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Sarah Siddons, née Kemble (1755-1831), in expressive pose, in print by J. Caldwell after W. Hamilton line engraving (1789): National Portrait Gallery NPG D10715

MONTHLY BLOG 143, A YEAR OF GEORGIAN CELEBRATIONS – 11: Celebrating annual Sarah Siddons Award for Distinguished Achievement, given annually, from mid-November 1952 onwards, to best performer on Chicago stage

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If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2022)

Sarah Siddons, née Kemble (1755-1831),
in expressive pose,
in print by J. Caldwell after W. Hamilton line engraving (1789):
National Portrait Gallery NPG D10715

The Chicago acting award for successful women on stage, named after the celebrated Georgian thespian Sarah Siddons (1755-1831),1 had a most unusual start in life. Over two hundred years had passed without any special move to celebrate her undoubted achievements.

However, in 1950 the film-maker Joseph Mankiewicz wanted to refer to a plausible acting award. His script for All about Eve (starring Bette Davis and Anne Baxter)2 featured the intensely feline rivalry between female actors of different generations, as an ambitious young newcomer wheedles her way into the life of a successful older star and tries to replace her. Among the film’s subtle mix of themes are those of ambition, duplicity, ageing, sexual proclivities, and gender roles. The Sarah Siddons award, depicted in the form of gold statuette, forms part of the story – referencing back to a spectacular eighteenth-century stage performer whose dramatic forte was tragedy.

All about Eve had an immense success. And it inspired a group of Chicago theatregoers to turn a least one element of Mankiewicz’s fiction into reality. In 1952 they founded their own Sarah Siddons Society. And they launched a sequence of annual awards, which rapidly became prestigious.3 Among the recipients were numerous stars who appeared in both film and stage versions of All about Eve. The film thus invented an award for its own female stars.

Fortunately, the Georgian celebrity whose name was borrowed to make a point in the film, was a figure with a reputation worthy of such attention. Sarah Siddons, née Kemble, was one of numerous female celebrities in Georgian Britain, who trod the boards with unabashed confidence. In an era when many jobs and professions were still reserved for men – but when female roles on stage were no longer automatically played by men – the theatre provided scope for gifted women to establish a respected public presence.

Siddons thus shone in a galaxy of female stars: from Nell Gynn (1650-87) and Peg Woffington (1720-60), onwards to Fanny Kemble (1809-93), Ellen Terry (1847-1928) and beyond.4 Their outstanding abilities dignified an occupation which, for women, had often been denigrated as akin to prostitution.

A further point of significance about Sarah Siddons was that she came from an ‘outsider’ family from mid-Wales. But her dramatic talents, combined with those of her brother John Philip Kemble (1757-1823), raised the clan from obscurity into theatrical aristocracy. Their father, Roger Kemble, was a strolling player and theatre manager; and their mother, Sally Ward, a female actor.

Five of the Kembles’ children gained fame on stage, as did many of their grand-children, and members of subsequent generations.5 Sarah Siddons – the oldest of the siblings – was the most famous of them all; and her success no doubt helped to pave the way for her younger brothers and sisters.

In that way, Siddons, who herself married an actor, contributed to a classic theatrical dynasty. Moreover, the Kembles were forerunners of many later famous acting families on stage and in films,6 although it’s important to note that no iron genetic rule means that every single member in thespian kinship networks will be dramatically gifted to the same extent – or even at all. Of Siddons seven children, one son, Henry Siddons, did go onto the stage, becoming a moderately successful actor, theatre manager and playwright.7 Meanwhile, four of her daughters died young, while one married happily. Nonetheless, the other son, George John Siddons, did not attempt to follow his parents’ profession. Instead, he became a customs official in India.

Sarah Siddons herself specialised in tragedy. She was tall and expressive, well able to command attention. Her own parents were initially cautious about her dramatic aspirations, being aware of the potential riskiness of stage life. Moreover, Siddons’ early performances were patchy. But, as she regularly toured on eighteenth-century England’s thriving theatrical circuit,8 she gained in experience and power.

Before long, her magnetic abilities became recognised. As Lady Macbeth, her signature role, she electrified audiences. She also played Hamlet, in breeches. As her fame grew, so did expectations that people would faint or become hysterical at her realistic performances. In scenes of high tragedy, ‘Siddons fever’ would sweep through audiences. Of course, not all succumbed. But such contagious responses added to her increasingly potent reputation.

