Tag: music

The Canine ‘Bon Ton’ cause an obstruction in Brunswick Square

In December 1832 two Italian street artists (or ‘strollers’), Bartalona Carstilina and Louiza Caraaro where charged with obstruction the passageway near Brunswick Square.

They had a small caravan ‘drawn my two foreign half-starved dogs’, an ‘indelicate-looking monkey’, many more dogs (one dressed up in military uniform, while others were dressed according to their gender, either in a motely collection of ‘muslin spangled dresses and fashionable bonnets’, complete with ‘busks so as to resemble ladies of ton’ [i.e fashionable  members of the Bon Ton] or as gentlemen ‘dandies’.

They must have made a memorable impression on anyone that witnessed i=the spectacle, no less so when they appeared together in the police court at Hatton Garden. PC Collins (from E Division) told the magistrates that he had heard the troupe before he saw them, the sounds of drum and trumpet accompanied by the ‘bellowing and laughter of a large crowd of persons’, had carried some distance and attracted his attention.

When he arrived at the scene the dogs were performing a dance (a ‘lively reel’ ) before being led through a series of exercises where they leapt over each other or jumped sticks held by the Italian couple. All of this watched over by the monkey who apparently acted as ‘master of ceremonies’.

There had been several complaints he deposed, from ‘gentlemen’ and mostly about the appearance of the monkey who was ‘horrible to look at’. The question of whether the dogs were being mistreated was not aired in court, presumably because no one was that bothered about ‘foreign’ animals, despite the obvious and parlous state of them.

As they spoke little or no English the accusations were put to the Italians via an interpreter who explained that the troupe had only just arrived in London from the Continent. The sitting justices discharged them on the grounds they back their bags and return directly to Italy, they were not wanted in London however entertaining their show might be to the many Londoners that had gathered to watch it. 

Had they remained, or indeed had they been resident in Britain they might have expected a fine for obstructing or ‘causing a crowd’ to gather. One presumes that was a risk they were prepared to take, street entertainers like themselves were well used to being moved on by the police and would have accepted the occasional fine as an occupational hazard that would be more than compensated by the money they earned passing round the hat during performances.

On this occasion however they promised to return to Italy forthwith, taking their colourful troupe with them.

[From Morning Post, Thursday 20 December 1832]

The Salvation Army refuses to a leave a sick woman in peace

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I’m sure we have all had to put up with annoying disturbances at some point in our lives; last year an inconsiderate neighbour chose to party hard until the wee hours as she celebrated her 40th birthday. At about 4 in the morning I was obliged to ask her guests (she had retired to bed) to turn the music off.

I might have expected it from a student house but not a group of middle aged professionals.

If you live in a big city (like London or Paris, or New York) you are likely to be disturbed by the sound of traffic, railways, the sirens of emergency vehicles, and the refuse collectors. These are the normal everyday sounds of urban living however, and we get used to them or accept them as necessary. It is quite different then if someone sets up a band outside your house and plays music incessantly for hours on end.

This was the scenario that brought a vet to seek help from Mr Shiel at Westminster Police court in June 1889.

The vet (described only as a ‘gentleman’, his name not being recorded in the newspaper report) lived in Turk’s Row, Chelsea where he ran ‘an infirmary for horses and dogs’. He told the magistrate that a ‘band of Salvationists’ (meaning the Salvation Army) had congregated outside his property on several occasions recently to perform.

‘There were’, he explained, ‘at least 20 persons singing to a tambourine accompaniment’ and he had called the police after they refused to stop. A policeman had intervened and ‘begged the people to go further off’ but they refused. Instead they just continued making more of their ‘hideous’ noise than they had previously.

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The poor vet described how he had told the group’s leader that his wife was ‘lying dangerously ill’ having had complications in her pregnancy. He just wanted her to be able to rest but the officer in charge of the Salvation Army band refused to believe him, and called him a liar.

He asked for a summons to bring the ‘Army’ to court.

