewhat portly, and hugely popular Hereford born actor (his family were of French descent, and his father a professional soldier) who was, by the 1740s, the toast of theatrical London. He also knew a good thing when he saw one and spent the next twenty years of his life re-introducing virtually the whole of the Shakespearean canon to the theatre going public. It was a very wise, and profitable, move.
Having done that, and earning a huge amount of money in the process, he felt he needed to ensure his name - and that of Shakespeare's - were
intertwined for posterity. The spectacular PR event he eventually conjured up - a three day Jubilee Celebration to mark Shakespeare's 205th birthday in 1769 - was destined to go down in theatrical, and meteorological history.
By 1769, with the Town Council now housed in its new, Florentine inspired, Town Hall ,situated on the corner of Sheep Street and Chapel Street, and with the site of New Place, and Shakespeare's Birthplace, now centres of increasing pilgrimage, Stratford's councillors, ready to
increase still further Shakespeare's appeal, agreed to confer the freedom of the town upon who else but David Garrick.
The councillors new that Garrick had a large Shakespearean collection and hoped the celebrated actor might donate a statue, or picture, of Shakespeare to adorn their new Town Hall, thereby signalling to the London intelligentsia their obvious love, and respect, of Shakespeare and his work. The councillors were also prepared to assure Garrick that his portrait would hang next to Shakespeare's in celebration of them both.
Garrick was sounded out, and with his acceptance assured, an elaborately decorated Scroll of Freedom was produced and placed in an ornate mulberry casket and delivered, with due ceremony, to Garrick's London home. On the 8th of May 1769 Garrick replied to the Stratford Town Council by letter:
GENTLEMEN,
I cannot sufficiently express my acknowledgement for the honour you havedone me in electing me a burgess of Stratford-upon-Avon: a town which will be ever distinguished and reverenced as the Birthplace of Shakespeare. There are many circumstances which have greatly added to the Obligation you conferred upon me. The Freedom of your town given to me unanimously, sent to me in such an elegant and inestimable Box, and delivered to me in such a flattering manner, merit my warmest gratitude. It will be impossible for me ever to forget those, who have honoured me with so much, as to mention my unworthy Name with that of their immortal Townsman. I am, Gentlemen, your most obliged and obedient servant.
David Garrick
Stratford Town Council had hooked their man, and during one of the many official dinners, Garrick suggested to the Town Council his idea of a
Jubilee Celebration to be organised by him. The Town Council agreed ( how could they refuse) unanimously, “with great enthusiasm”.
As a thank you Garrick donated, from his private collection, Benjamin Wilson's portrait of Shakespeare, and a statue by John Cheere. These
were both to be placed in the new Town Hall. He also commissioned, for 60 guineas, the 42 year old Thomas Gainsborough - a favourite of King
George III - to paint another portrait of Shakespeare - based upon Wilson's likeness of the bard - to hang alongside the other. But the querulous Gainsborough - initially refusing to paint a portrait based upon the work of another artist - replied to Garrick, in his usual forthright manner: “Damn the original of him, I think a stupider face I never beheld”. But Gainsborough - never a man to turn away the chance of making money - finally accepted the commission. But sadly, after making several attempts over the ensuing months gave up in a fit of anger.
Disappointed at not receiving their prestigious Gainsborough several members of Stratford Town Council travelled to the artist's studio in Kings Lynn and instead bought a large early portrait of Garrick - again for 60 quineas - which portrays a thoughtful looking actor - in a not untypical Gainsborough setting of wooded parkland - leaning against a stone plinth upon which rests an unsmiling, but well coiffured, bust of Shakespeare. The painting was hung with great ceremony next to the Wilson portrait. Unfortunately Stratford's only Gainsborough was destroyed by fire in 1946. Only a photograph exists today.