Throughout, however, Sarah Siddons kept control of her public image and avoided scandal. She appeared on stage when visibly pregnant, and played up to her role as a mother of seven children. Siddons also developed close links with artists, who painted her, often in dramatic poses.9

Most famously Joshua Reynolds depicted Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse (1784). It made her, at the age of 29, into an iconic figure. Her career was authoritative. Some female actors might still be giddy and flirtatious. Scandals still surrounded life on stage. Yet Mrs Siddons was a serious player. She took her roles seriously. And she expected her audiences to do the same.

It’s thus eminently fitting that the initially fictitious acting award in her honour has been turned into a continuing reality. She is by no means the only eminent Georgian to be commemorated in this way.10 Yet, among their ranks, she is an apt icon – exemplifying the emergence of female stage celebrities – and the advent of theatrical dynasties – and the powerful impact of great acting.

‘Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington’, quipped Noel Coward – years later, in 1935.11 > Here was the traditional view, lightly satirised.

Yet Sarah Siddons – and her ilk – had already implicitly countermanded any such tepid advice. Women should follow their dramatic stars; but, in today’s parlance, keep careful control of their public identities. And Siddons herself could hiss, with total verisimilitude, Lady Macbeth’s steely advice to all adventurers:12 ‘Screw your courage to the sticking place – and we’ll not fail’.

ENDNOTES:

1 F.M. Parsons, The Incomparable Siddons (1909); K. Mackenzie, The Great Sarah: The Life of Mrs Siddons (1968).

2 All about Eve (dir.  J.L. Mankiewicz; produced by D.F. Zanuck, 1950); and see also S. Staggs, All about ‘All about Eve’: The Complete Behind-the-Scenes Story about the Bitchiest Film Ever Made (New York, 2000; 2001).

3 For details, see http://sarahsiddonssociety.org/

4 G. Gibson, Performing Women: Female Characters, Male Playwrights and the Modern Stage (Ithaca, 1993); G. Perry, The First Actresses: Nell Gwynn to Sarah Siddons (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011).

5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemble_family, based upon information in Encyclopaedia Britannica (Cambridge, 1911).

6 See J.M. Bulloch, Hereditary Theatrical Families: Reprinted from Who’s Who in the Theatre (1930; 1933); and https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2013/jan/26/10-best-theatrical-dynasties-clapp; https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/the_most_famous_acting_families_of_all_time/s1__30829385.

7 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Siddons#Marriage_and_children.

8 S. Rosenfeld, Strolling Players and Drama in the Provinces, 1660-1765 (Cambridge, 1939); idem, The Theatre of the London Fairs in the Eighteenth Century (1960).

9 R. Asleson (ed.), A Passion for Performance: Sarah Siddons and her Portraitists (Los Angeles, Ca., 1999); and context in L. Engel, Fashioning Celebrities: Eighteenth-Century British Actresses and Strategies for Image Making (Colombus, Ohio, 2011).

10 P.J. Corfield, The Georgians: The Deeds and Misdeeds of Eighteenth-Century Britain (2022), pp. 389-91.

11 For lyrics of Coward’s song, ‘Mrs Worthington’ (1935), see: https://genius.com/Noel-coward-mrs-worthington-lyrics.

12 W. Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 1, sc. 7.

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MONTHLY BLOG 118, COMMEMORATING ANOTHER FEISTY EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY SEA-GOING CAT

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Fig. 1 John Cornwell’s bronze statue of Trim, the feisty black cat who sailed in the circumnavigation of Australia in 1801/3: located outside Mitchell Library, 173 Macquarie St, Sydney, Australia.

Fig. 1 John Cornwell’s bronze statue of Trim, the feisty black cat who sailed in the circumnavigation of Australia in 1801/3: located outside Mitchell Library, 173 Macquarie St, Sydney, Australia.

