7th December 2022
by Horatio Blood
Horatio Blood began by explaining that, although his family came from Rotherhithe, his talk was on aspects of London’s historic toy theatres – especially their river and maritime themes.
The toy theatre, or ‘juvenile drama’, dates back to 1811 and provides an invaluable record of the 19th century London theatre. The vivid popular prints of characters and scenes were originally sold at ‘a penny plain and twopence coloured’, but in the early 1830s the trade was transformed: the sheets were halved in price, reduced in size and the imagery became more stylised. At the forefront of this development were the Skelts, a family publishing firm, based in the Minories, whose name became a byword for the toy theatre. The Skelts were beloved by Robert Louis Stevenson, who coined the phrases ‘the scenery of Skeltdom’ and ‘Skeltery’ in his now famous short essay, entitled ‘A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured’, published in The Magazine of Art in 1884.
In this well-illustrated talk, Horatio focussed his gaze on the swashbuckling nautical melodramas and the evocative views of the lost London riverside, provided by the publishers of toy theatres.
Horatio took a special look at toy theatres dating from the 1830s. Unlike those on the continent, the plays of London publishers were based on real stage performances.
Initially, the early publishers issued just the prints of characters and scenes without any script, leaving their customers to purchase the printed acting editions with the complete dialogue as performed on stage. However, these were far too long and impractical for miniature performances at home; and from the 1820s onwards the publishers issued abridged scripts specifically adapted for their toy theatre versions. The ‘Juvenile Drama’ had come into its own.
Toy theatres were mostly marketed as a form of home entertainment for young boys. The paper characters and scenery were printed in black and white and had to be hand coloured: either by the publisher’s colourists in brilliant, vivid watercolours assuredly applied with rapid brushstrokes, or more leisurely – though less effectively – at home by the boys. They then had to be carefully cut out and mounted on thin cardboard. Stevenson believed that the enjoyment was all in the pleasure of preparing the play, rather than performing it. The miniature characters, sometimes recognisable portraits of real actors, were pushed onto the wooden stages in tin slides from the sides, while the scenes were lowered from above, and complimented with side wings and top drops to enhance the illusion of perspective and depth. The toy theatres were illuminated by real flames flickering in small tin footlights, their wicks soaked in colza oil, and – as with full size theatre stages – this led to the risk of fires. Toy theatre publishers also produced larger character portraits. These dramatic prints could also be purchased plain or beautifully coloured. Embossed tinsel ornaments, stamped from coloured copper foil, were sometimes used to decorate these prints, transforming them into tinsel pictures reflecting the glittering brilliance of real theatrical costumes.
William West was the original toy theatre publisher who remained in business from 1811 until his death in 1854, initially from a shop in Exeter Street, off the Strand, latterly moving to nearby Wych Street. In the early 1830s West appears to have been struggling and traded under the name of Sarah Stokes, his ‘housekeeper.’ An early rival of West was J. H. Jameson in Dukes Court, Bow Street, whose numerous publications included a version of Robinson Crusoe as performed at Covent Garden Theatre in 1817. The toy theatre reached its heyday in the 1820s when a succession of new, though short-lived, publishers appeared on the scene. In the 1830s the Skelt family – based in the Minories, north-east of the Tower, and close to the river – became the principal toy theatre publisher. They frequently bought up the copper plates of earlier publishers, who were going out of business, and republished them under their own name.
Some historic river events – such as royal visits and ship launches – were also captured and publicised in allied popular prints, that reflected the lively naïve style of the toy theatre. One printer in this category was William Belch, of the Borough, who published a print of the opening of St Katharine’s Docks in 1828.
The toy theatre characters included those played by T. P. Cooke, the well-known stage actor famous for his nautical roles, jigs and hornpipes. One of these was the sailor ‘Long Tom Coffin’ whose name may have been the inspiration for Long John Silver. As already noted, Stevenson, of Treasure Island fame, wrote of the romance of the toy theatre and had owned one as an Edinburgh boy in the late-1850s. In toy theatre plays the underdog always triumphed, so in those involving ships it was the ‘Jack Tar’ who was usually the hero.
The toy theatre publishers continued to issue new plays until the 1860s, when the trade seriously declined as much cheaper alternatives containing all the characters and scenes for a play on one large folded sheet – printed from woodblocks and priced at a penny – become available. These were known as ‘penny packets’.
Although no new toy theatre plays were produced, many of the traditional old ones were kept in print for the next eighty years by the last two publishers, Webb and Pollock, who both remained in business well into the 20th century. The end finally came in 1944, when the Luftwaffe effectively destroyed Benjamin Pollock’s old shop in Hoxton – then run by his elderly daughters – although thankfully the stock of printing plates and prints were saved. The Museum of London (now London Museum) has a large collection of important toy theatre items, mostly acquired by Jonathan King and donated to the original London Museum in 1912.
After WW2 there was another revival of interest in the toy theatre with the publication of George Speaight’s Juvenile Drama: The History of the English Toy Theatre (1946) and a new successor to Pollock’s. More recently, well-researched books have appeared on the subject and reprints of many plays are available online.
As well as their entertainment value, toy theatres provided work for skilled artists, engravers, printers and colourists. They enabled the managers of provincial theatres to see costumes and scenery from the London stage. The social history of the time is preserved in the subject matter, characters and scenery of the magical toy theatre. Especially relevant to the Group’s interest is that riverside scenes and buildings were sometimes depicted, along with a variety of ships which are shown externally and internally.
Horatio Blood; precis by Sally Mashiter and Chris Ellmers, 2024 and 2026