{{Short description|Building in Southwark, London}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} The '''Blackfriars Rotunda''' was a building in [[Southwark]], near the southern end of [[Blackfriars Bridge]] across the [[River Thames]] in London, that existed from 1787 to 1958 in various forms. It initially housed the collection of the [[Leverian Museum]] after it had been disposed of by lottery. For a period it was home to the [[Surrey Institution]]. In the early 1830s it notoriously was the centre for the activities of the [[Rotunda radicals]]. Its subsequent existence was long but less remarkable. [[File:LeverianEngraving.jpg|thumb|Street view of the Rotunda as Leverian Museum.]]
==James Parkinson and the Leverian collection== {{further|Leverian collection}} [[File:Panorama of London Barker.jpg|thumb|The environment of the Rotunda (in the terrace of houses partially hidden to the left end) is shown in this [[panorama]] of 1792, from the top of the nearby Albion Mills.]] [[File:Albion Mills panorama (far left).jpg|thumb|Panorama detail; the [[portico]] of the street entrance to the Rotunda stands out.]] [[James Parkinson (museum proprietor)|James Parkinson]] came into possession of the collection of [[Sir Ashton Lever]] quite by chance: Lever put it up as a lottery prize, Parkinson's wife bought two tickets, gave one away, and died before the time the lottery draw was carried out.
===Construction of the Rotunda=== After trying to run the museum in its old location in [[Leicester Square]], but finding the rent too much, Parkinson with other investors put up the Rotunda Building; it was of his own design (along with his architect son Joseph Parkinson), was constructed by [[James Burton (property developer)|James Burton]], and was opened in 1787.<ref name=Torrens>{{ODNBweb|id=21370|title=Parkinson, James (bap. 1730, d. 1813), land agent and museum proprietor|first=H. S.|last=Torrens}}</ref>
The Rotunda building had a central circular gallery and in brick; the roof was conical and in slate.<ref name=Malden>'The borough of Southwark: Introduction', A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 4 (1912), pp. 125-135. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43041 Date accessed: 14 March 2012.</ref> It was located on the south side of the [[River Thames|Thames]], and at the time was in the county of [[Surrey]]. The dimensions were later given as 120 feet by 132 feet, i.e. 1760 square yards;<ref>[[Edward Wedlake Brayley]], [[John Britton (antiquary)|John Britton]], ''A Topographical History of Surrey'' (1841), p. 320; [https://books.google.com/books?id=mbcHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA320 Google Books].</ref> originally the area was under 1000 square yards, however.<ref name=Torrens/> It was located on [[Great Surrey Street]], fronting on the Georgian terrace there (and was only later properly known as 3 Blackfriars Road, the street name being changed in 1829<ref name=Survey>[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=65334 British History Online: Sir Howard Roberts and Walter H. Godfrey (editors), ''Survey of London: volume 22: Bankside (the parishes of St. Saviour and Christchurch Southwark)'' (1950), pp. 115-121.]</ref>). The layout is believed to be documented only by a single surviving sketched floor plan.<ref>Parolin, p. 188; [https://books.google.com/books?id=uRMRmZBr4f4C&pg=PA188 Google Books].</ref>
The Leverian collection was moved in from [[Leicester House, Westminster|Leicester House]] in 1788.<ref>[http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=401461 Pastscape, ''Leicester House''.] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160819064215/http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=401461 |date=August 19, 2016 }}</ref> At the time the nearby buildings on Albion Place were industrial: the British Glass Warehouse by the side of the river (in business from 1773), and the Albion Mills over the street (burned down in 1791).<ref>[[Thomas Allen (topographer)|Thomas Allen]], ''The History and Antiquities of London, Westminster, Southwark, and parts adjacent'' vol. 4 (1829), p. 543; [https://books.google.com/books?id=MV9HAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA543 Google Books].</ref>
===Parkinson as museum owner=== Parkinson made serious efforts to promote the collection as a commercial venture. [[File:Parkinson_Museum_ticket.jpg|thumb|Leverian Museum admission ticket depicting [[Father Time]] and the unveiling and illumination of [[Mother Nature]]]] A catalogue and guide was printed in 1790.<ref>{{cite book|author=Leverian Museum (London, England)|title=A companion to the museum, (late Sir Ashton Lever's): removed to Albion Street, the Surry end of Black Friars Bridge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zvVbAAAAQAAJ|access-date=14 March 2012|year=1790}}</ref> He also had [[George Shaw (biologist)|George Shaw]] write an illustrated scientific work.<ref>''Museum Leverianum containing select specimens from the museum of Sir Ashton Lever'' (1792-1796).</ref> [[File:Leverian museum at the Rotunda.jpg|thumb|left|Leverian Museum collection in the Rotunda. Engraving by [[William Skelton]] after [[Sarah Stone (artist)|Sarah Stone]] and [[Charles Reuben Ryley]].]]