With all due honours now fully expressed, responded to, and reported in the appropriate journals, the Jubilee celebrations - which Garrick afterwards referred to as “my foolish hobby-horse” - were finally scheduled for August 1769. So, with less than four months to arrange the party Garrick, the great producer - the great theatrical field marshal - established himself at the White Lion Hotel in Henley Street ( long demolished) and began to organise his “national tribute” to Shakespeare.
Firstly an octagonal wooden Rotunda, not far from the site of the present RST (based upon the famous Rotunda at Ranelagh Gardens in Chelsea) was to be built as the centre-piece of the celebrations. It was to function as a theatre, banqueting-hall, and ballroom. There was to be space enough for a 100 piece orchestra, and a thousand guests. Garrick was tireless in his enthusiasm, and worked all the hours God sent to ensure the thing would be a success.
But things went awry very quickly, especially with the building of the massive Rotunda. Local craftsmen took exception to the use of Drury Lane carpenters, refusing to work alongside them, and sabotaging their efforts. And when it was discovered that a large quantity of timber had never even been ordered - sabotage again perhaps - from a Birmingham timber merchant the August dates for the festival's opening had to be cancelled.
Garrick took it all in his stride, and with new dates arranged in early Septembers things at last seemed to be going well, although many locals warned Garrick that September can be a very wet month in Stratford.
Garrick had to overcome many frustrations, but in the end he managed it, and also persuaded a huge number of the nobility and gentry, along with hundreds of theatrical celebrities, to make their way to Stratford.
James Boswell - minus Dr Johnson - was hired by the Scots Magazine, and The London Magazine, to try and capture the “almost magical
atmosphere” of the celebrations, which started each morning with cannon fire and a lavish birthday breakfast.
Horse-races took place daily on Shottery Fields, less than a mile away, with the winner of the final race receiving a Jubilee Cup and 50 guineas prize money. There were to be great lunches, grand balls and dinners, with each day's celebrations culminating in a splendid firework display. But oddly not a single performance of a Shakespeare play.
Wednesday September 6th, the first day of the celebrations, was warm and sunny as the Town Council gathered in the Town Hall to appoint David
Garrick the Steward of the Jubilee. Garrick, decked-out in a flamboyant green outfit, was presented - as his official marks of office - with a mulberry wand, a pair of white gauntlets and gloves, and, inevitably, a medal also carved from Shakespeare's famous mulberry tree.
This presentation was followed by an official breakfast held in the first floor ballroom of the Town Hall, as hundreds of people in the streets below enjoyed pig and ox roasts, parades and dancing, plus strolling players and musicians from Drury Lane who entertained the crowds with songs, which included one written for the occasion:
Ye Warwickshire Lads and ye Lasses,
See what at our jubilee passes;
Come revel away, rejoice and be glad,
For the lad of all lads was a
Warwickshire lad,
A Warwickshire lad,
All be glad,
For the lad of all lads was
A Warwickshire lad.
After the lengthy breakfast the resplendent Garrick lead the party to Holy Trinity Church, on the banks of the Avon (now sporting a new stone spire completed in 1768) where Dr Thomas Arnes' recently completed, and very lengthy oratorio, Judith, was performed to an increasingly loud accompaniment of snoring and farting.
At 3pm, a sit-down lunch for seven hundred invited guests took place beneath the Rotunda's splendid painted dome - which was supported by a
vast circular arcade of white Corinthian columns - from the centre of which hung a huge candelabra with 800 flaming candles.
The lunch too was splendid, consisting of a turtle (weighing-in at 150 pounds!), various meats and puddings, all washed down with over one thousand bottles of rich Maidera wine, and as many bottles of Champagne. Toasts were proposed to the King, to Garrick, and to Shakespeare ( and anyone else who came to mind), and as the waiters cleared the tables Garrick, and his old friend (and probably lover) Mrs Baddley, sang Garrick's own 'Sweet Willy'. I doubt if there was a dry eye in the house.