Another feisty sea-going cat from the eighteenth century has inspired a great set of contemporary statues in both England and Australia.1 This cat was jet black, with white feet and a white star on its breast. He was named Trim, after the devoted servant and companion-at-arms in Laurence Sterne’s whimsical novel Tristram Shandy (1759). And in the years 1801-3 the cat participated in the first recorded circumnavigation of Australia with Captain Matthew Flinders, the explorer and cartographer.2 It was he who later paid Trim the compliment of writing a special account of its life history, preserving its memory for posterity.3

At one point on the trip round Australia, the adventurous feline was washed overboard. But it swam/scrambled to reach a floating rope and clambered determinedly up to safety, winning the captain’s admiration. Indeed, Flinders later saluted Trim as ‘one of the finest animals I ever saw’. The cat had in fact been born on a ship and lived much of its life on board a series of different vessels. So it clearly had the feline equivalent of ‘sea-legs’. It also had a degree of good luck, surviving, with Flinders, the shipwreck of HMS Porpoise in 1803. (The disaster happened on the Wreck Reefs in the Coral Sea, off north-eastern Australia – an area now preserved as a historic shipwreck site).

Trim thus became something of a mascot for Flinders and his crew. Many cats were in fact to be found on board ships.4 They were recruited as mousers, providing on-board pest control. But they often provided affection and companionship as well. Flinders was not short of human company on his circumnavigation. One leading member of his team was a community leader named Bungaree, who came from the indigenous people of eastern Australia. He provided invaluable help as guide and negotiator.5 On more than one occasion on the long journey, he averted conflict between the sailors and various indigenous communities, with whom he managed to communicate, despite the linguistic barriers. Flinders, who wrote warmly of Bungaree’s ‘open and manly conduct’, also appreciated his kindness to Trim.

This adventurous cat was thus an archetype of the many travelling felines who appear in myths and legends.6 In such tales, their natures are resourceful and affectionate, without being dependent or needy. Cats like the companion of Dick Whittington; or Puss-in-Boots (who appears in many European variants); or the cat who proverbially ‘looks at a king’ are cool customers. They star in many folk cultures around the world, featuring in songs and musicals as well as art and cartoons. It is no surprise to find also that travelling cats are imagined as voyagers in space fiction.7 Shared adventures are integral to the long history of human-feline interactions.

What ultimately bonded Trim and Matthew Flinders, however, was their joint experience of imprisonment. On his return from Australia to Britain, the navigator put into the French-held island of Mauritius, hoping that his status as a scientific investigator would secure him safe passage. However, the governor detained him. France and Britain were then at war; and Flinders’ motives were suspected. He was held there from December 1803 to summer 1810, at first in close captivity, and then with greater freedom but without the right to leave. Trim kept Flinders company for most of this period of irksome inactivity; and it was when the cat disappeared suddenly some time in c.1808 (its fate unknown), that Flinders was moved to pen his account of the cat’s life. His warm tribute, stating that Trim was ‘ever the delight and pleasure of his fellow voyagers’, undeniably came from the heart.

Matthew Flinders has been extensively commemorated in Australia. Not only are there many places and institutions which bear his name (including the renowned Flinders University in Adelaide) but he himself named many features around the coast, in the course of circumnavigation. Bungaree has been much less well served, in terms of public commemorations. But Boongaree Island, off the Kimberley coast of Western Australia, was named after him in 1820; and there have been some nautical tributes. (A public statue is surely overdue).

Meanwhile, the cultural star of Trim has risen in recent years. The publication of Flinders’ cat-biography in 1977, allied to the increasing contemporary desire to humanise past heroes, has brought the intrepid feline voyager to public attention. In 1996, John Cornwell’s bronze statue of Trim (Fig.1) was installed outside the Mitchell Library (State Library of New South Wales) in Sydney. The striking representation was an immediate success. The Library began to sell a range of Trim memorabilia and it names its restaurant as Café Trim. In 2006, another engaging statue of Flinders was installed in Donington, his Lincolnshire birthplace. In this case Trim leans confidently against the navigator’s leg, in a style which is obviously cat-like but not subservient. The statue was created by Judith Holmes Drewry, with input from local schoolchildren. Their joint project helped to foster local interest in Flinders, which has recently culminated in a successful campaign to have his remains reburied in Donington’s parish church.

Fig. 2 Trim with Matthew Flinders, standing together on a street corner in Donington, Lincolnshire, Flinders’ birthplace: statue by Judith Holmes Drewry, erected 2006.

Fig. 2 Trim with Matthew Flinders, standing together on a street corner in Donington, Lincolnshire, Flinders’ birthplace: statue by Judith Holmes Drewry, erected 2006.