Parkinson had some success in getting naturalists to attend the museum, which was easier at the time to visit than the [[British Museum]]. A visitor in 1799, [[Heinrich Friedrich Link]], was complimentary.<ref>J. A. Bartle, [https://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Bio32Tuat-t1-body-d9.html ''Differences between British and French Organization of Zoological Exploration in the Pacific 1793–1840''], Tuatara: Vol. 32, April 1993.</ref> A description a visit to the museum for children can be found in ''[[iarchive:schoolroompartyo00lond|The School-Room Party]]'' (1800).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=De Ritter|first=Richard|date=2018|title=‘Wonderful Objects’ and ‘Disagreeable Operations’: Encountering the Leverian Museum in Writing for Children, 1800-05: Encountering the Leverian Museum in Writing for Children|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1754-0208.12561|journal=Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies|language=en|volume=41|issue=3|pages=427–445|doi=10.1111/1754-0208.12561|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
===Disposal of the collection=== As well as trying to build it up as a business, Parkinson also tried to sell the contents at various times. One attempt, a proposed purchase by the government, was wrecked by the adverse opinion of [[Sir Joseph Banks]].<ref name=Torrens/> In the end, for financial reasons, Parkinson sold the collection in lots by auction in 1806.<ref>[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=41120 ''Survey of London: volumes 33 and 34: St Anne Soho''] (1966), pp. 441-72, from British History Online</ref> Among the buyers were [[Edward Donovan]], [[Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby]], and [[William Bullock (collector)|William Bullock]]; many items went to other museums, including the [[Imperial Museum of Vienna]].<ref>[[s:Page:Ibis - Series 3 - Volume 3.djvu/36|The Ibis, Series 3, Volume 3]], Osbert Salvin, 1873, accessed 29 August 2010</ref>
==Adaptation for the Surrey Institution== {{further|Surrey Institution}} When the Surrey Institution was being proposed, around 1807, the '''Rotunda Building''' (as it was then known) was adapted to the Institution's needs by [[Joseph T. Parkinson]], son of James Parkinson. The Institution ran into financial difficulties, and was closed down in 1823. [[File:Surrey Institution furnaces.jpg|thumb|Furnaces at the Surrey Institution, from a chemistry book of 1822.]] The building was adapted to public lectures, in a large theatre. There were other public rooms: <blockquote>Adjoining the theatre and near the inclosed part appropriated to the lecturer, is the chemical laboratory, in which convenience, compactness, and elegance are united. Contiguous to it is the committee-room. On the other side of the theatre is the library, which is sixty feet in length, with a gallery on three sides, and an easy access to it by a flight of steps.<ref>[[William Henry Pyne]], [[William Combe]], [[Rudolph Ackermann]], [[Thomas Rowlandson]], [[Augustus Pugin]], ''Microcosm of London; or, London in miniature'' vol. 3 (1904), p. 158; [https://archive.org/stream/microcosmoflondo03pyneuoft#page/188/mode/2up archive.org].</ref></blockquote> [[File:Blackfriars Rotunda 1820.jpg|thumb|left|Interior view, 1820.]]
