Or
Released 21st Nov 1840
THE WATERMAN or THE FIRST OF AUGUST
was more of a balad opera than a play, with many songs interspersed by limited
dialogue. It was written by Charles Dibdin (1745-1814).
Charles Dibdin was born in Southampton on March 15, 1745, the eighteenth son of a poor silvermaker. Before his death in 1814 he became one of the most celebrated songwriters in Britain. Although his music is not currently highly regarded, the patriotism and sentiment embodied in his songs reflect his times at least as well as the history books.
The Waterman was first performed at the Little Haymarket Theatre 8th August 1774 and enjoyed two revivals at the same theatre in 1838 and 1853. It was very successful, and made Dibdin's publisher more than two hundred pounds. Later, during a period of financial difficulties, he was forced to sell the rights for just two guineas. Charles Dibdin died in Camden Town on 25th July 1814.
“The Waterman” makes use of the annual Thames rowing contest for Doggett's Coat & Badge. The Doggetts Coat and Badge Boat race was rowed against the stream annually on 1st August by young watermen, from the Old Swan Pier, London Bridge, to Chelsea, five miles upstream. Doggett, an old Drury Lane comedian, founded the race in 1716. Around this event Dibdin sketched a thinnest of love stories, where a maiden has to choose between two contenders for her affection. The hero, Tom Tug wins the race and the maiden in the last act of the play.
Many toy theatre publishers brought out a version of the Waterman. It was relatively undemanding in terms of scenes and characters, so made for a relatively cheap play to purchase and by the same virtue it was relatively easy to perform the limited scene changes. The only difficultly for the young performer came with the Waterman being an opera, which meant the young performer had to sing and probably also required a musical accompaniment.
The version included here is a copy of a set printed by Benjamin Pollock in the early part of the 20th century. However the origins of Pollock’s production of “The Waterman” are quite complicated. We need to go back to 1840, when JK Green, one of the most prolific of the toy theatre publishers and also claimant to be its original inventor in 1808, produced his version of the play. JK Green was not the sole inventor of the toy theatre, but he did play a significant part in its development from theatrical prints to full blown productions including characters, scenes and model stages to perform the plays on. Green’s version of the Waterman was just six sheets in length, two of characters and boats, two of scenes and two of wings. A few years later Green’s selling agent, John Redington of 208 Hoxton Old Town, also brought out his version of the play. The characters and scenes were virtually identical to Green’s, in terms of pose, but the quality of the engraving and artwork was particularly crude in comparison. Plagiarism was common in the toy theatre. Green was a noted exponent of this form of piracy, but with the Waterman, we saw John Redington’s only attempt at copying the works of others. Perhaps out of guilt or perhaps out of compulsion, Redington did not sell his version of the play. However, this did not last long as sometime after but before his death in 1876, Redington created a second version of the play. The look and dress of the characters was changed considerably. The scenes however were the same as before but with an extra interior scene was added. When Redington died in 1876, his son-in-law to be inherited all of Redington stock of plates including most of JK Green’s which came into Redington possession after Green died in 1860. Pollock therefore had three versions to choose from, which is exactly what he did. For his version he chose the characters from Redington’s second version and for the only exterior scene he chose Green’s scene number 1. For the interior scenes he chose Redington’s second version. For the wings he used his own stock of wings, which again had been cobbled together from either Green of Redington versions, plus a few acquired wings from Park.
To perform the play you needed 7 sheets in all, of characters, scenery and wings - and a book of the words, which also gave instructions on how to perform it.
Included with this set are two extra title sheets; JK Green’s version from 1840 and John Redington’s first impression. These are in “penny plain” for easy comparison.
Few original sheets from Green’s production survive and certainly not enough to create a complete coloured set. Luckily for us, on Green’s death in 1860, John Redington, Green’s former agent, acquired Green’s printing plates and in turn he left them to his son-in-law to be, Benjamin Pollock upon his own death in 1876. Pollock used the lithographic stone to print his sheets so he was able, with ease, to replace the imprint of JK Green or J Redington with his own. To all intense and purposes the prints were still Green’s or Redington’s, just with their names replaced by “Pollock’s” on the top of each sheet and the printers address changed at the bottom of each sheet. The colouring of the sheets was mostly done by Louisa Pollock, Benjamin’s Pollock’s daughter. In the early days, the painting was done freehand, but Pollock soon developed a stencilling technique to create consistent and speedy results. Many of the stencils still survive today at “Pollock’s Toy Museum” at 1 Scala Street, London.
Notes:
Redington appears to have produced two version of the Waterman on his own, possibly at the same time as Green’s version.
I have only seen pulls of these from the surviving plates at the Pollock’s Museum, so it is unknown whether they were sold to the public.
The drawing of the characters and scenes were quite crude in Redington’s own version. The roof and windows of the building on the right show a definite lack of understanding of perspective.
In Pollock’s version, he appears to have used Redington’s second version of the play, but with Green’s Scene No.1.
One the left - Redington’s re-imprinted version of Green’s scene No.1 in the Water, compared to his own version on the right.
4 – Character Plates
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Plate 1 |
Plate 2 |
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Redington’s Plate No.s and his first attempt at this
play. Not knowingly sold to the public. |
Pollock’s Plate No.1 – Was a reprint of Redington’s second attempt at this play. |
3 - Scene Plates
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Scene 1 – Original for this play |
Scene 2 – Original for this play |
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Scene No. 2 by Redington – used by Pollock in his version. |
Scene No. 3 by Redington – used by Pollock in his version. |
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Pollock’s Wings No.1 |
Pollock’s Wings No.3 |
1 – Wing Plate
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Image |
Wing Plate No. |
Original Play |
Imprint Date |
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Robert Macaire |
1836 |
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Harlequin Guy
Fawkes |
1836 |