1908–1909: Down with the Censor!

Abstract

On 27 December 1907 and 2 January 1908 The Times published two long articles on ‘The Office of Examiner of Plays’ in which the unnamed author, tracing the history of stage censorship since its introduction in 1737, raised the question of the Tightness or wrongness of the practice in the new century. In the next year and a half this would become quite the burning issue of the day, if not to the public at large, certainly to playwrights, theatre managers, playgoers who took their excursions to the theatre seriously and, not least, those to whom censorship in whatever form denied the principle of freedom.