Mr Sheil was sympathetic but not very helpful. Couldn’t the police have done more, he asked? ‘They have no power’, the vet replied, or at least ‘they don’t like to interfere’. Had an (often Italian) organ grinder stood opposite his house the police would have happily taken them away, but not, it seems, the men and women of the ‘Sally Army’, however disruptive they were being.

The magistrate would not grant a summons and instead suggested the applicant visit the ‘headquarters of this so-called Salvation Army, and see, in the name of religion, they will continue to disturb a person who is ill’. In other words, challenge their Christian principles and beliefs rather than apply the same rules to them as would have applied to itinerate street musicians.

If it seems hypercritical to us it certainly did to the vet. He left court muttering that ‘he did not see why he should not have a summons, and that the he considered the law ought to protect him’.

It is very hard not to agree with him. Once again it is a case of one rule for some, and another for others.

Today of course the Salvation Army is a well respected charity organization with branches all over the world; in the late 1880s it was an embryonic and divisive group which found itself in court quite frequently on charges of disturbing the peace or obstructing the streets. How times change eh?

[from The Standard, Wednesday 26 June, 1889]

For an interesting blog post on the involvement of Black Britons in the Salvation Army see Jeffrey Green’s post here

For other stories from me about the Salvation Army see these related posts:

‘A great nuisance’ but a dedicated body of men and women. How the Salvation Army got their message to the people

An ‘infernal din’ disturbs the peace on the Sabbath and lands the Salvation Army in court

‘I may be wrong but I think a man can be a Christian and march along without a uniform’: theft and imposture brings the Salvation Army into court

Brickbats and stones ‘welcome’ the Salvation Army to Hackney

William Booth in court, for doing something about homelessness

‘It was a bigger boy, sir’: youthful pranks in Rosemary Lane

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Rosemary Lane had a reputation for criminality throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The street was one of several in Whitechapel where the police were cautious about patrolling at night and where they would often turn when they needed to locate the ‘usual suspects’ for a bit of local thievery.

In 1847 PC H180 was passing nearby when he heard a terrible noise emanating from the lane and decided to investigate. He soon found almost two dozen young boys gathered together as some sort of impromptu orchestra, making an awful racket.  Some were banging pots and pans, others clashing knives and cleavers together; even bones were being used to pound out a rhythm on kettles and saucepans.

The policeman waded into this row and tried to get the lads to disperse. The boys were in high spirits and in no mood to listen. That day there had been a wedding – a Jewish marine store dealer, unpopular in the neighbourhood had married, and the reaction of the boys might have been some sort of youthful communal protest.

From the early modern period right up to the early twentieth century it was not uncommon for communities to express their displeasure or antipathy towards those they disliked or disapproved of by way of a charivari or skimmington. This was an old folk custom involving a mock parade with discordant (or ‘rough’) music.

As the policeman tried to stop the noise and make the crowd of boys go to their homes several of them turned on him and attacked him. One in particular hit him over the head with a kettle, knocking his hat into the gutter (before 1864 the police wore tall top hats, not helmets like they do today). He grabbed the boy and took him into custody, the others ran away.

The next day the child was brought before Mr Yardley at the Thames Police court charged with assaulting a policeman. Isaac Gardiner was so small his face could hardly be seen as he stood in the dock. When the magistrate was told that the boy had uttered the words ‘take that blue bottle!’ as he aimed a blow at the constable there was laughter in court. Isaac denied the charge, claiming some other boy was to blame.

‘It was a bigger boy, sir’, he said; ‘How could I reach up to a tall policeman’s head?’

It was a fair comment even if it was probably untrue. Mr Yardley was in no mood to have his court turned into a comic music hall act however, nor was he about to condone bad behavior by street urchins like Isaac. He told the prisoner that ‘boys must be taught to conduct themselves properly’. Isaac would be fined 5s and, since he had no money to pay, he’d go to prison for three days.

The poor lad was led away whimpering that it was unfair and he ‘didn’t see much harm in having a lark on a weddin’-day’.

