The many lives of John Hollingshead: bohemianism, journalism and theatre management in Victorian London

John Hollingshead was a man of many lives: a journalist from humble beginnings who worked with Dickens and Thackeray, a theatrical impresario who founded the successful Gaiety Theatre in London, and a ‘controversialist’ who campaigned against the theatrical licensing laws. The worlds in which Hollingshead worked were linked by a bohemian sensibility and this study illustrates some of the complexities of this identity through the lens of his careers. The working method is to employ current scholarship in Victorian Studies, literature and space to make sense of the texture of his life and situate Hollingshead within social and cultural history.

Hollingshead’s most famous work, Ragged London in 1861 (1861), has been assessed by historians of social exploration, but his life and career have never been studied, resulting in a significant gap in the literature which my research aims to fill. A serious examination of Hollingshead is required to establish him as a journalist and major urban spectator, comparable to other figures like Dickens who we associate with depictions of the urban scene. The thesis examines Hollingshead's life as writer in order to analyse his significant contribution to mid-Victorian popular culture and the ways in which the stage and the press were intertwined during this period.

Victorian Studies needs an investigation of Hollingshead because he was a pioneer who brought French popular culture to the West End, and created the successful ‘fusion of the theatre and music hall’. The thesis traces the influences in his early life, such as his love of penny theatres, to explore their effect on his management of the Gaiety. It also examines the types of entertainment staged at the Gaiety, in particular the role of burlesque, and takes a feminist approach in piecing together the lives of the leading actresses.