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Royal Tunbridge Wells
appointed Master of the Ceremonies at Bath. Of him nothing is known save that, according to a contemporary account, he was an agreeable person, a good dancer, and, in marked contradiction to his predecessor, a foe to gambling. To fill the Beau's place was admittedly difficult for any one, but Collett seems to have done it worse than another, and, probably disgusted with his thankless task, he resigned his office in 1673. Collett had ruled Tunbridge Wells as well as Bath, and his successor, Samuel Derrick, also controlled both places. Derrick, who had visited Tunbridge Wells in 1762, and put his impressions on record, was, after Nash, the most important of the Masters of the Ceremonies, and he was, besides, a man of some distinction in circles wider than that which embraced the ordinary visitors to the watering-places. Born in 1724, he was a scion of a good family that had fallen on evil days. He served an apprenticeship to a linen-draper, but he had no taste for commerce, and abandoned trade for the stage, in which profession, however, he failed to achieve any success. Presently he went to Grub Street, and there for a while found difficulty in earning his bread, to judge from 158 |
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