ACTRESSES AS WORKING WOMEN that routinely took a repertory of stock pieces around county-based circuits of theatres owned by a single individual or family (particularly in the early and middle part of the century), which usually offered seasonal contracts to proven players The later development of numbers one, two, and three touring companies that took a single piece throughout the country following a London success usually involved contractual engagements cancellable on a fortnight’s notice for small part players and longer-term contracts for the principals The number one companies generally played for periods of a week or more in provincial cities and large towns, while number three companies might take the same piece under the same producing manager to each small centre for a single performance Similar circuits were established between the suburban London theatres (particularly in venues also used for meetings and concerts) though it was more usual for suburban theatres to maintain a company or a piece exclusively in one venue and be quite specialized in repertoire and clientele London was a city of specialists In its warehousing, manufacturing, and entertainment industries, Victorian London called on limited numbers of expert labourers for exclusive contributions to a finished product or service Just as the ‘trades which moved either to the outskirts [of London] or to the provinces tended to be those producing commodities of low value and high bulk,’26 according to Gareth Stedman Jones, provincial and suburban theatres were less prestigious and specialized than those in London’s West End (exceptions are found in Astley’s circus and Sadler’s Wells under Phelps) The larger sedentary companies in West End theatres could not only specialize in a type of entertainment (e.g high class music hall, the lyric stage, or legitimate theatre) but also a genre (e.g ballet, melodrama and pantomime, burlesque, drama, comedy, or farce).27 The managements of West End houses were inextricably associated with their particular genre, production style, and material (e.g the Bancrofts’ social dramas at the Prince of Wales’s, Harris’s pantomimes at Drury Lane, the Alhambra ballet, Wyndham’s society comedy, and Gilbert and Sullivan at the Savoy) By adhering to a particular product, they also determined hiring practices After the industrial transformation of the Northern and Midland counties, London functioned as a small-scale production and distribution centre for finished consumer goods and the luxury trades The theatre fitted admirably into this pattern, though by the mid-century it was more labour intensive than most industries 20