‘No Boys Work’: Blake, Hayley and the Triumphs of (Intellectual) Paiderastia

Abstract

In 1804, London was whipped into a feverish state of anticipation by various puffs in newspapers, pamphlets and broadsheets concerning the imminent arrival of a remarkable new acting talent. William Henry West Betty had garnered a considerable reputation over a very short period of time, play- ing alternately Romeo, Hamlet and Richard III to packed theatres in Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh, Manchester and Birmingham before arriving to much fanfare in London. Such was the level of excitement generated by Betty that, according to The Times, the two main metropolitan theatres tussled over ‘possession of this dramatic prize’ (6 September 1804). Richard Brinsley Sheridan secured Betty’s services and there were reports that ‘not less than twenty-five guineas were offered in vain for a box’ to witness Betty’s open- ing performance (Young Roscius 1805, 17). An anonymous squib described the scene immediately before Betty took the stage:

The appearance of … Betty before a London audience was ushered in by a thousand inauspicious accidents, such as beaux collaring their fellow fops in their endeavours to get admittance, ladies of delicate nerves fainting away in the arms of coal heavers and scavengers, and grey-bearded debauchees, and their mistresses squeezed together like barrelled herrings; while a thousand fragments of coats, gown, shawls, hats and bonnets strewed the scene of action!