History of JK Green & the Toy Theatre

 Chapter 1 - John Kilby Green – The Early Years

 

(Ayot St Peter, as engraved by JK Green)

1790 - Rural Beginnings to Printers Apprentice

John Kilby Green was born on 15^th April 1790, the son of James & Sarah Green of Ayot St Peter in rural Hertfordshire. He was christened on 2^nd May 1790 at the church of St Peter, Ayot St Peter. Nothing more is known of his parents or whether he had any siblings. There were other Green’s living in the area, but as yet no definite link has been made to them. The picture above appears several times throughout JK Green’s works, so much so that it is believed that it depicts the family home in Ayot St Peter. The church seen in the background was the church of St Peter probably located near Ayot Place (the local manor) and was rebuilt in the mid 18^th century with the church as an octagonal brick building and separate bell tower. The earlier church having been made of wood and fallen into decay. In 1862 the church was demolished and re-built again, but in the more traditional style, with aisles and an attached bell tower. On 10 July 1874 this structure was struck by lightning and burnt to the ground. [The current church was erected nearer the centre of the village and was designed by JP Seddon. This is a red brick affair with Bath stone dressings and a tiled roof, and consists of an apsidal chancel with organ chamber on the south side, nave, north porch and tower. There are six bells by Warner of London, 1875, the gift of Dr. Jephson of Leamington. The plate includes a silver chalice and paten of the time of Charles I, almost certainly passed on from the earlier church buildings. – Kelly’s Directory 1879.] This latest church in a long line of St Peter’s is still in common use, despite the dwindling congregation. I have visited the village only once and then by car, but no sign of the small cottage could be found.

Around 1804, from these rural beginnings, a 14-year-old JK Green journeyed to London, in search of his fortune. He became apprenticed to Mr Simkins of Denmark Court, near the Strand and entered into the printing business. It seems a young age by today’s standards, to be setting out on his own, but in 1804 he would have been considerably older than street urchins of London, who begged and stole for a meagre existence. For the next five years or so Green learnt the trade of printing, from engraving to making quality prints from the engravings he had made. Unfortunately there are no known examples of his apprenticeship work.

The first tangible evidence of Green’s arrival in London, comes in the form of the London Land Tax Records. The first occurrence in 1809 in Clement’s Inn Passage, St Clement Dane, as tenant of Mrs Reigg (sic), assessed for the sum of £1 17s 6d. For the same assessment, John Green was still the tenant of Mrs Rigg the following year.

 1808-1811 – Green’s first work.

It was whilst in such humble dwellings that we stumble across Green’s first known work, which comes in the form of Punch’s Show. There is no date, but it is believed to be around 1810. The imprint reads: “Published by I Green, No.1 Clement’s Inn Passage, Clare Market”.

The piece of paper on which it appears was scissor cut on the left hand side, indicating a larger piece of paper. Perhaps there may have been instructions on how to build a model Punch & Judy Booth incorporating the disc. Taking the picture of the booth and the relative size of the disc I have made a replica of what it may have looked like. The disc rotates freely, but the disc must protrude outside the booth to achieve the proportions shown in the picture. Using the original print, the disc measures 9cm across and the finished booth is less than 15cm high.

 

I Green’s “Punch’s Show”, c1810.

 1808-1810 – Other Early Works

 The British Museum holds a small collection of IK Green’s early works, most of which state that they were sold at “Wests Circulating Library, No.13 Exeter Street, Strand”. William West was a haberdasher from Exeter Street, who was already a well-established producer of theatrical prints. The following are descriptions of the actual pieces, which I haven’t yet obtained a copy.

 

 

• 1810-1811 – William West’s Commission

Sometime between 1810 and 1811 Green was commissioned to produce a few theatrical prints by William West. At first, these prints would have been on a large scale, with a single image on a single sheet of paper, but JK Green had the idea to produce several small theatrical portraits on the same sheet, especially aimed at children. These were very similar to the “lottery prints” of the time. “Lottery prints” were crude attempts at comic book humour, but it appears that Green had the idea to create these with a theatrical content. He later claimed to be the “Original Inventor of Juvenile Theatrical Prints”, a claim that no one disputed.

 

The first known “Juvenile Theatrical Print”

 If we look closer at the character in the top right hand corner of the print above (called Zany) and compare it with the same character that appears in the Punch & Judy disc, we can see similarities. The detail of the West print is a little cruder, with no shading, but the pose, positioning of the bells and the open box, if nothing else, lead us to conclude that they came from the same original.