There is also one fine composite statue of Flinders, with Trim on the lookout, both crouching over a chart of the territory of Terra Australis, Flinders being one of the most determined to popularise its name as Australia. This monument, devised by Mark Richards, was erected in 2014. It was timed to commemorate the bicentenary of Flinders’ death in 1814, at the comparatively early age of 40. And the statue was aptly located at Euston Station, which was later constructed over the graveyard where the navigator was buried.8 (His coffin was discovered in 2019 during excavations for the new high-speed rail link, leading to the successful campaign for Flinders to be reinterred at Donington).Fig.3 Flinders, compasses in hand, and Trim on the watch, crouch together over the map of Australia: elegantly apt statue by Mark Richards, installed at Euston Station with copy also at Tasman Terrace, Port Lincoln, Australia.

Fig.3 Flinders, compasses in hand, and Trim on the watch, crouch together over the map of Australia: elegantly apt statue by Mark Richards, installed at Euston Station with copy also at Tasman Terrace, Port Lincoln, Australia.

So these companions on the move are commemorated in multiple locations. The moral, from the viewpoint of a feline wishing to be remembered by posterity, was to be loved by a writer with time to write a cat-biography on its behalf. And for Flinders? He was a great namer of places: among others, Australia’s Port Lincoln, after the county of his birth; Kangaroo Island, named for the abundant wildlife there; Encounter Cove, where he met and exchanged news of his discoveries with the French scientist Nicholas Baudin, who was also exploring the world far from his homeland. Naming has a certain power – not supreme power; but influential. And, yes: Flinders did well to identify the feisty black cat with white feet as Trim – neat, natty, nautical, appealing, affecrtionate – and now memorable as well.

ENDNOTES:

1 Companion-piece to PJC BLOG.117 (Sept. 2020), entitled: ‘An Eighteenth-Century Folly Builder and Cat Lover’. For further context, see also P.J. Corfield, ‘“For I will Consider my Cat Jeoffry”: Cats and Literary Creativity in Eighteenth-Century Britain’, work-in-progress for publication 2021.

2 K. Morgan, Matthew Flinders: Maritime Explorer of Australia (2016).

3 M. Flinders, Trim: Being the True Story of a Brave Seafaring Cat (1977; 1997); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_(cat).

4 See V. Lewis, Ship’s Cats in War and Peace (2001); and listings of known travelling cats in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship%27s_cat.

5 K.V. Smith, King Bungaree (Kenthurst, 1992).

6 H. Loxton, Cats: 99 Lives – Cats in History, Legend and Literature (1999)

7 An example is the cat Spot in the sci-fi TV series Star Trek (1966- ).

8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Flinders.

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MONTHLY BLOG 63, THE VALUE OF VOTING – AND WHY THE PRACTICE SHOULD NOT BE MOCKED

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Many more voters than previously realised cast their votes in local and national elections in eighteenth-century England.1  They were thereby creating – sometimes riotously and casually, but generally decorously and seriously – a culture of constitutionalism. It amounted to an emergent proto-democracy. It was not yet a full democracy, in which all adult men and women have a vote. Yet it was a culture which, importantly, chose to decide certain key disputes by casting equal votes and by then accepting the verdict of the majority.
2016-03-Election-placard1784

Satirical sketch of election placard in Westminster (1784), showing opposition candidate Charles James Fox as a wily fox with his slogan ‘the Rights of the Commons’.
Despite the brickbats and satire, Fox won.

This procedure was much safer and more rational than deciding by fighting; much more effective in winning wider consent than deciding by bribery; and much more involving for all participants than deciding by the casting of lots. Even if not all the eligible electorate actually chose to use their vote (and there were invariably some non-participants), they always had the option.

A proto-democratic culture of constitutionalism promoted public debate about the candidates and the issues, as well as a basic respect for other points of view, which might turn out to have majority support.

In the eighteenth century, the franchise was unfair and unequal, which made it a valid target for reformers. Nonetheless, in a few large constituencies with ‘open’ electorates, the number eligible to vote, via an urban freeman or rate-payer franchise, was very great. The key examples were the cities of London, Westminster, Norwich and Bristol. They had many voters (all men in this era), from a wide range of social backgrounds: from aristocrats to artisans, shopkeepers, and even some labourers. Votes were cast publicly2  – which meant that votes were open to challenge if the witnessing crowd doubted the eligibility of the voter – and the results were taken as registering public opinion, in the nearest the eighteenth-century constitution offered to a serious test of the views of political ‘outsiders’.

