Interior of the London Pavilion Music Hall (c.1861)

There is tendency for people to act differently when they are away from home. We let our hair down on holiday for example, and perhaps do things we might not usually do when surrounded by more familiar scenery and faces. London offers visitors the opportunity to be anonymous; to become almost invisible for a few hours. Along with its proliferation of bars and clubs I’m sure this is one of the reasons it features high on the list of destinations for hen nights and stag dos.

I wonder if this helps explain the behaviour of George Camell, who came to London in 1862 and found himself up before the magistrate on a charge of creating a disturbance. Mr Camell, a native of Yorkshire, appeared in the dock at Marlborough Street with his pet dog by his side.

The dog was significant because it was his attempt to enter the newly re-opened (and very popular) London Pavilion Music Hall in Titchborne  Street with his animal, that had led to his arrest. The case was presented by PC Robert Martin (86C) who testified that he’d been stationed outside the Pavilion at 8.30 on the previous Saturday evening (19 September) when Camell had tried to push his way in. The policeman explained to him that he was not allowed in with his hound but Camell, who was drunk, insisted.

This sent Camell into a rage and he challenged the officer to a fight in the street. He was holding his dog on a chain but said he’d fight one handed. PC Martin declined and told him to go home. Camell replied that he’d come all the way from Yorkshire and was determined to enter. Then he’d had to leave his dog outside, the copper told him. In which case would the policeman look after his dog?

No, he would not, said PC Martin. ‘You can fasten it to your button”, suggested Camell, at which point the policeman lost his patience and, deciding things had gone far enough and the man was creating a scene, he marched him off to the police station, where he spent the night.

Camell was bailed to appear at Marlborough Street and brought a solicitor that had known him for years to speak for him in court. He told the magistrate (Mr Tyrwhitt) that his client was incapable of such conduct’.

‘Yes, when he is sober’, Mr Tyrwhitt agreed. Not when he was drunk, as the police had proved, with witnesses, that he was.

Camell had come straight to the Pavilion from dinner where he’d presumably had plenty to drink. He claimed to be a gentleman and a magistrate and gave his address as New Hall, near Hartley (which may be on the Yorkshire and Lancashire borders). He’d been locked up for several hours and since he’d only made a disturbance and not actually fought with PC Martin the justice decided he’d probably been punished enough. He released him.

As for Camell he said:

‘I never was in a police court in such a position before, and I shall never forget it’.

His appearance in court was clearly something of an embarrassment and he must have hoped it would not make the pages of the Yorkshire press.  Sadly for him his anonymity in London didn’t save him from local scrutiny. The Bradford Observer carried the story (lifted entirely as written) in its Thursday edition with the ‘headline’: ‘A Yorkshire Magistrate in the London Police Court’. Eeh by gum…

[from The Morning Post , Tuesday, September 23, 1862; The Bradford Observer , Thursday, September 25, 1862]