The singing scenic artist of the York circuit.

Old rule, when you've struck gold (see yesterday's post) it may well be a lode ...  always revisit the scene of the strike the next day!

So I hied me back to MargyandMax's wonderful e-shop and boing!

Now, this nearly 200 year old document hasn't got a huge amount of internal evidence as to its origins in its lines. No date. No sign as to whom it was written. And a dirty big blot over the sender's initial.

It seems to merely be a letter -- sent from the Commercial Rd, east end of London -- to a theatre manager, looking for a shop. And the writer claims be a bass singer. An actor of 'heavies' and rustics. And a painter. Scenery not houses. 

Must have been loads of those. Of varying degrees of talent in one department or the other. Would you hire an artist with handwriting like that?

But. I looked a little closer. That name. Not 'Newman'. 'Newnum'. And a small rusty bell tinkled in my aged brain. Cawse, it cried. Cawse! And it was right.

Right. The writer of our letter was Thomas Edward NEWNUM (b Brighton 1808; d Micklegate, York 26 October 1867) and all his 'claims' were absolutely true and justified.

His letter reads to me like that of a fairly young and untried man. However, although I don't know who Mr Gray was, Mr W West was a well-known performer at Bath, Drury Lane, the Surrey, the Haymarket at al, and his wife the sometime leading lady at the Lane. So where had young Newnum encountered him in such a way as to give his name as a reference? At the Brighton Theatre? But the lad is in London...

It is my guess that this letter possibly dates from 1828, and is destined for the manager of the local theatre in Brighton. For that is where the 21 year-old Thomas turns up at the beginning of 1829 .. 

There was clearly some theatrical connection, for Thomas was said to have been 'formerly call boy' at the Theatre, his brother Michael (d 19 October 1825) had been 'of the Brighton Glee Club' and his father appears to have been in charge of the redecorating of the house ...

He was still at Brighton in 1830, but in 1831 I spy him playing Basilio in The Barber of Seville, and painting scenery for pantomime at London's East End Pavilion Theatre. Ah! Was this when he lived in the Commercial Road? By 1833, we can read appreciative comments on his 'new and classical drop scene' and see him designing at Newcastle. It was in 1834, however, that he got thoroughly under way. He was engaged in his triple function on the York circuit -- Hull, Leeds, York -- where he made his debut as Hawthorne in Love in a Village. Mr Edmunds played Meadows and his wife as Rosetta. Mrs Edmunds was the former Mary Cawse of the principal London Theatres. Whose story is here:

https://kurtofgerolstein.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-misses-cawse-unlike-as-two-beans-in.html

and who rang my bell.

Thomas was acclaimed 'a very fine bass singer', in theatre and in  concerts, played roles from Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Don Diego in The Padlock and Pietro in Masaniello to Father Paul in The Duenna or Caliban in The Tempest, but it was as a scenic artist that he was roundly acclaimed as the best of the time and place. Diorama ('one thousand feet' 'ten scenes from Byron'), cosmorama, act drops, scenery dramatic, operatic and pantomimic ... his work became a feature of the circuit.

And then, in 1837, he announced his retirement from the stage. He and his wife and children had settled in York, at no1 Micklegate, and he took up the post of drawing master at St Peter's Prioprietary School. He gave private lessons, became a churchwarden at St Martin cum Gregory, choirmaster at Whitby, drawing master at Holgate Seminary and, occasionally, delivered Horn's 'The Sun is on the Mountain' or 'On by the spur of valour goaded' at a Music Meeting, a Dinner or festive occasion.

Thomas married, 29 November 1830, in his Brighton days, local girl Mary Burton (d 1879) and they produced eight children. I have Edward Thomas (d 1843), Mary Ann (Mrs John Burdett Allison), Michael Edwin who went off to Calcutta, William John (d 1840), Fanny Eliza (Mrs George Stamp, Mrs Froggatt, d 1904), Barbara Ellen (Mrs Wm Lees, d 1905), Charles Henry (d 1908), George William (d 1853).

So there we are. Our letter is definitely pre-1834, and probably a few years earlier, and thank you MargyandMax for saving this wee piece of theatre history.