Skip to main content

Shakespeare Saloon

Tag this record

Venue Type & Location

Tavern

Overview

  • Address: 36 Saltmarket. For a current map, Click Here.

  • Alternate Names: Shakespeare Singing Saloon.

  • Performance Space Description: Information about this venue has not yet been compiled; however, some sense of the performance space may be gleaned by following the links at right. In particular:

  • See the 'Bibliographic Sources' link for a provisional list of venue-relevant resources (both primary and secondary). Wherever possible (i.e. when the pertinent text is relatively short and/or easily condensed) this material has been transcribed, and appears beneath the appropriate bibliographic citation.

  • See the 'Events at venue' link for a listing of blackface/minstrelsy-related events that took place in this performance space (with attached bibliographic references).

    Beth Marquis

    • Troupes at Shakespeare Saloon

    Film Affiliated people Film Type # of event(s)
    Phillips, Ethiopian Minstrel & Nigger Dancer Minstrel Definite Phillips, Ethiopian Minstrel & Nigger Dancer

    Events at Shakespeare Saloon

    Event Date Venue Location Film
    Variety - Glasgow, Lanark Phillips, Ethiopian Minstrel & Nigger Dancer

    Bibliographic Sources

    View a list of abbreviations.



    • Within ‘The Sights of Glasgow’, Charles Watson, c1850:
      “from the pen of Glasgow’s favourite comic singer, Mr. Charles Watson, of the Shakspere Saloon” “Now the last place that I’ll mention, and it should have been the first,
      I’m sure that you all know it, say ‘No’ now if you durst,
      ‘Tis the Shakspere in Saltmarket, proprietor Mr Levy,
      Where Charlie Watson hangs out, who is always glad to see you.” (Search ‘Shakspere’)


    • "Shakespeare Singing Saloon, 36 Saltmarket, Glasgow.

      The Shakespeare Singing Saloon was a tavern at 36 Saltmarket, which flourished from the 1840s to the 1860s, along with others in the Saltmarket such as the Jupiter, the Oddfellows and the Sir Walter Scott. A review from 1848 gives an early glimpse of David Brown, later such an important figure in the development of Music Hall in Glasgow: "Mr David Brown is a decided acquisition to this place of amusement, and the taste and high finish displayed in some of his songs, show him to be ever improving; he is encored in almost every song."

      The proprietor in 1859 was Henry Levy, in 1860 Lachlan McGown (or McGowan); the latter also had a long career as a music hall chairman."