[from The Morning Chronicle, Wednesday, October 20, 1847]

‘So after getting all you could out of him, you walked off with someone else?’: Love, music and discord in Lambeth

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The path of true love does not always run smoothly, and when things go wrong love can quickly turn to animosity. James Gray had been courting Georgina Hastings for three years, bringing her gifts and acting as a security for some of her purchases.

One of these was a pianoforte that she needed for her music lessons. Officially Georgina’s music tutor was guarantor for the piano but in reality it was understood that it was Gray that had undertaken to keep up repayments should Georgina miss any. She worked as a concert singer and she was a very attractive young woman, both of which meant that she was not short of admirers.

At some point her love for James cooled and someone else replaced him in her affections. When he found out James took his rejection badly.

After an evening’s work at the theatre Georgina came home around midnight to her rooms at 22 Lambeth Square to find the piano and several items of her clothing missing. She spoke to her landlady (Ellen Hare) and discovered that James had been round and cleared them out. Hare had given him the key after he convinced her that the property was his to take away. Georgina went to the police to get warrant for Gray’s arrest and on 1 August 1854 the couple were reunited in Lambeth Police court.

Gray was represented in court by a lawyer, Mr Wontner, who was to go on to serve as a police court magistrate later in the century. He established that Miss Hastings did not own the piano and that Gray was her de facto guarantor. He also prompted her to agree that the couple were to be married before she had ‘kicked him off for another lover’.

‘I don’t know what you mean by kicking him off’, Georgina replied, ‘but I suppose I had a right to change my mind if I thought proper’.

‘Yes, undoubtedly’, responded the lawyer, ‘but my client is a mason, and would have made you a good husband; and after three year’s courtship, I think it was quite time your loves were cemented’.

By now there was widespread chuckling in the court, though at who’s expense it is hard to judge. Georgina was unmoved, ‘that may be your opinion’ she said (it clearly wasn’t hers).

Mr Wonter continued, outlining the sums of money (amounting to around £100) that James had given his lover either in cash or presents over the three years of their relationship. Georgian challenged this admitting only that Gray had provided her with ‘five, ten, and sometimes fifteen shillings a week’. Even taking the mid point of these figures (7’6d) that still works out at close to £100 over three years so Wontner was not that much far of the mark.

And then, he told her, ‘after getting all you could out of him, you walked off with someone else?’

Georgina ‘did not condescend to answer this question’.

In summing up his client’s defense Mr Wontner told the magistrate (Mr Norton) that his client had removed ‘the property on finding he had been jilted and cut by Miss Hastings, and under the perfect conviction that it belonged to him’. Mr Norton, while he might have sympathized with Gray could not see any justification for taking the lady’s clothing. The lawyer conceded this and said his client was prepared to return the clothes and the piano, so long as he was no longer expected to act as security for it.

The magistrate agreed, and having removed the felonious elements of the charge this became a simple dispute over property. That being settled he was happy to discharge James Gray, who walked away to lick his wounds and find a new lover. Miss Hastings was free to return to her singing and her piano lessons but her reputation had undoubtedly suffered for having her love life publicized in the newspapers.

[from The Morning Post, Wednesday, August 02, 1854]

A paedophile in Trafalgar Square or an innocent case of being overly friendly?

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Yesterday’s case involved an alleged assault on a young girl and today’s is clearly similar. I think this demonstrates two things that perhaps we have not really considered: first that a concern about paedophiles is not a new phenomena but that perhaps we take it more seriously than we used to.

In July 1877 Matthew Seton was presented at Bow Street Police court. Seton clutched a roll of music in his hand as he was quizzed by Mr Vaughan but he gave his occupation as a barrister. A Police constable alleged that he’d seen Seton approach two young girls who were sat on the wall by the fountains in Trafalgar Square and engage them in conversion.

According to the witness Seton spoke to Elizabeth Corrington (who was just seven years of age), pinched her legs playfully and then put his hand up her skirt. He arrested him and took him to the nearest police station to be charged.

In court the barrister denied there was anything sinister in his actions.

