‘Plausible’ Jack and the Royalty adventurers

This chapter recounts the most audacious challenge to Harris’s patent authority by the actor ‘Plausible Jack’ Palmer. Abetted by ‘Viper’ Jackson, Palmer opened a new theatre — the Royalty — in the East End. Both men were radical figures, fighting the theatrical establishment headed by Harris and his legal right to prevent anyone competing with him. This conflict sheds light upon the social attitudes and legal punishments inflicted upon performers who were without Harris’s protection, in a century that saw only a slender difference between the actor and the beggar. It also explores the restrictions of the patent system suffered by Palmer and Harris as both men sought to redraw the landscape of entertainment in London. This part brings the Royalty to life and the community it served. It also uncovers Harris’s scheming behind the scenes — through his use of the law and the press — to defeat his competitors.

Selling a life

This section begins with Harris’s auctioning of his Bellemonte estate as debts threatened to collapse the theatre and the debtor’s prison beckoned. The 1819 fire-sale of Bellemonte, and everything within it, provides one record of his life. One article auctioned was his portrait of the leading playwright, Elizabeth Inchbald. Using it as a starting point, this section illuminates the dark recesses of their complex relationship which was conducted as business between playwright and manager but often reached towards something more. By reclaiming Inchbald’s life and her relationship with Harris from the imaginations of Georgian hacks, this section challenges Harris’s sexual reputation as a disturbing predator who exploited his position of authority over a community of vulnerable actresses. In the process, it confronts the biographical difficulty of piecing together the lives of people who did not want to be publicly known.

The king of clubs

This chapter announces Harris’s arrival at Covent Garden theatre. It recounts the ill-fated purchase of the theatre by four speculators in 1767 — Harris, Colman, Powell, and Rutherford — and the violent fight for control that eventually led to Harris’s triumph. This chapter explores the culmination of their dispute at the trial in the Court of Chancery, along with the factors and prejudices which influenced its outcome. Newly uncovered manuscripts are employed to recreate the arguments offered by the opposing advocates — Wedderburn and Dunning — as they focused upon the art of theatre management and the motivations of the youthfully impetuous Harris. This trial before the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal was one staging post in Harris’s course towards Pitt’s ministry, as it forced him to confront the nature of public opinion as well as Colman’s ability to marshal it.

Introducing Thomas Harris

This chapter gives an overview of the multi-faceted life of Thomas Harris and its cultural importance. Harris was the owner and manager of Covent Garden theatre for nearly five decades, a confidant of George III, a Secret Service agent, a notable philanthropist, and a bagnio owner in the underworld of Covent Garden. As a result, this chapter introduces a number of clandestine worlds, including the Secret Service where ministers waited for the stirrings of revolution upon London’s streets. This section is driven by three considerations: why Harris has disappeared from history, the many difficulties for the researcher writing his biography, and the ways of understanding his character. In anticipating what is to come, this part also introduces the relationships, both familial and professional, that Harris nurtured — along with the characters involved in the main events of his life including Richard Brinsley Sheridan and George Rose.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies

This chapter recounts the destruction of Covent Garden theatre by fire in 1808. In piecing together this event, it explores Harris’s potential complicity in the fire; his attempts to finance the rebuilding of the theatre; and the far-reaching financial, social, and political consequences. In doing so, Harris’s relationship with the Duke of Bedford is brought into focus. On the opening of the new theatre in 1809, terror was brought to the Garden through the Old Price riots. As these riots frustrated all attempts at performance for nearly three months, they hold an important place in the history of disorder in England. The riots gave a group of leading Westminster radicals, including Henry Clifford, the chance to oppose Harris and fight his political dominance. They reveal the defeat of a government agent during one of the most turbulent periods in the capital’s history. Only through understanding Harris’s career is it possible to appreciate fully the fight against radicalism in early nineteenth-century London.