To ‘Gladden the Hearts of the Most Fastidious

While I accept that for many, September signals the start of crisper mornings and the new school year, most of us can agree that autumn is also all about watching a host of celebrities fumble their way through the foxtrot and wrangle with the rumba, leading us up to Christmas with a feast of spangles, silliness, glitter and glamour along the way. So, as something of a Strictly Come Dancing super-fan - I know my gores from my godets - I was one of the millions fixated to the screen on Saturday night to discover this year’s make or break partnerships.

The Tower Blackpool - grand programme Wednesday and Saturday, July 25th and 28th 1900 © National Fairground Archive, University of Sheffield. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

The highlight of the competition, of course, is the episode broadcast from the much loved Blackpool Tower Ballroom, so I was thrilled to come across this programme from 1900 in our Victorian Popular Culture resource. These were fairly early days for the Tower, which only opened in 1894 but its ambitions were clear from the outset.

‘Few can realise without visiting it, that the Menagerie contains such a grand collection of wild beasts, and it is therefore no wonder that this part of the ‘show’ is crowded from morning till night.’

The Tower Blackpool - grand programme Wednesday and Saturday, July 25th and 28th 1900 © National Fairground Archive, University of Sheffield. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 

They up the ante with the description of The Grand Saloon and Refreshment Bar, depicted in the right hand image below:

‘…the gorgeous ornamentation lavished so freely upon this apartment is really astounding, the decorations superb, and the room is fittingly described as the very finest of its kind in the Kingdom.’

The Tower Blackpool - grand programme Wednesday and Saturday, July 25th and 28th 1900 © National Fairground Archive, University of Sheffield. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Yet, nothing compares to the veritable explosion of florid language employed to illustrate the beauty of The Grand Pavilion and Ballroom, pictured in the left hand image above. An entire page is devoted to the task-  in honour, no doubt, of Frank Matcham's renovations in 1899:

‘Architecturally, the room is a perfect masterpiece now. Nothing has been spared in its decoration, which throughout […] is lavish, superb and artistic in the extreme. Works of art are apparent everywhere’ and most importantly, ‘The floor, which is a parquet one of mahogany, oak and walnut […] never fails to gladden the hearts of the most fastidious dancers.’

And I think it’s this sense of heritage, opulence and light heartedness, neatly summarised in this fascinating document that encapsulates the enduring appeal of both The Blackpool Tower and ballroom dancing. In the words of Anthony Ogogo, describing his partner on Saturday, ‘There are not enough superlatives in the world…’ 

Find out more about the history of popular entertainment in our Victorian Popular Culture resource, re-launched in May 2015. Full access restricted to authenticated academic institutions who have purchased a licence.