'Our Theatrical Attempts in This Distant Quarter': The British Stage in Eighteenth-Century Calcutta
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The exploration of this lively birthplace of an expatriate subculture can suitably start with David Garrick. Traces of his involvement with the theatre in Calcutta are embodied, not always clearly, in disconnected bits of documentation. Some of these have been revealed before, not always accurately. The story is intriguing and can be charted through a systematic review of the sources. On 26 March 1768 four gentlemen of the Hon. East India Company's service in Calcutta gave a commission for the purchase of theatrical scenery and scripts to the captain of one of the Company's vessels about to depart for home. Addressed to 'Captain Thomas Riddle of Pocock', the letter of commission reads: Sir, The Theatre of Calcutta being in want of Scenery, we shall esteem ourselves oblig'd to you if upon your Arrival in England you will request on our behalf one of the Captains bound to this Port to get a set of new Scenes of following Dimensions painted upon Canvas & bring them out in his Privilege, we agreeing to allow him 50 pr. Cent on the prime Cost, viz: 2 Scenes 29 feet broad 16 feet high 3 do. 26 do. do. 16 do. do. 2 do. 24 do. do. 16 do. do. As Also 5 Copies of all the Acting Plays & Farces half bound with the Words Calcutta Theatre stamp'd on the Backs of each, together with a Book of Copper Plates representing the different Habits of the Theatre if such a Work is to be had. We desire that one of the Scenes 29 feet broad may represent a Street and the other a Bedchamber one of the Scenes of 26 a Street another a Parlour and the third a Hall one of the Scenes of 24 feet, a Park with Trees and the other a Garden. If the Time will permit for painting the full Length Figures of Tragedy and Comedy we request they may be added to the above Commissions. We heartily wish you a good Voyage and are with great regard Sir Your most obedient humble Servants Sign'd L [?] Holte [?] // Thos. Pearson // Edw. Baber // Jas. Ellis A True Copy This is the first of three items, designated 'Calcutta account', in the Victoria and Albert Museum's Forster Collection of Garrick papers; separate sources reveal that Capt. Thomas Riddell commanded the merchantman Admiral Pocock (632 tons, launched 1758) on hire to the East India Company for three voyages in 1761-2, 1766-7 [1767-8?] and 1769-70. (1) The order for books seems rather a tall one, '5 Copies of all the Acting Plays & Farces' and handsomely bound and embossed at that. Presumably the intention was for pieces only in the current repertory. The order for scenery is sensible and suggests that this part of the order, at least, was produced by someone who knew what he was talking about. The next paper of the three in the 'Calcutta account' is a sheet of figures detailing the cost of purchases. It is headed 'London 3d. of December 1768'. The categories itemised in it were written up by different hands. The first one shows practised penmanship and is possibly the writing of William Hopkins, the Drury Lane prompter (stage manager) who is mentioned in the accounts. The others are less neat, and the final three lines are careless and partly illegible. The firms' names are preceded by abbreviations for Messrs, standardised here as Mss. The accounts read: Bought for the Calcutta Company-- N 1-- Mss. Griffin Bookseller and Stationers Bill 60.17. 0 [pounds sterling] 2 Mss. Johnstons Bill for Music 4.4. 0 3 Boxes and Cords 16. 0 Portridge &c 3. 0 66.0. 0 [pounds sterling] 3 Mss. French's Bill for painting Scenes 138. 12. 0 4 Mss. Sandersons Bill for 44. 0. 0 Carpenters work 248. …
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.036 | 0.018 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.015 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".