The Role of the Censor in the Regulation of the Eighteenth-Century Stage

The Stage Licensing Act of 1737 had a profound impact on the London stage, but accounting for that impact in causal terms is a difficult task. The difficulty is partly a function of the rich archive we have for the study of eighteenth-century drama, and central to that is the Larpent Collection of plays submitted to the Office of the Lord Chamberlain between 1737-1824. This collection is a remarkable resource for scholars, but how we use it is as important as the wealth of information it contains.  The Larpent Collection is not the sole archive of theatrical censorship in eighteenth-century England; rather, it is one part of a broad and deep archive that documents how theatre was regulated at that time and in that place. To use the Larpent Collection to its best effect, we must regard it in this way and look for evidence of how the Lord Chamberlain’s Office was one part of a larger censorial and regulatory network that shaped English drama in the period. The goal of this essay is to describe that network and the role of official censorship in it.

In 2007, Oxford University Press published a useful overview of theatrical censorship in Britain called Theatre Censorship: from Walpole to Wilson. The authors survey the legislative history and practical application of theatrical censorship throughout the duration of the Stage Licensing Act, from 1737 until 1968.  In the chapter that covers the eighteenth century, the authors note two things: (1) for most of the eighteenth century, “the few men who still bothered to write for the stage simply avoided politics altogether;” and (2) “the Licensing Act was remarkably effective in stifling any expression of political criticism on the London stage.”[1] Similarly, L. W. Conolly notes the near-total absence of political satire from the London stage in the second half of the century, noting, “because of managerial and government censorship, political plays could not easily reach the stage.”[2]  The former credits the law and the government’s censorship with driving politics from the stage, but the latter expands that to include “managerial” censorship. That is, the decisions of theatre managers in accepting or rejecting new plays for production. This is an important consideration, but the government censors and the patent house managers were not the only ones involved in the regulatory network at play.