‘On my way back, to rest a little, I sat next to the little girl on the wall in Trafalgar Square. The little girl kicked her legs at me in a childlike way, and I playfully pinched them, and said, What nice legs you have! I solemnly deny that I indecently assaulted her. If my hand went under her clothes it was an accident, and must have been caused by her slipping down’.

It was very hard to prove of course and today one would hope that no one would touch an unrelated or unknown child in any way, sexual or otherwise. The magistrate clearly had his doubts as he committed Seton for trial. His case came up at the Middlesex Sessions where he was acquitted of indecent assault probably because there was insufficient evidence to convict.

Was the 32 year old lawyer a paedophile? It is impossible to know so we, like the jury, should give him the benefit of the doubt. I am bound to wonder again however, as to why a seven-year-old girl was apparently without adult supervision  in the square, just as in yesterday’s case a 10 year-old was roaming the city streets at 10 at night.

[from The Illustrated Police News etc, Saturday, July 14, 1877]

‘Everyone’s a critic’: the German band leader at the centre of a row in Blandford Square.

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Joseph William Comyns Carr of the Pall Mall Gazette

Most of us will own some device we use to play recorded music on for entertainment. We might use the radio (for classical, jazz or pop), or a CD player. Perhaps today the most people are moving over to streaming music via an internet music library service or from their own collection.

I imagine very few of us would hire a nine piece brass band to perform outside our house once a week before while we enjoyed lunch inside. However this is exactly what Mr Strawbridge, a City stockbroker did ,and it was causing some consternation in the fashionable London square where he lived.

In early March 1883 a German musician and bandleader, Joseph Deuchseherer, was presented before the sitting magistrate at Marylebone on a charge of ‘annoying a gentleman’ by playing music near his home in Blandford Square (home to the writer Wilkie Collins in the late 1840s – as pictured left).blandford_square2

Joseph W. Comyns Carr was a noted art critic and champion of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. For the past ten years he had worked for the Pall Mall Gazette as their arts correspondent and, according to him, Fridays were the day when he wrote up his articles for the paper. Carr lived at 19 Blindfold Square and Mr Strawbridge lived at number 11, which was situated at right angles to Carr’s. Thus, while the band weren’t direct;y outside the ‘noise’ travelled any upset the critic.

Carr had no objection in principle to the musicians playing, it was just that they were hired to do so at an inconvenient time for him. He had suggested a number of alternative times to his near neighbour but these had been rejected. Moreover that Friday the band had been hired by another household between 10 and 11 so he’d had little or no respite from the music.

Finally, Carr decided enough was enough and went out to ask Deuchseherer to desist. The musician obliged but on consulting with the stockbroker who had engaged their services, they soon started up again. As a result a prosecution was brought and the German found himself before Mr Cooke at Marylebone Police Court.

The case was presented by Strawbridge’s lawyer (he was unable to attend) as one of principle; he felt Mr Carr was intent on having all street music banned. His private secretary appeared to insist that Mr Strawbridge was quite happy to take this case to a higher court to test this principle. He added that:

‘The band was an excellent one, as many of the inhabitants of the square would be glad to testify’.

Mr Cooke agreed that there was an issue to be solved here, whether or not it went further than his own court. He decided to bind the prisoner (Deuchseherer) over on his own recognisances for a week, presumably so that Mr Strawbridge could attend in person. Hopefully then the two gentleman of Blandford Square might be reconciled to each other.

[from The Standard, Saturday, March 03, 1883]

for other examples of street musicians (albeit not large bands like Herr Deuchseherer’s) see the following blog posts:

Fined for disturbing a mathematical genius

A ‘hideous noise’ in the street and early concerns about immigration

Two Italian musicians in a row about a monkey

 

You are ‘ruining my brains’:the effects of imprisonment on one Londoner

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Kate Driscoll was a regular in the Clerkenwell Police Court. The 25 year-old book folder* of ‘no fixed abode’ had been sent to prison on numerous occasions in the late 1890s for acts of violence or criminal damage, usually when she was much the worse for drink.

