ABSTRACT
Distinctions are sometimes made between ‘free-and-easies’, ‘song-and-supper rooms’, early music halls and other pub entertainments, and there are some general characteristics which distinguish these forms. Free-and-easies remained popular well into Queen Victoria’s reign, and J. Ewing Ritchie described a costermongers’ free-and-easy in the 1840s with the landlord in the chair, a professional pianist and both amateur and professional singers. ‘A dirty, stifling, underground tavern’, according to Blanchard Jerrold, its clientele, MPs, barristers, minor aristocrats and such, was nevertheless of a somewhat higher class than was to be found in many free-and-easies. Spectators paid a shilling admission, which included a free drink and a cigar, and the show began at nine in the evening with up to a hundred men present. The singers were paid £1 per week, with free drink every evening, and it was successful enough for a branch to open in Upper Dawson Street in Liverpool.