Comparison between 1810 Punch & Judy Disc & 1811 W West first “Juvenile Theatrical Print”

William West, who was often thought of as the founder of the Juvenile Drama, admitted in an interview in 1850 to Henry Mayhew (a journalist of the time), that he felt considerable guilt in taking the idea from Green, but at the same time stated that Green’s speciality was copying and engraving rather than creating the artwork by himself.

(The full article by Mayhew can be found in the next chapter.)

JK Green had the idea, but he had no money or premises with which to fulfil his potential. William West in the meantime expanded on the idea of Green’s Juvenile Theatrical Prints and took them to the next logical level, that of the Juvenile Drama or Toy Theatre as it became commonly known. Subsequently, Green found himself as a back-street hack, etching out a living as best he could. Perhaps it grated with Green that West had stolen his idea and was making a handsome profit from his invention. Maybe he decided to use those copying skills, which West alluded to in his interview with Mayhew, to progress his career. As we will see Green acquired the reputation of being somewhat of a rogue when it came to copying his fellow publishers’ works.

 

• 1^st January 1812 – The First Proscenium

 The oldest known proscenium in existence was printed by IK Green, with an imprint date of 1^st January 1812. The full imprint reads “Published as the Act directs, Jan 1st, 1812 by I. K. Green and sold by Burtenshaw at his Theatrical Military Historical and Comic Print Shop, No.130 St Martins Lane, London”.

(IK Green’s Original Proscenium from 1812 – Peter Baldwin Colletion)

Peter Baldwin, in his book “Toy Theatres of the World” suggests that a William West proscenium was created at roughly the same time. Until recently no known copy of West’s version was thought to exist in any museum or collection. However, West stated in his interview with Mayhew that “I turned out the first toy theayter for children as ever was got up for sale, and that was in the year 1813”. He claimed to be the first, but was a year later than Green, however the interview did take place some 37 years later, so his memory may not have been as accurate as it once was. It was highly likely that Green’s proscenium was a copy of West’s stage front. A recent visit to the British Museum and the “Ralph Thomas Collection” uncovered what appears to be the top section of the above proscenium. However, I believe this is not the same as the one pictured above. The detail is finer and leads me to consider that this cut section actually belonged to West’s version of the same theatre. Leading me to conclude that Green’s version above was a copy of W West’s work. All prints I have seen before this date created by Green had West’s Circulating Library as the publishing address. Can I conclude that this proscenium was the catalyst for the split between West & Green and the first known example of Green’s entry into plagiarism? I think so, moreover as we will see, virtually all of Green’s work after this and before 1815 were mostly copies of West’s works. Some of which appear to have been taken from the original printing plates, with only the imprint changed, especially in the case of the two prints of Mr Kirby mentioned later.

Burtenshaw also worked as IK Green’s agent on his first three plays, from his shop premises at No.130 St Martins Lane. In between time Burtenshaw created four plays of his own, “Voorn the Tiger (1812)”, “The Virgin of the Sun (1812)”, “Baghvan Ho (1812)” and an undated play, “The Golden Fish”, all of which were published around the same time by William West, so perhaps Burtenshaw’s productions were also copies. Plagiarism appeared to have been rife in the production of the Juvenile Drama.

It was with the invention of the model proscenium that the toy theatre truly came of age. The first known play to have scenes was West’s “Timour the Tartar” with an imprint date of April 1812, but it is conceivable that plays with scenes were sold slightly earlier to accompany the first stage fronts.

West’s top arch with Green’s doors & boxes – a perfect match.

• 17^th March 1812 – Green’s Clown Positions & Columbine Positions

 

 

These predate any characters Green dedicated to a single play. Perhaps they were test pieces created for William West, although they clearly state at the bottom that they were for sale through H Burtenshaw. Next, we see West’s 4^th plate in “The White Cat”, dated here as 1^st February 1825. It is strongly believed that this is a reprint of the 1811 version that West produced, so it would be a slightly earlier piece than Green’s “positions” pieces. So when we see two characters from Green’s “positions” pieces appearing on West’s “The White Cat” in opposite, we must assume that Green copied West.

 

 

 

I have taken the character on the bottom left “The Clown as Hazzar Officer” flipped it and super-imposed it over Green’s version, no re-scaling was required. The result is quite conclusive.

 

As Green’s pieces were produced after West’s first print run of “The White Cat”, it would seem highly likely that Green copied West. This process of copying seems to continue throughout the rest of IK Green’s early career as we will see from the plays Green produced.

Three more known works were published by IK Green around this time (British Museum: Thomas Collection 168).

