The Royal Aquarium and Winter Garden was a place of amusement in

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...

, London. It opened in 1876, and the building was demolished in 1903. The attraction was located northwest of

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the Unite ...

on Tothill Street. The building was designed by Alfred Bedborough in an ornamental style faced with Portland stone. The Aquarium Theatre was located in the west end of the building and was renamed the Imperial Theatre in 1879.

Methodist Central Hall The Methodist Central Hall (also known as Central Hall Westminster) is a multi-purpose venue in the City of Westminster, London, serving primarily as a Methodist church and a conference centre. The building, which is a tourist attraction, also ho ...

now occupies the site.

History

The Royal Aquarium opened on 22 January 1876. Its board of directors included

Henry Labouchère Henry Du Pré Labouchère (9 November 1831 – 15 January 1912) was an English politician, writer, publisher and theatre owner in the Victorian era, Victorian and Edwardian eras. He is now most remembered for the Labouchere Amendment, Labouchè ...

, the financier and journalist;

William Whiteley William Whiteley (29 September 183124 January 1907) was an English entrepreneur of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the founder of the William Whiteley Limited retail company whose eponymous department store became the Whiteleys ...

the retailer; and Arthur Sullivan, the composer. It was intended to offer art exhibitions, concerts and plays, among other intellectual entertainments such as

The Crystal Palace The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around th ...

.''The Royal Aquarium, and Imperial Theatre, Victoria London''
(Arthur Lloyd music and theatre history site) accessed 11 September 2008 The main hall was long by wide. A roof of glass and iron covered it. It was decorated with palm trees, fountains, pieces of original sculpture, thirteen large tanks meant to be filled with curious sea creatures and an orchestra capable of accommodating 400 performers. Surrounding the main hall were rooms for eating, smoking, reading and playing chess, as well as an art gallery, a skating rink and a theatre.McCann, Bill
"Central Hall and the Royal Aquarium"
, Story of London, 23 September 2002 The Aquarium adopted an expensive system of supplying fresh and sea water from four cisterns sunk into the foundations. The system quickly ran into problems. The large tanks for fish did not contain any. This became a standing joke, but the directors did display a dead whale in 1877. By the 1890s, the Aquarium acquired a risqué reputation, as unaccompanied ladies promenaded through the hall in search of male companionship. Emily Turner, a visitor from

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

, worked as a salesgirl at the Aquarium between October 1891 and January 1892. She met a Major Hamilton there, who bought her supper at Gatti's (in the Strand) and took her to entertainments at the Alhambra Theatre, promising to set her up in rooms in Lambeth. The major disappeared after providing her with "gelatin capsules" for a cough. The pills made her ill, and she stopped taking them. The unused pills were passed to Scotland Yard, and she was traced by Inspector Jarvis of the Metropolitan police. He identified the missing major as the serial killer Thomas Neill Cream. The pills were analysed and found to contain only

quinine Quinine is a medication used to treat malaria and babesiosis. This includes the treatment of malaria due to '' Plasmodium falciparum'' that is resistant to chloroquine when artesunate is not available. While sometimes used for nocturnal le ...

. Turner refused to identify Cream for fear of having to appear at the trial and have her own respectability questioned.

Entertainments at the Aquarium

After its opening, the expensive Aquarium and its programme of art exhibits and classical music were indifferently received by the public, and the venture was failing. Soon, instead of scientific lectures and the high-minded entertainments intended for the hall by its founders, the directors turned to more profitable music hall and variety acts (animal acts, African dancers, hypnotists, etc.) The Aquarium became most famous for offering dangerous and sensational circus and other acts. The showman and tightrope walker The Great Farini programmed many of these beginning in 1877. One of the most famous was the young female

human cannonball The human cannonball act is a performance in which a person who acts as the "cannonball" is ejected from a specially designed cannon. The human cannonball lands on a horizontal net or inflated bag placed at the landing point, as predicted by phys ...

, Zazel, who was launched by an apparatus of Farini's design. The perceived danger of these acts caused protests and put the venue's licence in doubt but drew crowds. In 1880,

George Leybourne George Leybourne (17 March 1842 – 15 September 1884) was a '' Lion comique'' of the British Victorian music hall who, for much of his career, was known by the title of one of his songs, " Champagne Charlie". Another of his songs, and one tha ...

popularised a song about the Aquarium that parodied Alfred Vance's song "Walking in the Zoo": :Lounging in the Aq., :That against all other modes :Of killing time I'll back. :Fun that's never slack, :Eyes brown, blue, and black :Make one feel in Paradise :While lounging in the Aq. The all-day variety entertainments at the Aquarium turned less respectable, including billiards matches, novelty acts and side-shows of all kinds, and commercial stalls offering perfumery and gloves.

George Robey Sir George Edward Wade, CBE (20 September 1869 – 29 November 1954), Harding, James"Robey, George" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, accessed 10 May 2014. known professionally as George Robey, was an ...

made his first professional appearance at the Aquarium in 1891. Located across the street from the

Houses of Parliament The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north ban ...

, the Aquarium was popular with members of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

. The comedian Arthur Roberts also sang a song about the Aquarium: :I strolled one day to Westminster, :The Royal Aquarium to see; :But I had to stand a bottle :just to lubricate the throttle :Of a lady who was forty-three. The Rink Galop score

Theatre

The Aquarium Theatre at the west end of the Royal Aquarium opened on 15 April 1876. The theatre was also designed by Bedborough and was built by Messrs. Lucas with a capacity of 1,293. Henry Jones (1822-1900) built an unusually large and powerful Grand Organ for the Royal Aquarium under the supervision of Sullivan. The organ was installed at the rear of the main stage in 1876 at the opening of the Hall. In 1878, however, it was moved from the stage to a position up in the gallery. ImperialTheatLondon

The School for Scandal ''The School for Scandal'' is a comedy of manners written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on 8 May 1777. Plot Act I Scene I: Lady Sneerwell, a wealthy young widow, and her hireling Sn ...