Historically, the fact that Georgian England already had a voting tradition helps to explain how the country later made the transition into full democracy so bloodlessly. Already in the eighteenth century the rudiments of the electoral process were evolving: candidate speeches; party manifestoes; electoral slogans and placards;3  party colours; door-to-door election canvassing; ward organisations; celebrity endorsements; shows of public support in rival demonstrations and mass meetings; close scrutiny of the voting process; declaration of the results with, upon occasion, a formal challenge and recount; and, finally, acceptance of the outcome. (The Georgian custom of chairing the successful candidate around town was not always implemented then and is today not considered obligatory).

Not only were parliamentary and civic elections contested in these large open constituencies, but during these years the practice of constitutional voting was becoming adopted in many other, different circumstances. It pointed away from the troubled civil wars of earlier times towards a calmer, safer society. Many different non-governmental institutions used the mechanism of voting, for example to determine their own membership.

For example, in numerous private clubs and societies, potential recruits had first to be nominated by one or more existing members. Then votes were cast secretly, for or against; and any candidate who was ‘blackballed’ (negatived) was declared to have lost. This practice continues in some private clubs to this day. It was (is) a particularly severe test, since the excluded candidate might have won a large majority of all votes cast. In that case, it could be accused of being anti-democratic, allowing a small group to negative the will of the majority. The moral, in all cases, is that the rules for voting are crucial in framing how each voting system works.

Other non-governmental organisations which used some version of balloting in the eighteenth century included bank management boards and charitable institutions like London’s Foundling Hospital, established in 1739. That body used voting by its Trustees to recruit new Trustees, when existing ones died or retired. Clearly, these were socially exclusive bodies. But they were upholding the convention that each vote from a valid voter has equal value and that the will of the majority should prevail.

Importantly, too, it’s known that some middling- and lower-class groups used the mechanism of voting to resolve disputes over appointments. For example, a number of Nonconformist churches chose their ministers by such means. The Congregationalists in particular valued this procedure. Potential candidates would appear before a congregation, preach a sermon, and then submit to a vote, no doubt after further behind-the-scenes canvassing and enquiries.4  In these ways, many people had the experience of participating equally in a collective decision to find out what the majority (including those who were not so vociferous) really wanted.

So what follows? Firstly, the culture of voting is one to be appreciated – and used. Secondly, the constitutional rules for each system of voting really matter. They should be clearly framed to allow each system to operate fairly within its remit – and the rules, once established, should not be tampered with for partisan advantage. And lastly, electors should not be summoned frivolously to the polls. That way, disillusion and apathy develop.

Look at the low turnout for elections to the European Parliament. And there’s a good reason for that. Electors know that the institution has no real power. It is not a supreme legislative or tax-raising body; and, unlike a national Parliament, no executive government is either constituted from its ranks or is scrutinised closely by it. The current arrangements do no good for either the European Union or participatory democracy. Sham elections are destructive of a genuinely civic process, which needs to be cultivated, valued, and made real – not mocked.

1 P.J. Corfield, ‘Short Summary: Proto-Democracy’, section 1.7, in E.M. Green, P.J. Corfield and C. Harvey, Elections in Metropolitan London, 1700-1850: Vol. 1 Arguments and Evidence (Bristol, 2013), pp. 55-67; also in www.londonelectoralhistory.com, section 1.7.

2 See P.J. Corfield, ‘What’s Wrong with the Old Practice of Open Voting: Standing Up to be Counted?’ BLOG no. 53 (May 2015).

3 BLOG illustration from Rowlandson’s Procession to the Hustings after a Successful Canvass (1784) in http://www.magnoliasoft.net/ms/magnoliabox/art/547698/procession-to-the-hustings-after-a-successful-canvass-no14 (detail).

4 Over time, however, the clergy’s professional qualifications tended to be emphasised over the power of congregational election: see J.W.T. Youngs, The Congregationalists: A History (New York, 1990; 1998), pp. 69-70.

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