User:Hillbillyholiday/Articles/Riot at Sadler's Wells theatre

On the evening of Thursday, October 15, about a quarter past ten o'clock, in consequence of the riotous behaviour of several men and two women in the pit, it was found necessary to have them removed from the house by the Police officers. While they were taking the two of them out, the women endeavoured to prevent their removal, screaming, and uttering the words 'don't fight'.

As the house was nearly full, it being a benefit night, and this circumstance ocurred at the back of the pit, the audience had only an indistinct view of the confusion occasioned by turning out the rioters; and alrmed by the exclamation 'fight', which misapprehension and fear, interpreted them into 'fire', a general alarm was the consequence.

The ladies in the boxes were greatly terrified, and by screams and gestures manifested the utmost alarm. The gallery caught the infection, which acted like an electrical shock instantaneously. Two women and a sailor-boy threw themselves in the pit, and escaped with a few bruises. Immediately the whole gallery rose at once, and began rushing down the stairs, in spite of remonstrances of Mr......entreated them to remain quiet, and above all to be very deliberate in their departure, as so large a body driving at once from the gallery in particular, in which there were near nine hundred people, must be productive of some distressful disaster.

But all attempts at allaying the ferment were in vain; "open the doors" was called out by two men very riotously in the gallery, though they were repeatedly assured that all the doors were opened, and the master carpenter of the Wells, (Mr. Garland) ran upstairs, and with an iron crow broke a way from the gallery through the flies, (that part of the stage where the scenes and drop-curtains are hung, and where the machinery for working them is fixed) by which passage hundreds were passed out of the house in a more expeditious way, and to the preservation, probably, of many lives.

In the meantime Mr. Barfoot, with other gentlemen, forced their way up the gallery-stairs, and by persuasive and personal efforts prevented the crowd remaining on the stairs from proceeding further. On their retiring into the gallery eighteen bodies were discovered lying on the upper part of the stairs, all of whom appeared to have been thrown down at the same moment, and suffocated, or trampled to death.

They were immediately conveyed to the dwelling-house of the theatre.

John Ward, aged 1

Mary Evans, aged 3

Caroline Tariff, aged 5

John Labdon, aged 7

It is a remarkable fact, that among all that lost their lives on this dreadful occasion not one was found to have had a single bone broken, though many had received very violent contusions.

On Friday morning the coroner's inquest was held in the Theatre dwelling-house, by G. Hodgson, esq, and a jury, who, after a most minute investigation of the circumstances, delivered a verdict that the eighteen deceased were "Killed casually, accidentally, and by misfortune;" after which the coroner said--"Gentlemen of the jury: you are all, I believe, satisfied that no blame can be attached to the managers of the Theatre; they have done all that humanity could dictate; nothing has been neglected."

Mrs. Luker said that she was a milkwoman, and lived in Cradle-court, Red-Cross-Street; that she went with the prisoners to the Wells, that they had an altercation with a man and a woman, and that she frequently begged them not to quarrel, but they would not mind what she said.

Mary Vine said the man in black was very abusive, and that a young woman called her a d[amne]d b[itch]. She concluded her defence in the same way as the other prisoners. It appeared that Mary Vine struck a woman several times in the face.

In consequence of this most calamitous accident, the Theatre was closed for the season. Such was the event trifling in itself, nut rendered important by its consequences; and it wll, we trust be caution to the public to avoid conducting themselves indecorously in popular assemblies, or giving way too suddenly to the panic of momentary and unsubstantiated alarm.

Newgate Calendar[1]

Sentenced to Imprisonment for a Riot at Sadler's Wells Theatre which occasioned the Death of Eighteen of the Audience

THE true cause of this very shocking circumstance, so fatal in its consequences, is known to but few. If it had been occasioned wilfully, for the sake of plunder, the very worst of deaths should have overtaken the offenders.

As it was, the injured proprietors of the theatre, who alone were entitled to prosecute, could only reach the promoters in a conviction of a riot -- unattended with proof which would lead to capital punishment.

It appeared that a noisy, intoxicated party, among whom were those convicted, sat in the pit, and were observed during the evening to disturb the audience. At length they so greatly annoyed the peaceable part near them that a quarrel arose, and the woman, Elizabeth Luker, cried out to her debauched male associates: "Fight! Fight!" This was, unhappily, by distant parts of the house, supposed to be the cry of "Fire! Fire!" So dread an alarm in such a place -- hundreds crowded together -- will readily be conceived. Each seeking safety in flight, the avenues of the theatre were soon choked up, and the weakest trampled underfoot. In vain did the performers from the stage call upon them to return; in vain did they assure them that there could be no danger of fire in a theatre filled with water -- even a speaking-trumpet, proclaiming to that effect, was not heard.