On Saturday, the 7 January 1899 she was entered Frederick Glover’s music shop at 185 Upper Islington. It was just before midnight (and so we learn that in those days shops were sometimes still open, even very later a night) and, as usual, Kate was drunk. This time her ‘poison’ was rum but I imagine she drank whatever she could get her hands on.

Having pushed her way into the shop she collided with a music stand sending it, and the musical score on it, tumbling to the floor. Mr Glover, understandably concerned for his merchandise, remonstrated with her and got a mouthful of abuse for his trouble. As Kate tried to pull over another display Glover grabbed her and managed to manhandle her off of his premises and in to the street.

Kate sat down on the pavement, and removed one of her boots. Slowly pulling herself upright she turned and aimed the heel at the window to express her displeasure at being so rudely ejected. As the boot made contact with the shop window it smashed the plate glass, doing an estimated £4 10s worth of damage.

The sound alerted PC Jones (222C) who arrested her and marched Kate off to the station, but not before she had managed to land him a punch in the face. On Monday she was back in court at Clerkenwell before Mr Bros, the sitting magistrate. There Kate admitted the damage and the assault on the constable.

‘I admit I struck him and knocked his helmet off’, she told Mr Bros, ‘but the officer threw me down. What I did was in self defence’, adding that ‘the drink was in me’.

‘I have no doubt about that’, countered the magistrate, ‘what have you to say’?

”Well these long terms of imprisonment you are giving me are ruining my brains’ was Kate’s riposte; ‘I only came out after doing six months on Saturday last, and, you see, the least drop [of alcohol] upsets me’.

There was little alternative to prison for Kate in 1899; the Police Court Missionary Service had been attending courts for the last couple of decades but they only really helped those willing to ‘take the pledge’ to abstain from alcohol and Kate wasn’t quite ready for that. After 1887 courts could release offenders convicted of certain crimes on their recognisances but this applied only to first offenders, and Kate Driscoll hardly qualified.

So Mr Bros, whether happily or against his better judgement, did what he had to do and sent her to gaol once more. She got two months for the criminal damage and three for the assault.’Five months, oh my heart!’ cried Kate, ‘I can do it’ she added, before she was taken away to start her latest period of incarceration.

[from The Standard, Tuesday, January 10, 1899]

*someone employed by a printer or bookbinder to fold sheets of paper to form the pages of a book. We can now do this mechanically. 

You can use this site to search for specific crimes or use the Themes link in the menu on the left to look for areas or topics that interest you. If you are interested in a particular court (such as Bow Street or Marylebone) you can also limit your search to one court in particular. Please feel free to comment on anything you read and if something in particular interests you then please get in touch. You can email me at drew.gray@northampton.ac.uk

Dancing ghosts and conjuring tricks in Old Street

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You might be surprised to know that in 1875 there were newspapers on a Sunday. The Police Courts were closed on Christmas Day so this report must have been from Friday’s business however. It is one in which definitions of the law, and of what constitutes ‘music’ were the at centre of proceedings, but it also involved dancing ghosts and a conjuring trick.

William Wallser ran a traveling fairground show and in December 1875 he set up a tent between two houses in Old Street, in the parish of Shoreditch, and ‘parked’ his caravan next to it. Each night he performed magic tricks and ‘a “ghost illusion” similar to that of the Polytechnic the Worship Police Court was told. This was the use of glass and mirrors pioneered by John Henry Pepper at the Royal Polytechnic Institution in London which became known as ‘Pepper’s Ghost’.

Wallser’s must have been a cheap version of Pepper’s trick and he only charged a penny to get in. As a result it was probably a pretty rough and ready form of entertainment with a lot of noise and boisterous behaviour from the (probably) tipsy paying customers and their children.

It was certainly noisy and disorderly enough to cause a number of people to complain to the parish authorities. The vestry clerk of St Leonard’s brought a complaint that the showman was operating  ‘disorderly house’ and Wallser was informed that, if convicted at the Sessions, he faced a possible fine of up to £100, a huge amount in 1874 and an awful lot of penny entrance fees.

