British Child Performers 1920–40: New Issues, Old Legacies

Abstract

In the closing decades of the nineteenth century two distinct p henomena—the development of the vast, economically and culturally significant, performance-based leisure industry and the emergence of the emotionally valued, sentimentalized cult of the child—were brought together and became mutually reinforcing. The representations of childhood that emerged from this symbiosis fuelled the aspirations of an increasingly child-focused society, concerned to protect these vulnerable waifs, while compromising the welfare of the real children representing them on the stage. Despite a sustained campaign by the National Vigilance Association (NVA) that aimed to convince the public that young entertainers were workers, activists failed to secure protection for theatrical children through existing child laws.¹ Indeed, at the very moment when child labor was increasingly regarded as neither desirable nor necessary, demand for and supply of performing children was escalating.² Child performers were the last child workforce to be taken under the protective umbrella of British legislation. Ultimately, via an amendment to the 1889 Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, a system of licensing was introduced, which allowed children to be employed in the theatrical industry, subject to certain criteria.