 

MR COOK as SANDBALLET in TIMOUR the TARTAR

Plate 2^nd

Published as the Act Directs April 17^th 1812 by I. K. GREEN

And sold by H. Burtneshaw 130 St Martins Lane and B. Perkins 40 Marshall Street Carnaby Market London

 

MR ASTLEY Junr as COUNT SATOFFA the BRAVE COSSACK

Plate 4

Published as the Act directs April 17^th 1812 by I. K. GREEN

&Sold by B. Perkins 40 Marshall St Carnaby Mt.

 

Green’s New Theatrical Horses in Twelve Plates

Plate 1^st

MRS H. JOHNSON as ZORILDA in TIMOUR the TARTAR

Published as the Act Directs April 18^th 1812

By I.K. Green and Sold by H. Burtenshaw No 130 St Martins Lane

• 1^st May 1812 – “The Secret Mine”

William West had already produced some 25 sets of characters before IK Green produced his first known publication. This was the “Secret Mine”. Both George Speaight and AE Wilson wrote that this was a copy of West’s work. I will explain their thinking thus:-

 

1. 24^th April 1812 “The Secret Mine” opened at Covent Garden.
2. 1^st May 1812 IK Green marked the imprint on his version of the play.
3. 7^th May 1812 William West marked the imprint on his version of the play.

It would appear from the dates that IK Green was first to publish his rendition. AE Wilson argued that West probably released a second print run and this was the one seen in the British Museum. This is highly unlikely, given the timings above. Did William West sell a complete print run, change the date on the plate and issue a second print run within a maximum of 13 days. I don’t think so.  The arguments from both Speaight & Wilson showed clearly that Green copied West’s rendition of the play, although he did so in such a manner through omission to show that it was not a direct copy but an interpretation of West’s plate. However, there is one interesting point to observe in the example used by Wilson. He used the frontispiece for the play as a comparison. There is one major difference between Green’s and West’s examples that doesn’t appear to have been noticed before. The top left figure on both the original drawing and West’s finished article has the name of “Assab”, whereas Green has called him “Abbas”. I have tried in vain to establish which the correct name is, but I will keep searching. If it is “Abbas” then it would give Green some credit for doing his homework rather than just copying West, if however it a simple mistake, then it paints Green in a poorer light, in that it would mean that he didn’t check his work very thoroughly. The mistake by Green, if it was one, was a consistent one, because the same spelling is used on Plate 1 & Plate 2. Hodgson’s playbook for The Secret Mine has both, an Abbas and an Assab, so that doesn’t help.

 

Although the title plate indicates that three plates were used in IK Green’s “The Secret Mine”, only two are known to have survived (BM: Thomas Collection). As with his proscenium IK Green used H Burtenshaw of No.130 St Martins Lane to act as his selling agent.

 

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS in the Grand spectacle called THE SECRET MINE

 (BM)

 May 1812 - Valentine & Orson

William West published his version of Valentine & Orson on 10^th May 1812. I expect Green’s version was published a few days earlier. Again distributed through H Burtenshaw.

Although the title plate indicate that three plates were used in IK Green’s “Valentine & Orson”, only one is known to have survived (BM: Thomas Collection) thus:-

 

• 2^nd July 1812 – “The Seven Wonders of the World” or “Harlequin Colossus”

“Harlequin Colossus” was another play taken from Covent Garden to the toy theatre. Again we see the same dating of imprints between West & Green as we saw with “The Secret Mine”:-

1. 22^nd June 1812 “Harlequin Colossus” opened at Covent Garden.
2. 2^nd July 1812 IK Green marked the imprint on his version of the play.
3. 4^th July 1812 William West marked the imprint on his version of the play.

It is my belief that IK Green somehow saw the plates before publication and quickly made copies. This may account for the omissions, or the omissions may have been deliberate to show they were not direct copies. It is not known whether West’s or Green’s versions of the plays went on sale on the date shown on the imprint. If not then it would be easy for Green to put an earlier imprint date, even if they went on sale at a later date. If Green had some view of West’s plates before publication, this would make it all the easier for Green to put on the earlier date and publish as soon as he could and possibly even before West’s version was released, thereby adding credence to Green’s origination if any dispute occurred. “Harlequin Colossus” was distributed through agents Perkins & Burtenshaw.

 

• 31^st July 1812 – Mr Kirby

The preceding three plays were followed by two Theatrical Portraits of Mr Kirby. Both were published on the 31^st July 1812, the day before West published his own versions.

 

 

 1814 – “The Tiger Horde”

 “The Tiger Horde” was a joint effort between Green & G Slee of 5 Artillery Lane, Bishopsgate, perhaps this time no copying was required. Slee went on to form a partnership with Anderson between 1815 and 1825, after which time he set out on his own publishing halfpenny plays. In 1835 he packed up and sold his plates to Skelt, but none are known to exist with an imprint by Slee.

No more is heard of IK Green from 1814 until 1832