Paget at Play, or Play in(g) Paget: Decadence, Performance and Play in the Life of Henry Cyril Paget (1875-1905)

This article takes the event of ‘The Great Anglesey Robbery’ as a means of exploring how decadence and play brought forward the transgressive identity of the Fifth Marquis of Anglesey. An event of public sensation, news of the theft was reported from the lavish Walsingham Hotel to the far corners of the world. While the Marquis was watching a production of Sherlock Holmes, a ‘most shocking real-life theft’ occurred. Dazzling jewellery, worth no less than £40,000 (several million pounds in today’s money), consisting of ‘rubies, amethysts, turquoises and other brilliants’, was stolen. The public was transfixed. Reports rang with fervour not only about the theft, which spoke to the Marquis’s excessive tastes, but also about the fascinating manner in which the case was conducted. Such an event offers fresh insight into the ways in which the Marquis — and Victorian society more broadly — used the robbery to play theatrically and without restraint through decadent means, challenging social conventions and transgressing identities through playful crossings.