Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens: famous names

Carl Friedrich ABEL
1723-1787
Musician
Played with J. C. Bach in the Gardens.

Dr Thomas ARNE
1710-1778
Composer
Worked regularly played in the Gardens. Best known for ‘Rule, Britannia’

Johann Christian BACH
1735-1782
Music Master
Wrote songs for and played in the Gardens

Sir Henry Rowley BISHOP
1786-1855
Composer
Musical Director?

James BOSWELL
1740-1795
Writer
Boswell commented, ‘Vauxhall Gardens is peculiarly adapted to the taste of the English nation; there being a mixture of curious show, – gay exhibition, musick, vocal and instrumental, not too refined for the general ear; – for all which only a shilling is paid [this was raised to two shillings in 1792 after ‘more expensive decorations’ had been introduced] .And, though last, not least, good eating and drinking for those who wish to purchase that regale.’

Thomas Simpson COOKE
1782-1848
Irish singer
Musical manager of the Gardens

John EVELYN
1620-1706
Diarist
John Evelyn’s Diary of 2nd July 1661 notes “I went to see, the new Spring-Garden at Lambeth a pretty contriv’d plantation”.

Thomas GLADWIN
1710-1799
Musician
Organist

Hubert-François Bourguignon GRAVELOT
1699-1733
French engraver

Engraved Francis Hayman’s paintings for Vauxhall Gardens

George Frederic HANDEL
1685-1759
Composer
Music for the Royal Fireworks rehearsed in the Gardens on 21 April 1749

Francis HAYMAN
1707-1776
Painter
Painting of decorations for the boxes and pavilions

James HOOK
1746-1827
Musician
Organist and composer

Peter MONAMY
1689-1749
Painter
Involved with decorating the gardens

Samuel PEPYS
1633-1703
Diarist and naval administrator
Pepys often visited the gardens and on 28 May 1667 described it thus: ‘A great deal of company and the weather and garden pleasant. ..It is very cheap going thither, for a man may go to spend what he will, or nothing, all is one – but to hear the nightingales and other birds, and here fiddles and there a harp, and here a jews trump, and here laughing, and there fine people walking, is mighty divertising. Among others, there were two pretty women alone, that walked a great while; which [being] discovered by some idle gentlemen, they would needs take them up; but to see the poor ladies, how they were put to it to run from them, and they after them; and sometimes the ladies put themselfs along with other company, then the others drew back; at last, the ladies did get off out of the house and took boat and away.’ On 27 July 1668 Pepys observed: ‘How rude some of the young gallants of the town are become, to go into people’s arbors where there are not men, and almost force the women – which troubled me, to see the confidence of the vice of the age: and so we away by water, with much pleasure home.’

Louis François ROUBILLAC
1695-1762
French sculptor
Bust of Handel erected in 1738

Thomas ROWLANDSON
1756-1827
Caricaturist
Drawing entitled ‘Vauxhall Gardens’ (1784)

Sir John VANBRUGH
1664-1726
Dramatist and architect
Wrote The Provok’d Wife which is set in the Gardens

John WORGAN
1724-1790
Composer
Had numerous songs performed in the Gardens

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NOTE (added 27 August 2019)

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART
Mozart never performed at Vauxhall Gardens (a common error). He did perform once, on 29 June 1764 with his sister Nannerl, at Ranelagh Gardens, in a fund-raising concert for the Lying-in Hospital. Mozart’s father Leopold did not think Vauxhall was respectable enough for his children, even though he went there himself and loved it.