Eighteen unhappy mortals thus perished. They were mostly females and boys. The men thus numbered with the dead were small, and apparently of weak habits of body. From the turbulent part, the three above named, who were, however unintentionally, the cause of this havoc, were identified, seized, tried, and convicted of a riot.

Summing up

Mr Mainwaring, the chairman at the Quarter Sessions at Hicks's Hall, where they were tried, addressed them in a very impressive and solemn manner, to the following effect:

"John Pierce, Vincent Pierce and Elizabeth Luker, you have been severally convicted on an indictment which charged you with being riotously and tumultuously assembled for the purpose of disturbing the King's peace, and of having resisted the legal authority to suppress your dangerous conduct in a theatre legally authorised, called Sadler's Wells.

"It has appeared that you obtained admission into that theatre; and it has also appeared from the evidence that you repeatedly interrupted the performance, grossly insulted the audience, and obstructed the officers, duly, authorised, in the performance and execution of their duty, when interposing to prevent your rioting. It is necessary, to preserve the public peace, that propriety of demeanour should be observed, from the highest to the lowest, in persons assembled at places of public amusement. The mischievous and fatal effects which have ensued for want of a due observance of the principles of decorum are too numerous to make it necessary for me to recount, and it is to be lamented that hardly a week passes but those disturbances do arise in one or other of the theatres. But the calamitous and dreadful events which happened in consequence of your outrageous conduct are distressing in the extreme. Not less than eighteen lives were lost! Whole families were plunged into irremediable ruin by the loss of the protection of those who were their natural protectors and guardians. When informed of the mischief you had occasioned, instead of exhibiting horror and dismay, and showing symptoms of sorrow and compunction, you most unfeelingly replied: 'Well, we don't care; we can't be hanged for it!' But surely, if you are not worse than brutes or savages, and void of the feelings which in general govern human nature, you will hereafter feel compunctions of remorse for the misery you have entailed upon the relatives of the deceased. The sentence which the Court is about to pronounce is slight in comparison with your crimes, and affords no atonement for your offence, but it is to be hoped that the punishment will have the effect of calling you to a proper repentance and contrition, and induce you to conduct yourselves, for the future, at all times, and in all places, with decency. Eighteen of your fellow-creatures by your improper conduct have been deprived of their lives. Wives of their husbands. Fathers of their children. And children of their parents. And whole families brought to utter ruin by your outrageous conduct."

The sentence, therefore, of the Court upon you, John Pierce, is, that you be imprisoned for the space of six months; and that you, Vincent Pierce, be imprisoned for the space of four months; and that you, Elizabeth Luker, be imprisoned only for the space of fourteen days."

At the Middlesex sessions; Dec 4. Anthony and -- Pierce, two brothers indicted for a riot at Sadler's Wells, in consequence of which the late dreadful accident happened. Mr. Dibdin, the manager and proprieor, detailed the sad story of the confusion of the house, and the lamentable issue; which appeared by the evidence of the constables, to have arisen as follows.

The two young men indicted (one of whom was a brewer's servant, and the other come lately from the country) came into the pit, accompanied by two women. It appeared, that they were intoxicated, and became very quarrelsome. They particularly attacked a young man who sat near them.

At length the constables interfered and took them out by force. The bustle this occasioned, made some suppose it was a battle, and a "fight" was called out: this, it was apprehended, was mistaken for the cry of "Fire." Immediately several persons threw themselves from the gallery into the pit, and a scene of universal confusion ensued, in which several lives were lost.

The prisoners when informed of what had been the miserable consequence of their conduct, replied "they did not care; they could not be hanged for it." The jury found them Guilty.

References

Sources

• The Evangelical Magazine. 1801. p. 531.
• Heneage Jesse, J. (1871). London: It's Celebrated Characters And Remarkable Places. p. 77.
• The Lady's Magazine: Or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex, Appropriated Solely to Their Use and Amusement, Volume 38. Robinson and Roberts. 1807. p. 567.
• The Annual Register of World Events: A Review of the Year, Volume 49. 1809. p. 521.

Further reading

• Fairburn, John (1807) Dreadful Catastrophe: Fairburn's Authentic Account of the Accident at Sadler's Wells, Oct. 15, 1807. Including An Address to the Frequenters of Theatres on the Late Calamity.