A Timeline

TIMELINE

By the Archivist

Elizabethan Actors

A

1523

First Performances at the Inn

Formal plays were given during the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1533–1603). But in 1523, we find the first mention of the players or actors (istruonibus) in the Acts of Parliament. It is ordered that an allowance shall be made for them as in the previous year, which was apparently 20s. There is no mention of the play itself which Inderwick believes to be only a masque or interlude, which suggests that informal performances would have been common in the early 16th century.

1623–24

An Exciting Theatre Scene

In 1623, when theatre had become an established part of the Inn’s culture, an extract can be found in the accounts for payments to the King’s Men for two plays on All Hallows Day and Candlemas 14 li. This acting company, otherwise known as Lord Chamberlain’s Men, or for a brief time, Lord Hudson’s Men, was renowned for its most famous member, William Shakespeare, The company’s prestige had earnt it the patronage of King James I which was given in 1603, “freely to use and exercise the art and faculty of playing comedies, tragedies, histories, enterllades, moralles, pastoralles, stage plays, and such other likes as they have already studies … for the recreation and solace of our loving subjects as for our solace and pleasure… as also within any town hall or moot halls”. Only a short time, The Inner Temple was granted similar patronage when King James I granted the masters of The Inner and Middle Temple the “freehold of the Inns of capital messuages known as The Inner Temple” in 1608.

Originally the King’s players were based at the Globe Theatre. In 1596, Richard Burbage purchased the refectory of the Old Blackfriars monastery converting it with galleries above so that approximately 1,000 spectators could attend performances. The theatre became the hub of innovative drama and staging, with the company performing there for seven months in the winter and at the Globe throughout the summer.

Not only did members of the Inns of Court frequently attend the performances in Blackfriars Theatre but the close proximity made them a convenient choice for performances at the Inn. There are several references in the Inn’s accounts mentioning payments to the Blackfriars Players. The First Folio was published in 1623 and we also have the names of the 26 people who were likely ‘principal actors’ who performed at the theatre.

Although plays are never mentioned by name in the Inn’s records, it can be assumed that many of the plays published in the First Folio were performed at the Inn. One can but speculate whether The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster – published in the same year as the First Folio – was also performed as entertainment for members of the Inn.

In 1642, just after the commencement of the Civil War, the Long Parliament ordered the closure of all theatres with a declaration against stage plays as representative of ‘lascivious Mirth and Levity’ but they were resumed after the Restoration, with two performed every year until recent times.

The Swan

1722–23

Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1723)

25th February 2023 marks the tricentenary of the death of Sir Christopher Wren who was responsible for much of the rebuilding of the Inn between 1674 and 1682 following the Great Fire of London.

Among the Inn’s accounts for 1682 three are payments for various dinners at the ‘Devil Tavern’. Wren often visited the Temple to superintend the workmen engaged in the various works around the Temple. The foundations and doorway of 4 King’s Bench Walk are attributed to Wren.

There are sadly no surviving drawings of his buildings with the exception of the cloisters which lie within the remit of the Middle Temple.

In May 1682, he concluded that the church was “very ruinous for want of repair” and the cost for the work would not be less than £1,400 which was to be shared between the two societies with every Bencher contributing £3 and every barrister £2. 5s. Even students had to pay their share of £1. 10s each!

A description of the church after Wren’s restoration is to be found in the New View of London published in 1708:

“And lastly in the year 1706 the church was wholly new whitewashed, gilt and painted withing and the Pillars of the Round Tower wainscoted with a new battlement and buttresses on the South Side and other parts of the outside were well repaired; also the figures of the Knights Templars new cleaned and painted, and the iron work enclosing them painted and gilt with gold.

John Hales Treasurer of the Inner House

John Whitfield Treasurer of the Middle House

It is built of the ancient gothic order, the wall stone covered with finishing and strengthened with buttresses; has a treble roof covered with lead, and supported with neat pillars of Sussex marble, and the floor of the whole is paved with black and white marble, that of the chancel 2 steps higher than the middle, and 1 higher than the side aisles; the aisles are 5 in number viz 3 (as usual) running East and West and one cross aisle near the entrance into the chancel, and another parallel with the last, between the west end of the ranges of pews and the screen. This church is not only antique in its order, neat in its workmanship, and rich in its material, but very beautiful in its finishing, qualifications that seldom are found in one structure. The pillars and floors are not only marble, but the windows are adorned with pretty small columns of the same species of stone. It is well pewed, and wainscoted with right wainscot above 8 ft high; the altar piece is of the same species of timber but much higher, finely carved and adorned with 4 pilasters, and between them 2 columns with entablature of the Corinthian Order; also enrichments of cherubims, a shield, festoon, fruit and leaves enclosed with handsome rail and banister. The pulpit is also finely carved and finniered, placed near the east end of the middle aisle, the soundboard in pendant from the roof of the church. It is enriched with several carved arches, a crown, festoons, cherubims, vases.

