March 24th 2003.

Next club meeting Monday 7th April 2002.

Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.

March meeting.

For the March meeting Mr Robert Sharman gave a talk to 21 members on the Tokens, Tickets and Passes associated with London Theatres, Music Halls, Gardens and Parks.

At the beginning of the talk Mr Sharman explained that the source of much information, and the excellent slides of the pieces themselves was the Montague Guest collection. This collection was bequeathed to the British Museum in 1907 on condition that the collection be published. It was not until 1930 that the condition was fulfilled.

The first part of the talk was devoted to the history of several prorninent theatres. The early theatres enjoyed considerable success in the 16th century. They were places for enjoyment, predominately for the wealthy. In the latter part of the century the more popular theatres, such as the Swan & Red Bull began issuing entry tokens. However, come the Commonwealth all this was to change. The dour Puritans suppressed the theatre and often imprisoned the actors who dared ply their trade. It was only after the restoration that the theatre once again enjoyed a renaissance. Some of the more prominent theatres that the speaker gave the history included the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, the Dukes Theatre near Blackfriars, the Queens in the Haymarket and the Kings theatre later known as Her Majesties Theatre. During their history many theatres were destroyed by fire (and interestingly Queen Victoria's journal notes the destruction of Her Majesties in 1867 - Victoria was an avid theatregoer pre Albert's demise)

Throughout his talk Mr Shaman projected some superb examples of Passes and Tickets, many of which were in very good condition. This is remarkable since most specimens usually turn up very worn by virtue of having been used over and over again. Some of the tokens were quite plain consisting predominantly of letters and words, sometimes with an emblem. Others had excellent art-work, and one particular piece even used the portrait from a Charles II l/2d. It was explained the letters PS & KS stood for the Princes side and the Kings Side respectively, thus catering for the differing fractions at Court.

For the second part of the talk Mr Sharman gave many details on the development of theatres into other forms of entertainment. He gave the history of Covent Garden, beginning as a theatre of serious drama, going on to be the stage for the famous duo of John Kemble and Sara Siddens, and finally becoming the Opera House we know today after two rebuilds following fires. Some theatres went on to stage circuses (Theatre Royal Westminster & Alexandra Palace in Leicester Square), or Cockfights. Others became entertainment centres and Music halls (Turnhams, Colliers and Highbury Barn Tavern). One particular place of note was the Egyptian Hall, which entertained audiences with the "Panorama of the Nile". For each of the places mentioned above Mr Sharman projected examples of the tokens, tickets and passes that they issued, some of the later pieces merely being a form of advertisement.

To close his talk Mr Shaman went on to speak about some of the passes associated with London gardens (Brompton, Vauxhall, Ranleigh, Marylebone and the Dukes Bagnioin). Several of these passes were very ornate and excellent art work (reputedly by Hogarth) depicting classical scenes such as Orpheus and the Underworld, a female group of Spring, Voluptas and Virtus or another group of female figures attended by Cherubs.

The evening concluded with a vote of thanks to the speaker for a very interesting talk on a subject fresh to most members. 21 members attended the talk and there were five dealer tables.

Spring social

The Spring Social will be a skittles evening at the Red Lion pub, Theale on Saturday 26th April. We intend to start gathering around 7pm for an 8pm kick off The price is £9 per head (£18 per couple) including a buffet. Will those members wishing to attend please ensure they sign up and pay the monies to the chairman at the April meeting.

We need a minimum of 15 persons to cover the costs. So far we are somewhat short of this number, so why not come along and support the club.

Summer social

The summer social, scheduled to take place on the Wednesday 13th August, will be a visit to Birmingham Museum coin department in the morning and the Matthew Boulton Museum in the afternoon.

Birmingham Museum 10.30 am - We have requested a short talk from each curator followed by a viewing of some of the coins in the collection. There are very few coins on public display but the museum holds a reasonable selection of the following coins:

The collection is weak in Greek & Roman

Members need to indicate to the secretary any particular items of interest they wish to see, otherwise the undersigned will request a representative selection.

Matthew Boulton Museum 2pm - Actually in Boulton's house and the exhibits cover all aspects of his business, A short introduction has been requested from the curator, but the remainder of the visit will be a self tour around the galleries. It is an interesting place and I am led to believe entry is now free.

Transport - yet to be decided.

Numbers - may be limited to about 12 persons to visit Birmingham museum so please advise your interest early, either at the April meeting or to the secretary asap Tel 01932 249839 (day).

Future Events.

Past Events

30 years ago Dr P Whiting delivered a well illustrated talk on 7th century Arab coinage, including Persia and Byzantium

20 years ago Dr I Carradice spoke on the coin portraits of Imperial Rome. In the talk he revealed that the high quality of engraving had lead to the identification of some otherwise unknown statues.

This month in 1993, Mr 0 Berry presented a well illustrated talk on Medieval Jetons. Of particular interest were those struck in the reigns of Edward I & II.