Tickets and Passes of London from the David Young Collection

Theatre and Entertainment, COVENT GARDEN, Theatre Royal, New Theatre, Admit (Before the Curtain) For the Season 1806 & 1807, at the Bow Street Door only, a printed blue ticket, named (Mr Cobbett & friend), signed by T. Harris, 115 x 74mm (Young, Theatres & Circus, p.54, this item). Fine to very fine; of especial radical interest £200-£260

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Tickets and Passes of London from the David Young Collection.

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Provenance: Tim Millett FPL 2004 (79); bt June 2004.

William Cobbett (1763-1835), Whig MP for Oldham 1832-5, was a radical journalist and advocate of parliamentary reform who championed the cause of traditional rural England against the changes brought about by the industrial revolution. He was the proprietor of the weekly Political Register, in which he wrote on 6 June 1835 “I have not been to a play since the month of June 1803, when I saw poor Mrs Jordan...I have not been at a play since. They made me stand up and pull my hat off while ‘God save the King’ was sung, and I deemed that to be such an infamy...that I never went to the play afterwards, though I had a free admission ticket to the theatres till I would absolutely keep them no longer”