'' played at the theatre in 1877, as did a revival of

W. S. Gilbert Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18 November 1836 – 29 May 1911) was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his collaboration with composer Arthur Sullivan, which produced fourteen comic operas. The most fam ...

's adaptation of ''Great Expectations''.

Samuel Phelps Samuel Phelps (born 13 February 1804, Plymouth Dock (now Devonport), Plymouth, Devon, died 6 November 1878, Anson's Farm, Coopersale, near Epping, Essex) was an English actor and theatre manager. He is known for his productions of William ...

made his last appearance at the theatre in 1878. The farce ''Fun in a Fog'' played at the theatre in 1878, and ''Family Honour'' by Frank Marshall premiered in the same year. The theatre was named the Imperial Theatre in 1879. ''The Beaux Strategem'' by George Farquhar, ''

She Stoops to Conquer ''She Stoops to Conquer'' is a comedy by Oliver Goldsmith, first performed in London in 1773. The play is a favourite for study by English literature and theatre classes in the English-speaking world. It is one of the few plays from the 18t ...

'' by Goldsmith and ''The Poor Gentleman'' all played at the theatre that year. Shakespeare's '' As You Like It'' and ''Anne Mie'', by Roster Faasen, played at the theatre in 1880, as did the

comic opera Comic opera, sometimes known as light opera, is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue. Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a ne ...

'' Billee Taylor'', composed by

Edward Solomon Edward Solomon (25 July 1855 – 22 January 1895) was an English composer, conductor, orchestrator and pianist. He died at age 39 by which time he had written dozens of works produced for the stage, including several for the D'Oyly Carte Oper ...

, with a libretto by

Henry Pottinger Stephens Henry Pottinger Stephens, also known as Henry Beauchamp (1851 – 11 February 1903), was an English dramatist and journalist. After beginning his career writing for newspapers, Stephens began writing Victorian burlesques in the 1870s in coll ...

. ''Good-Natured Man'' played in 1881. In 1882,

Lillie Langtry Emilie Charlotte, Lady de Bathe (née Le Breton, formerly Langtry; 13 October 1853 – 12 February 1929), known as Lillie (or Lily) Langtry and nicknamed "The Jersey Lily", was a British socialite, stage actress and producer. Born on the isla ...

appeared at the theatre in

Tom Taylor Tom Taylor (19 October 1817 – 12 July 1880) was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of ''Punch'' magazine. Taylor had a brief academic career, holding the professorship of English literature and language a ...

's ''An Unequal Match''. ''Good as Gold'' by Matthews Mone, ''Camille'' (an English adaptation of Dumas' play) and ''Auld Robin Gray'' by George Roy played here in 1883, as did ''Aurora Floyd'', by J. B. Ashley and Cyril Melton, in 1885. ''A Fast Life'' by Hubert O'Grady played in 1898. In 1898, extensive alterations were made to the theatre by

Walter Emden Walter Lawrence Emden (1847 – 1913) was one of the leading England, English Theater (structure), theatre and music hall architects in the building boom of 1885 to 1915. Biography Emden was the second son of William S. Emden, lessee of Londo ...

, and in 1901 it was rebuilt by

Frank Verity Francis Thomas Verity (1864–1937) was an English cinema architect during the cinema building boom of the years following World War I. Early life Verity was born in London, educated at Cranleigh and joined Thomas Verity, his father, in his ...

for

, who took over the theatre in 1900. Its capacity was reduced to 1,150, with a stage width of and depth of . Langtry reopened the theatre in 1901 with Berton's ''A Royal Necklace''. The theatre presented ''

Everyman The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them. Origin The term ''everyman'' was used as early as ...

'' in 1902 and ''

When We Dead Awaken ''When We Dead Awaken'' ( no, Når vi døde vågner) is the last play written by Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. Published in December 1899, Ibsen wrote the play between February and November of that year. The first performance was at the Hayma ...

'' by Henrik Ibsen in January 1903.

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

's ''The Admirable Bashville'' also played here in 1903. Despite the high standard of her productions, the theatre was not successful, and Langtry withdrew in 1903.Hartnoll, Phyllis and Peter Found, "Imperial Theatre", ''The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre'', Oxford University Press The theatre hosted ''His Majesty's Servant'' in 1904 and ''The Perfect Lover'' in 1905. After the Royal Aquarium was demolished in 1903, the Imperial Theatre continued to stand on the site until it finally closed in 1907 and was pulled down. The interior of the theatre was saved and re-erected as the Imperial Palace in Canning Town in 1909.

Notes

References

*Adams, William Davenport (1904).
''A Dictionary of the Drama''
Chatto & Windus *Clunn, Harold P. (1956). ''The Face Of London''. *Howard, Diana. ''London Theatres and Music Halls - 1850-1950.'' *Mander, Raymond and Joe Mitchenson (1968). ''Lost Theatres of London'', Hart Davis Macgibbon. *McLaren, Angus. ''A Prescription for Murder'', University of Chicago Press (1995) *Munro, John Murchison (1971). ''The Royal Aquarium: failure of a Victorian compromise'', American University of Beirut

External links

List of managers and other people associated with the theatrePostcard of the AquariumPlaybill advertising a series of entertainments at the Royal Aquarium 12 December 1885Posters advertising Zazel's act
{{Authority control Buildings and structures demolished in 1903 Former theatres in London Former buildings and structures in the City of Westminster Former music hall venues in the United Kingdom Cultural infrastructure completed in 1876 1907 disestablishments in England Event venues established in 1876 1876 establishments in England