Its board of directors included Henry Labouchère, the financier and journalist; William Whiteley the retailer; and Arthur Sullivan, the composer.

It was decorated with palm trees, fountains, pieces of original sculpture, thirteen large tanks meant to be filled with curious sea creatures and an orchestra capable of accommodating 400 performers.

Surrounding the main hall were rooms for eating, smoking, reading and playing chess, as well as an art gallery, a skating rink and a theatre.

[2] The Aquarium adopted an expensive system of supplying fresh and sea water from four cisterns sunk into the foundations.

[3] By the 1890s, the Aquarium acquired a risqué reputation, as unaccompanied ladies promenaded through the hall in search of male companionship.

She met a Major Hamilton there, who bought her supper at Gatti's (in the Strand) and took her to entertainments at the Alhambra Theatre, promising to set her up in rooms in Lambeth.

[5] After its opening, the expensive Aquarium and its programme of art exhibits and classical music were indifferently received by the public, and the venture was failing.

[6] In 1880, George Leybourne popularised a song about the Aquarium that parodied Alfred Vance's song "Walking in the Zoo": The all-day variety entertainments at the Aquarium turned less respectable, including billiards matches, novelty acts and side-shows of all kinds, and commercial stalls offering perfumery and gloves.

Henry Jones (1822-1900) built an unusually large and powerful Grand Organ for the Royal Aquarium under the supervision of Sullivan.

The farce Fun in a Fog played at the theatre in 1878, and Family Honour by Frank Marshall premiered in the same year.

The Beaux' Stratagem by George Farquhar, She Stoops to Conquer by Goldsmith and The Poor Gentleman all played at the theatre that year.

[10] Shakespeare's As You Like It and Anne Mie, by Roster Faasen, played at the theatre in 1880, as did the comic opera Billee Taylor, composed by Edward Solomon, with a libretto by Henry Pottinger Stephens.