"Tally ho" at the Hippodrome

Here's a Sidney Paget illustration. It's not one that relates to Sherlock, indeed it doesn't relate to any Conan Doyle story. It is, nevertheless, a Sidney Paget illustration.

It was recently sold at auction, and this was the description at auction.

PAGET, Sidney (British, 1860-1908). “Tally Ho” at the Hippodrome. [19th century - early 20th century]. ORIGINAL BLACK AND WHITE WASH DRAWING ON WINSOR & NEWTON SKETCHING BOARD. Signed at lower right corner. Captioned in pencil beneath the artwork. Sight 14 x 10’. Matted and framed under plexiglass 20 ½ x 17”. Not examined out of frame. Offered with a color print of this image (now captioned “Fox Hunting”; approximately 15 x 11”). Provenance: Purchased from a descendant of Paget in 2011. From the collection of noted Sherlockiana collector, Robert Hess.

Randall Stock's web site maintains a census of original Paget drawings (Sherlock and otherwise). There, Randall describes the drawing as follows:

[Serial reproduction not yet identified, probably from The Sphere]

Description: Original wash drawing (14 x 10 inches before framing), signed "S. Paget" by the artist in the lower right corner and captioned beneath the drawing as " 'Tally Ho' at the Hippodrome."  Drawn on a Winsor & Newton water color sketching board with Whatman's 'hotpressed' surface.  Pencil note "SPHERE" on back.

History: Purchased from a farmer on a farm owned by relatives of Paget in September 2011.

I'd love to know the story of finding this picture on a farm of Paget's relatives! 

When was this picture published? I did some digging around. It wasn't clear from the caption whether this was an illustration to accompany a story, or was simply an illustration.

The picture appeared in 'The Sphere - An Illustrated Newspaper for the Home' on Saturday 13 July 1901, page 39:

The text above and below states:

FOX HUNTING - As followed at the London Hippodrome

DRAWN BY SIDNEY PAGET. 

One of the most exciting entertainments in town is the sketch at the Hippodrome entitled "Tally Ho!" in which Mr. Hengler's plunging horses swim across the arena with their riders followed by the hounds.

The paper indicates that 'the editor will be glad to receive for consideration drawings and sketches of current events', though in the case of Paget it seems unlikely he was providing unsolicited submissions.

What was this "Tally Ho!"? It was in fact 'the most sensational picture ever' - a cinematograph shown at the Hippodrome.

The word 'Hippodrome' is an old word for venues that could host horse events. The Victoria & Albert Museum site has a page dedicated to the Hippodrome. It relates:

"London’s most magnificent building to mount aquatic circus was the London Hippodrome near Leicester Square, on a site bounded by Cranbourn Street, Charing Cross Road and Newport Street. Built by Edward Moss to combine hippodrome, circus and theatre, it was designed by the talented theatre architect Frank Matcham. 

"The auditorium featured a stage and an arena or ring containing a tank 230 feet in circumference operated by hydraulic rams. It sank to a depth of 8 foot in about a minute and was filled with 100,000 gallons of water weighing 400 tons for spectacles

"March 1901 at The London Hippodrome saw the ‘hunting sensation’ Tally-Ho! with Albert Hengler’s hunters and plunging horses.

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Newspaper reviews provide some sense of scale of the "Tally Ho!" performance, and its popularity as a spectacle.

The Music Hall and Theatre Review (Friday 07 June 1901) provided a long review, which I've excerpted:

THE HIPPODROME. " TALLY Ho ! Tally Ho ! And away we go." There is a fine inspiriting note in the fox hunters' chorus that many a one will admit who never saw a fox hunt. It conjures up green country, fresh breezes, and cheery folk. Hot, breathless, sordid London is forgotten— Leicester Square was a thousand miles away from the comfortable stall in the Hippodrome from which, on Monday night, one watched the course of Reynard the Fox , or Harlequin Jack Ferrers, Sweet Kate, and the Equestrian Elopement—for there is a love story as well as a fox hunt in the new spectacular piece at the Hippodrome. 

It is quite the best thing that Mr. Moss has done, from the point of view of dramatic interest, scenic illusion, and the employment of the resources—equestrian, aquatic, and so forth—of the establishment. Sixty hounds, forty horses, and a hundred and fifty people are employed in "Tally Ho ! " 

{Summary of the performance, which is a play} From this point the story has to be taken for granted—it is lost in the ardour of the fox hunt. There is a vivid picture of the meet on the lawn of Oldbuck Hall, with its great gathering of typical sportsmen, to whom old English hospitality is tendered. Quickly the hounds are in full cry, and then comes the water jump ! The arena is flooded and ingeniously merged in the scenic surroundings, so that it seems like a stream into which the fox plunges, then the hounds, and thereafter the riders, every man Jack of them, the women too ! 

Now the audience is thrilled with interest in the progress of the hunt ; now admiring brilliant horsemanship ; now screaming with laughter at the mishaps of cockney sportsmen. Actors and actresses of distinction are employed in the narration of the story. 

It appears that the show recording could be purchased also as a moving picture recording, as this full-page advertisement in 'The Showman' (Friday 19 July 1901) reveals. Yet I cannot identify in newspapers a photograph of the stage or performance:

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Back to Paget's illustration. It does not at first glance appear to show the Hippodrome venue, but more of an idyllic village scene of the hunt entering into a stream or river, but again I can find no images of the hippodrome performance to make comparison. 

Paget's work includes the phrase 'Tally Ho! at the Hippodrome' as a title inked onto the bottom of the drawing, which suggests it was created in direct response to the show. Perhaps Paget himself visited the hippodrome!