==Later uses== The building from 1823 was used in a variety of ways until 1855, when it was put to ordinary business use,<ref>''[https://archive.org/details/oldnewlondonnarr06thor Old and New London] volume 6'', [[Edward Walford]], Cassell & Company, page 382</ref> as the Royal Albion pub.<ref>[http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/22252/pages/1654/page.pdf ''London Gazette'', 19 April 1855 (PDF)]</ref>
In the 1820s it was a wine and concert room.<ref name="Walford">[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45287 British History Online, ''Old and New London: Volume 6''] by [[Edward Walford]] (1878) pp. 368-383.</ref> It also hosted a [[diorama]] (a [[peristrephic panorama]] as described at the time), and a book about its representation of the [[Greek War of Independence]] was published in 1828.<ref>Alison Griffiths, ''Shivers Down Your Spine: cinema, museums, and the immersive view'' (2008), p. 55; [https://books.google.com/books?id=MTZXaVCWlsIC&pg=PA55 Google Books].</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Rotunda, Great Surrey Street (London)|title=Description of the historical, peristrephic or revolving dioramic panorama: now exhibiting, in the Rotunda, ... illustrative of all the principal events that have occurred during the war between the Turks and Greeks, ... in eleven successive views, ... ending with the ... Battle of Navarino [etc.].|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MQAVPAAACAAJ|access-date=14 March 2012|year=1828|publisher=W. Robarts}}</ref> Under the title '''Old Rotunda Assembly Rooms''' the Rotunda is also written into the early history of [[music hall]], for the performances of variety acts offered there in 1829, including the extemporiser [[Charles Sloman]].<ref>Charles Douglas Stuart, A. J. Park, ''The Variety Stage; a history of the music halls from the earliest period to the present time'' (1895), pp. 46–7; [https://archive.org/stream/varietystagehist00stua#page/46/mode/2up archive.org].</ref><ref>[http://www.answers.com/topic/charles-sloman answers.com, ''Oxford Companion to the Theatre: Charles Sloman''].</ref> [[File:Leverian Museum Layout.jpg|thumb|Floor plan of the Leverian Museum]] In May or June 1830 [[Richard Carlile]] took over the Rotunda, and it became a centre for radical lectures and meetings. There were also waxworks and wild beasts.<ref name="Walford"/> The [[Rotunda radicals]], known at the time as '''Rotundists''' or '''Rotundanists''', were a diverse group of social, political and religious radical reformers who gathered there, between 1830 and 1832, during Carlile's tenure. During this period almost every well-known radical in London spoke there at meetings which were often rowdy. The Home Office regarded the Rotunda as a centre of violence, sedition and blasphemy, and regularly spied on its meetings.<ref>Weiner, Joel H., ''Radicalism and Freethought in Nineteenth-Century Britain: The Life of Richard Carlile'' (Greenwood Press, 1983, ISBN 0 313 23532 5) p. 169.</ref><ref>Prothero, Iowerth, ''Artisans and Politics in Early Nineteenth-Century London: John Gast and his Times'' (Dawson, 1979, ISBN 0 7129 0826 9) p. 278.</ref> In 1831 it was described as the '''Surrey Rotunda''' on Albion Place (the area south of [[Blackfriars Bridge]], with the industrial buildings) leading to Albion Street.<ref>[[James Elmes]], ''A Topographical Dictionary of London and Its Environs'' (1831), p. 7; [https://archive.org/stream/atopographicald00elmegoog#page/n22/mode/2up archive.org].</ref>
From 1833 to 1838 it operated as the Globe Theatre; under [[John Blewitt]] it was called a "musick hall",<ref name=COCT>Phyllis Hartnoll and Peter Found. "Rotunda, The." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (March 14, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O79-RotundaThe.html</ref> and in 1838 the Rotunda was again a concert room.<ref name="Walford"/> [[George Jacob Holyoake]] was teaching and lecturing there in 1843.<ref>Edward Royle, ''Victorian Infidels: the origins of the British secularist movement, 1791-1866'' (1974), p. 90; [https://books.google.com/books?id=XgkNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA90 Google Books].</ref> At a later point it was the Britannia Music Hall. After an illegal [[cock fight]] was discovered, the Rotunda finally lost its entertainment licence, in 1886.<ref name=COCT/>
In 1912 the Rotunda was in use as a warehouse.<ref name=Malden/> The structure was damaged during [[World War II]], and had been patched up by 1950.<ref name=Survey/> It was demolished in 1958.<ref>Parolin, p. 278, [https://books.google.com/books?id=uRMRmZBr4f4C&pg=PA278 Google Books].</ref>
{{commons category|Blackfriars Rotunda}}
==References== *Christina Parolin (2010), ''Radical Spaces: Venues of popular politics in London, 1790–c. 1845''; [https://books.google.com/books?id=uRMRmZBr4f4C Google Books].
==Notes== {{reflist}}
==External links== *P. J. P. Whitehead, ''A Guide to the Dispersal of Zoological Material from Captain Cook's Voyages'', Pacific Studies, Vol 2, No 1 (1978); [https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/PacificStudies/article/viewFile/8983/8632 PDF]. Numerous identifications of purchasers from the Leverian collection sale.
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[[Category:Former buildings and structures in the London Borough of Southwark]] [[Category:Radicalism (historical)]]