Historical sources can reveal tiny snippets of information that seem out of place or otherwise defy easy explanations. They might appear insignificant at a first glance, but nonetheless continue to tease us until we try to unravel the meanings they conceal. For me, one such incident has been Thomas Babington Macaulay’s (1800–1859) lamentation that he was “not yet in Madame Tussaud’s Wax works.” He confessed this in a letter to Thomas Flower Ellis with great confidence in early 1849 when the first two volumes of his History of England had recently appeared and become an immediate success. But why did Macaulay, a prominent public figure, wish to be turned into a wax statue when he was at height of his literary success? Weren’t grotesque and glamorous wax figures displayed primarily at fairs and seaside resorts such as Margate and Blackpool which catered to the tastes of the working class? The mystery began to unravel when recently I came across Madame Tussaud in various occasions. Suddenly, Macaulay’s seemingly odd desire to be reproduced in wax began to make more sense – and revealed once again my own ignorance, this time about the history of wax models.
To understand Macaulay’s reasoning, we must first visit Madame Tussaud and her famous collection of wax figures. Marie Tussaud (1761–1850) arrived in England in 1802 with thirty full-size wax statues depicting the figures of French Revolution. She toured Britain for more than thirty years to exhibit her collections until she opened a permanent gallery in London at the Baker Street Bazaar in 1835. She was a highly skilled sculptor and had learnt the art from Philippe Curtius whose wax salon had been applauded as one of the greatest shows in Paris since the 1770s. Her artistic talents together with her exceptionally good business acumen gradually turned her exhibition into a popular spectacle. Her success built on her realization that it was crucial to distinguish Madame Tussaud’s show from the generic fairground wax works and to focus on attracting the burgeoning middle-class audience. This was the same audience that was going to later on consume Macaulay’s histories with great gusto.
Marie Tussaud understood that if she wished to appeal to the tastes of the wealthy middle class, she had to offer more than the bland or freakish models available at the wax galleries at fairs. Thus, she determinedly drew on a mix of elegance, entertainment, and education which she spiced up with a hint of terror that her famous Chamber of horrors caused. She promoted the educational experience loud and clear in the advertisements. Her key message was that while the wax works amused visitors, they also conveyed useful biographical knowledge. She also underlined the authenticity of her exhibits in the promotional materials. The clothing and artefacts were historically accurate, and the models were not beautified as was customary in the cheaper shows. Her models were displayed with their wrinkles and other imperfections which added to their life-like qualities. For the patrons, a visit at Madame Tussaud’s show provided a physical experience: they were not merely gazing at the historical figures and important contemporary personalities, but they were also able to touch them and the clothing they were wearing. Before the improvements in the printing technology and photography, Madame Tussaud’s salon was often the first place where visitors saw how kings, queens, politicians, artists, and other significant individuals looked like. This combination of a spectacle and edification that were served in an environment that corresponded with middle-class morality and values was a recipe for success. Marie Tussaud was indeed a master in sensing the pulse of the customers and rational entertainment was highly fashionable among the middle-class families she wanted to attract to her salon.
Madame Tussaud succeeded in her target: her gallery became a popular middle-class attraction. This explains partially why Macaulay envisioned it a suitable setting for a wax model of his stoutly figure. Yet, his brief remark tells us also something about Victorian historians and the goals they set for their scholarly pursuits. Historical figures, for sure, were one of the star attractions in Madame Tussaud’s, but the visitors were at least equally curious to see the wax models of their renowned contemporaries. Being displayed at her salon thus helped to sanction fame and renown and this kind of public validation through a recognized venue of popular culture was what Macaulay aspired for. Emboldened by the recent success of his History, he was confident enough to think that he, too, had become famous enough to be elevated among the ranks of waxwork worthy celebrities. The visitors could then admire his posture and great literary and scholarly talents.
This kind of urge for fame and publicity violated against the centuries-long images of science and scholarship as altruistic practices devoid of any personal interests such as financial gain or fame. Macaulay’s diaries are almost an opposite to such lofty ideals as he did not even pretend to be unmoved about the joy his success caused. He recorded in the minutest detail the exponentially growing sales figures and profits he made. Self-confidently he pronounced that the success of Byron and Scott paled in comparison to the success of his History and he was certain that his books would continue to appeal to readers even in such distant future as year 3000. He wrote down in his journal also the dinner parties where “vanity was tickled and tickled with more than the vulgar operators think necessary.” For a fleeting moment, he feared whether the intoxicating success might turn him into “a coxcomb,” but the sweetness of the sensation of fame quickly wiped away such doubts. Obviously, Macaulay’s historical endeavors were not inspired only by intellectual curiosity, but also by more mundane aspirations for fame and economic prosperity. He was certainly not the only Victorian historian whose scholarly pursuits were spurred by a similar range of goals.
Despite his immense success, Macaulay’s wish to see himself as a wax model at Madame Tussaud’s was not gratified during his lifetime. In 1861, a wax version of Macaulay was added to the repertoire. He was placed in the “Large Room” with 133 other models and shared the space, among others, with the wives of Henry VIII, Garibaldi, Voltaire, Sir Walter Scott, and “a Coquette.” The 1876 Exhibition Catalogue preserved the educational ideals of Marie Tussaud and contained a brief biographical introduction of each of the models. Macaulay was described as “the illustrious historian of England, brilliant essayists, finished orator, statesman, and author of the spirited “Lays of Ancient Rome,” and his genealogy was summarized in similar fashion by listing the most essential facts about his mother and father.
By the mid-1870s, the emerging community of professional historians had turned its back to Macaulay and his histories which were considered as dangerous examples of deceptive narrative history that privileged good stories over historical accuracy. Nonetheless, the large audience continued to enjoy the brilliancy of his narrative. The fact that a wax model of Macaulay was exhibited at the Madame Tussaud’s still in 1876 attests to his continued success among the middle-class audience. One of the key ingredients in the success of Marie Tussaud had been the constant renewal of her collection: she had constantly introduced new models and removed – and melted -those ones that no longer attracted popular curiosity. When her sons took over the business, it is likely that they, too, kept on replacing the less interesting models with more current celebrities and in 1876 Macaulay obviously was still an interesting enough character for the large audiences that came to see the show in London. On his 49th birthday Macaulay had written in his journal how fame “may fade and die. But I hope that mine has deeper roots.” Although his prediction about his histories prospering still in the year 3000 has turned out to be a gross exaggeration, in late-Victorian Britain there were many who turned to Macaulay’s history for entertaining and educating accounts about the history of England – just as there were many who flocked to Baker Street to see the famous figures of the past and the present.
Sources
Madame Tussaud’s and Sons’ Exhibition Catalogue. 1876.
Pinney, Thomas (ed.). The Letters of Thomas Babington Macaulay, vol. v. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Thomas, William (ed.). The Journals of Thomas Babington Macaulay, vol. ii. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2008.
*
Melman, Billie. The Culture of History: English Uses of Past 1800–1953. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Pilbeam, Pamela. “Madame Tussaud and the Business of Wax: Marketing to the Middle Classes.” Business History 45 no. 1 (2003): 6–22.