Lecture Hall, Greenwich

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Venue Type & Location

Lecture Hall

Site Name: Lecture Hall, Greenwich
Location: London
County: London (city-county)
Location Type: Town - in town at determined location

Overview

  • Conclusive information about this venue has not been located. It is possible, however, that the Hall in question is the Lecture Hall of the Greenwich Society for the Acquisition and Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Some basic information about this Lecture Hall can be found below.


  • Address: North-west side of Royal Hill, Greenwich. For a current map, Click Here.



  • Performance Space Description: A contemporary image of the Lecture Hall (Click Here) shows it to be a large, rectangular room with no raised performance space, and a bust of Francis Bacon adorning one wall. The National Maritime Museum Website (at which this image is housed) also notes that– in this picture at least – the audience is “seated in raked tiers which sweep round the other three walls of the hall, with standing room at top back on the long side facing [the speaker]”. Further, the site continues, “there is a flat-centred, coved ceiling and a single gas luminaire, with an inverted shallow glass diffuser, hangs from the centre, lighting the whole” (ibid).



  • Typical Fare: Despite the literary/academic mantle of the Greenwich society, it appears that the Lecture Hall was used for a variety of social and entertainment purposes during the 1840s and 50s. An article in The Legal Observer, Digest, and Journal of Jurisprudence of February 17, 1849, for instance, observes that “the trustees of the society were in the habit of letting out the lecture hall for the accommodation of public meetings and for public exhibitions and of applying the proceeds to the general purposes of the society. The hall had been let out [...] on various occasions for the use of meetings to petition against the Corn Laws, for the People's Charter and for other purposes; and it was used for the exhibitions of the Ojibbeway Indians, the American Serenaders, General Tom Thumb, Indian jugglers, and other public exhibitions of a similar character” (324).

    • Performance History

  • Little information about the history of the Lecture Hall has yet been located.


  • The building no longer stands, and its former site is now home to a portion of the 1939 Town Hall.




    Beth Marquis

    • Troupes at Lecture Hall, Greenwich

    Troupe Troupe Type # of events
    Ethiopian Serenaders (1846-48) Minstrel 1

    Events at Lecture Hall, Greenwich

    Event Date Venue Location Troupe
    Minstrel Show 5 May 1847 - 5 May 1847 London, London (city-county) Ethiopian Serenaders (1846-48)

    Bibliographic Sources

    • Legal Observer, Digest, and Journal of Jurisprudence 37 (Nov. 1848-April 1849). February 17, 1849: 324.
    • National Maritime Museum Website. 05/09/2008 (http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/explore/object.cfm?ID=PAH5856)