[Tom Taylor and Sadler’s Wells.] Autograph Letter Signed to Taylor from Kate Crowe ('Miss Kate Bateman'), regarding the address he has written for her to recite at the reopening of Sadler's Wells, with pencil notes on Lord Burleigh by Taylor.

The present item is on a 12mo bifolium of light gray paper, with Kate Crowe’s letter on the two outer pages, and Tom Taylor’s unrelated pencil notes on the two inner pages. In good condition, lightly aged and worn. There is an engraved portrait of ‘Miss Kate Bateman’, with a long biographical footnote, on pp.160-161 of ‘The Reminiscences of J. L. Toole’, ed. Hatton (1889). That footnote states, with regard to the subject of this letter: ‘Miss Bateman appeared on the first night of the reopening of Sadler’s Wells under the management of [her mother] Mrs. Bateman, in Rob Roy, as ‘Helen MacGregor,’ and spoke the opening address on that occasion, written by the late Tom Taylor.’ See also the entries on Kate’s mother Sidney Bateman, and on Tom Taylor, in the Oxford DNB, the former stating that after purchasing the lease of Sadler’s Wells, Mrs Bateman ‘virtually rebuilt it to meet the fire code requirements, and opened on 9 October 1879 with a revival of a dramatic version of Rob Roy, featuring her daughter Kate as Helen Macgregor’. With regard to the present item, Crowe’s letter is attributed, in a late nineteenth-century hand, to ‘Kate Browne / - actress’, there being no such person. (According to the ODNB Sidney Bateman died at 7 Taviton St.) The confusion may arise from Crowe's stylized signature to the letter, ‘Kate Crowe’. She writes: ‘My dear Mr. Taylor / I send the first rough copy just recd. I also send the M S S & notes in case you have not got them with you. It is not to be printed on this glaring, ugly paper. I have studied the Address. It has been a real labour of love. My mother proposes giving copies to the audience after the play is over. I am not going to let any body see it - & it wd. be very kind of you to keep it under double lock & key! / What a Help it will be to that first night. / All best remembrances from us all.’ Taylor’s notes, written crosswise on the centre pages, are headed: ‘The Lord of Burleigh / (Version for the Northamptonshire Agricultural Society’s Annual Review)’. They comprise a heavily-reworked poem, possibly intended for Punch. For the context, see the long article ‘The Lord of Burleigh and the Farmer’s Daughter’, in the Saturday Review, 27 September 1879.