Coping with the heatwave – in the 1830s
We recently distributed questionnaires at our Ephemera Fair and were delighted to receive constructive feedback. One visitor suggested that blog posts on a single item of ephemera would be easier for working members to write, so here to start the ball rolling (and in the hope of inspiring posts on favourite items and finds at the fair) is a short post on an intriguing item in the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford).
This enigmatic, slightly damaged item encapsulates the interplay of ephemera and research. To a theatre historian, food historian or experts in thermodynamics, theatre architecture or climate change, it represents a rare primary resource. To non-specialists, messages that were clear to the intended audience suffering from a heatwave require contextualisation nearly two centuries later. A great opportunity for ephemerists to go down a series of rabbit holes, with the welcome help of Google and AI.
As with so many items of ephemera, this item is undated. However, this particular theatre name was used after the rebuilding of the Lyceum Theatre (after fire destroyed the first Lyceum in February 1830). Since the newly rebuilt theatre did not reopen until 14 July 1834 (which also coincided with the peak of a heatwave), the most likely date is 1835. This was one of the ten driest and warmest summers recorded, with temperatures peaking on 21 July 1835 at 34.1 C. Sounds familiar?!
Most people today love an ice cream in hot weather, but in the 1830s serving iced refreshments in a theatre was no trivial enterprise. To provide such a luxury free of charge (albeit to a section of the audience) must have been a financially risky, perhaps desperate, ploy. Although cream ices or ice creams in various flavours were being sold to the wealthy by London confectioners and cooks by the 1760s, this 1830s promotion predates ice makers by almost two decades and commercial freezers by more than a century. Freezing was achieved through harvesting huge blocks of ice from countries such as Greenland and Norway, and storing them underground. Ice was combined with salt in order to freeze desserts. Keeping ice cream chilled in a theatre would have necessitated large blocks of ice and many glasses in which to serve these delicacies, in an age before the packaging of ice cream or the production of cornets and wafers. The notice doesn’t identify the supplier, but this must be one of the first times that ice cream was served in a theatre. It wasn’t until the 1860s that Carlo Gatti (established as purveyors of penny licks in Hungerford Market from 1847, and owner of ice stores under Regent’s Canal) was credited as a pioneer when he brought ice cream to his music halls.
Although I was attracted to this item by its enticing offer of free ice cream, it is perhaps the reference to ventilation that is the most fascinating. Samuel Beazley’s second Lyceum Theatre (he also designed the first) was truly the state of the art, using an elaborate central dome with vents to regulate heat, driven by gas lamps.
Although technology has evolved since the 1830s, this fascinating item resonates with us today, questioning how little we have learned from excessive temperatures in the past. Perhaps theatres might start to treat their audiences to free ice cream!