Actresses had a bit of a reputation in Victorian times. I can’t imagine that it was entirely fair. There must have been some very serious and talented women on the stage. But the rest were not always taken seriously and seemed to provide professional males with hours of endless amusement and innuendo.
I found an excellent example of this in an edition The Cambrian newspaper from March 1894. The reporter doesn’t seem to take the issue very seriously – but neither did the judge.
The newspaper breathlessly reports a court case from London, under the exciting headline
Mr Melville and The Actress – Alleged Serious injury at Swansea New Theatre.
Judge Pollock was presiding in a case between the theatre owner Andrew Melville and an actress and dancer Eva Eden.
Not off to a good start are we? Can that truly be her real name? We don’t know but the serpent in her particular garden was Andrew Melville.
He owned a number of provincial theatres, including the New Theatre in Swansea, and the lovely Eva was on tour with the “Maid Marion Provincial Company.” You might speculate that this does not represent the very highest point in a career, but I couldn’t possibly comment. The New Theatre has sadly disappeared into the bland uniformity of what Swansea likes to call its “Café Quarter.” At the time it was an important venue, especially since it was directly opposite The Mackworth Arms Hotel, where the mail coach would terminate. Leggy dancing girls would have proved interesting to some I am sure, after a long bumpy day on the road. Convenient. Energising perhaps. But it hadn’t proved such an attractive venue for Eva.
You see, this whole case rested upon a carpet. As it were. It was alleged that the stage carpet was badly fixed. It was creased and “ruffled.” But as far as the theatre was concerned, no incident happened at all.
Eva appeared in court in an invalid chair, quite possibly one of her finest performances. She had been earning £2 10s a week, plus travelling expenses and costume, but in the second act her foot had caught in the carpet and she had fallen.
Allegedly.
Her injury was such that Eva had to give up her career. So she was seeking damages of £700 for loss of earnings.
The defendants were very clear. Her injuries were caused by nothing more than high kicking. This idea appears to have got the Judge hot under the wig. It was not the sort of stuff that normally came his way. Eva might have claimed that her “tarantella” was nothing more than a “skirt dance” but her injury was caused by “trying to kick higher than she was able to reach with her toe.”
There was considerable laughter in the court as they tried to untangle this difference of opinion. Richard Hopkins, a scene shifter at the theatre, was called as a witness. As far as he was concerned the dance involved “high kicking” and appeared “somewhat reckless.” Judge Pollock, enjoying himself mightily, commented that he was not aware that a scene shifter was a “maitre de ballet.” This generated a proper amount of politely hysterical laughter. Perhaps you had to be there.
He must have thought that all his birthdays had come at once because there was some detailed talk of anatomy, female medical conditions and an attempt to determine just how high a leg could be kicked. But the real issue for the jury was who was telling the truth? Had the injuries been caused by a carpet or by high kicking, if indeed they existed at all? They deliberated for almost three hours but they were unable to agree. So they were discharged.
At this point the case disappears from view, which is very frustrating indeed. Perhaps it was for Judge Pollock too. What happened next? I haven’t been able to find out. Did the lovely Eva spend her life dreaming of a time when she could kick her foot as high as her shoulder? Did she develop a life-long aversion to carpets? I think we should be told. There is more work to be done on this story. If I find out anything I will certainly let you know