Wallser was well-off enough to be defended in court and his lawyer claimed that the act was concerned with places of public entrainment that allowed music and dancing. It had recently been decided, he explained to Mr Hannay (the magistrate) ‘that a booth used by strolling players for the performance of stage plays was not a house within the meaning of the Act, and did not require a license’.

The vestry clerk was adamant that music was being being played as Wallser had both an organ and a triangle and he had heard reports that dancing had taken place. Mr Abbott (defending) said it was the ‘ghosts’ that were dancing and the people that played them were not ‘seen’. In other words they were part of the theatrical performance, dancing and music wasn’t the purpose of the entertainment.

Mr Hannay said an organ and a triangle ‘meant music’. Mr Abbott disagreed but he didn’t win the argument. The magistrate  committed the showman to appear at the next Sessions at Middlesex but released him on his own recognisances. I wonder if he managed to magic himself out that one.

This is not the first time Pepper’s Ghost has made an appearance on this blog, if you want to know more then follow this link ‘Pepper’s Ghost’ and the disgruntled scene painter 

[from Reynolds’s Newspaper, Sunday, December 26, 1875]

Brickbats and stones ‘welcome’ the Salvation Army to Hackney

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Congress Hall, Clapton – a Salvation Army mission

None of the London papers reported the business of the Thames Police Court in their editions on the 14th June 1881, but fortunately The Standard did include a report from Worship Street, Thames’ sister court in the East End. Given that the Morning Post did have reports from other courts, this helps me understand that reportage was (as I was fairly certain it was) highly selective.

I have written before about the unpopularity of the Salvation Army in its early days. The Army marched up and down London’s streets and held meetings to draw attention to the moral plight of the working classes. Whether it was the moralising people didn’t appreciate or the supposedly awful row their amateur musicians made, is not clear, but they suffered a great deal of abuse.

What I found most interesting was not the brickbats of the working poor but the relatively lukewarm support they drew from the middle-class magistrates that served in the Police Courts. I would have expected them to approve of the Army’s message but it seems that they saw them as at best a nuisance and at worst an unwelcome example  of radical non-conformism.

On Sunday 12 June 1881 a Salvation Army procession was marching, four abreast, though Hackney on the way to a gathering at the Mission hall in Havelock Road(which they soon outgrew, moving in and adapting a former orphanage to build Congress Hall in the later 1880s).

As the marchers processed they were assailed with all sorts of missiles along the route and when they reached the hall some of them found their path barred by a group ‘of rough young fellows’ who had been dogging their progress through Hackney.

Edgar Lagden, a porter and member of the Army was attacked. James Elvidge saw two lads, later named as Israel Stagg and Henry Abbot assault his fellow marcher. Stagg hit Lagden with a stick which drew blood, Abbot had been throwing stones, some of which hit Elvidge and others.

Elvidge broke free and grappled with the boys and seized Stagg, but as he tried to get him under control several men attacked him to release the lad.  In giving evidence before the magistrate at Worship Street Elvidge explained that he and his section of the march had been waiting and making space for the female marchers (the ‘sisters’) to get through unmolested when the main trouble flared. He ‘admitted that the crowd appeared to object to their possession of the road’.

That didn’t excuse the violence shown towards them of course, and the magistrate, Mr Hannay was quite clear on that point. Stagg was apparently well known as a troublesome lad in the district  and he was described as being ‘in league with the street fighters’. His actions and those of the others who objected to the marching band of the Army was unacceptable, he was told, and ‘very nearly [constituted] a riot’. Mr Hannay sent Stagg to prison for two months and Abbot for seven days, ‘both with hard labour’.

But he wasn’t happy about the tactics of the Salvation Army either, he noted that the ‘course pursued’ by them was ‘such as to induce disturbance’. One gets the distinct impression that he wished they would find some other way to practice their faith, one that didn’t involve marching or the cacophony of brass instruments that accompanied it.

[from The Standard, Tuesday, June 14, 1881]