The round tower at the west end of the church is supported with 6 pillars wainscoted with oak 5 foot high.

The screen at the west end of aisle is the altarpiece of right wainscot adorned with 10 pilasters of the Corinthian Order, also 3 portals and pediments; and the organ gallery over the middle aperture is supported with 2 neat fluted columns of the Corinthian Order and adorned with entablature and compass pediment, and also the Queen’s Arms finely carved; the intercolumns are large panels in carved frames and near the pediment on the south side is an enrichment of cherubims and the carved figure of the Pegasus, the badge of The Society of the Inner Temple …”

Christopher Wren by Godfrey Kneller © National Portrait Gallery, London

1823

Admission of Edwin Chadwick (1800–1890), social reformer

Edwin Chadwick transformed public health in England and around the world. It is perhaps fortunate for us all that his early career at the Bar was so unsuccessful and that he was forced to support himself by writing scientific essays concerning the role of science in government. It was this work that led to his employment by the Royal Commission to inquire into the efficiency of the Poor Law, in which he recommended a central system using trained experts, rather than the parish system run by local representatives and self-government.

Partially as a result of this investigation he realised that much disease could be eradicated by sanitary reform. He convinced the Poor Law board that an enquiry was required to look into the causes of serious outbreak of typhus. He employed doctors to look at the conditions leading to poor health in the population, sending questionnaires to police officers, surveyors and factory inspectors to obtain additional data about the lives of the poor. This resulted in his Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain which was published in 1842. He employed John Roe, the surveyor for the district of Holborn and Finsbury to advise on the most efficient way to make drains, leading to the recommendation that every house should have its own water supply.

His report led to The Public Health Act of 1848, marking the first time the government had taken responsibility for the health of its citizens. A Board of Health was established as a result of this Act; medical advisors and surveyors were employed to ensure that water supplies and drainage were installed throughout the country, with facilities for cleansing sewers and watering streets supplied.

He also contributed to many other areas of public policy including criminal justice, education of the poor, tropical hygiene, legislation relating to funerals and burials, the maintenance of roads and organisation of the civil service.

In 1884, he was appointed the first president of the Association of Public Sanitary Inspectors. He was knighted in 1889.

In 2012, he was hailed by Ekelund and Price as the “almost singular progenitor of public health in the UK and elsewhere. The one hundredth anniversary of his death in 1990 was an occasion of serious and deserved plaudits for him in the United States and abroad”.

1922

Centenary of the Call to the Bar of England & Wales of Liaquat Ali Khan, first Prime Minister of Pakistan

2022 marks the centenary of Liaquat Ali Khan’s Call to the Bar of England & Wales by The Inner Temple (1895–1951). Known in Pakistan as the Leader of the Nation, statesman, lawyer and political theorist, he was called to the Bar by The Inner Temple on 10 May 1922, and on 15 August, one day after the partition of India, became the first Prime Minister of Pakistan.

His career was long and varied and although he never practised at the Bar, the skills learnt in training for the Bar were put to good use as a politician. He returned to India in 1923 immediately following his Call determined to address the ill treatment of Indian Muslims under the British Indian government. He initially considered joining fellow Inner Templar Jawaharlal Nehru at the Indian Congress Party but eventually joined the All-India Muslim League led by another Inner Templar Muhammad Jinnah, convinced that Muslims of the subcontinent should have their own state to avoid the possible marginalised status they would have in an independent HinduMuslim state. The Pakistan Constitution is shaped according to an Islamic ideology rather than a European ideological pattern.

He was consistently an “eloquent and principled spokesman” who never compromised on his principles and from the moment of his election to the Provisional Legislative Council in the 1926 elections, he sought to address the mixed problems and challenges faced by the Muslim communities in the United Province.

He sought allies in the Soviet Union and China stating “Pakistan cannot afford to wait. She must take her friends where she finds them…!”

On 16 October 1951, Khan was shot twice in the chest while he was addressing a gathering of 100,000 Rawalpindi. The police immediately shot the presumed murderer who was later identified as professional assassin and Afghan national, Said Akbar.

He remains Pakistan’s longest serving Prime Minister, spending 1,524 days in power.

Celia Pilkington

Archivist