After lunch the orchestra, which had played throughout the meal, struck-up a lively tune to begin the dancing. Those who preferred not to dance wandered outside onto the wooden veranda to watch the firework display, smoke a pipe, or take a pinch of snuff. It had been a wonderful, “bumper” of a day.
Overnight it rained heavily, and on the second day it continued to rain, causing the Avon to rise alarmingly, and turn the surrounding land into a quagmire - as it would many times later, most recently in 2007. But people were not put-off , and the second day's events proceeded as planned, with most of the guests ferried by boat to the now somewhat isolated Rotunda, where a rather hung-over Garrick delivered his personal 'Ode to Shakespeare' - part recitative, part cantata - to a packed house. But it kept on raining, and the river kept on rising, and toward the end of Garrick's mammoth performance a section of the Rotunda's wall collapsed allowing a torrent of water to cascade through the building. But nothing, according to Boswell, could stop Garrick's passionate flow of words:
Sweet Swan of Avon; ever may thy stream
Of tuneful numbers be the darling theme;
Not Thames himself, who in his silver course
Triumphant rolls along...
Which was rather tempting fate. But Garrick left the stage to tumultuous applause - probably as much in relief as in praise - and the guests quickly made their way back to their homes, Inns, or hotels, to prepare for that evening's entertainments.
Around ten o'clock the rains eased for a while, which allowed the guests (now increased in number to over one thousand, and with many in fancy
dress, hired out at 4 guineas a time by an enterprising local businessman), to make their way across a hastily built causeway to a glittering masquerade ball. And although it rained again during the ball, and the lavish banquette that followed - where another huge turtle was
consumed - it couldn't dampen the high spirits, especially those of a rather inebriated James Boswell (dressed as a Corsican bandit, with dagger, pistol, and eye patch), who jumped onto a table where he tried to recite a lengthy poem of his own before - and depending upon which story you believe - either collapsed unconscious on to the very damp ground, or was pulled to the ground by a group of loutish young gentry who gave him a kicking for good measure.
“Damn you and your poetry, sir, dancin' is the thing, sir, dancin'!”
The rain couldn't wholly dampen the second of the massive firework displays either - although the Catherine Wheels failed to ignite - choreographed by the Italian pyrotechnician Signor Angelo, whose explosive, and colourful, repertoire was beautifully reflected in the vast lake now surrounding the slowly sinking Rotunda.
The third day was initially abandoned, with the exception of the horse racing, where a Master Pratt, a young groom riding his own horse, Whirligig, won the first prize, and afterwards admitted he “knew nothink about plays, or Master Shakespeare”. Happily, by the end of that final day, with the rains gone, the earlier cancelled grand ball went ahead as planned in a repaired and fortified Rotunda, where Garrick's wife, Eva Violette, danced a minuet that was, according to Boswell, “beyond description graceful”; plus yet another firework extravaganza from the indefatigable Signor Angelo.
Although not a single line of Shakespeare's had been spoken throughout Garrick's celebrations the festivities were considered hugely successful
in honouring the Bard, and perhaps more importantly for some, bringing an enormous amount of money into the town, and whetting the appetite for
more of the same.
The Jubilee had cost a staggering £50,000 ( several millions at today's values), with a loss of just £2,000, which Garrick generously took upon
himself to repay in instalments, something he was soon able to do fromn the healthy receipts of his successful 'afterpiece' at Drury Lane, called 'The Jubilee in Honour of Shakespeare', in which, it has been alleged, he described the people of Stratford as “inferior”. True or not he didn't visit Stratford again, and died in 1779. He is buried in Westminster Abbey at the foot of Shakespeare's statue.
Today the only visible outdoor reminder of Garrick's involvement with Stratford, and of those celebrations, is a rather good pub next door to Harvard House - once the home of the mother of John Harvard, the founder of Harvard University - which, soon after the Jubilee, was renamed The Garrick Inn as a fitting tribute to the actor; or more likely in fond memory of the opportunities taken by landlords to charge 9 guineas a night for a bed during those three memorable days?
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