1931 – The Vic-Wells Ballet School moves to Sadler’s Wells

The school attached to Ninette de Valois’ company took up residence at Sadler’s Wells Theatre from 1931 upon Lilian Baylis’ invitation. It provided the company with a basic income, ameliorated by classes for office workers. By 1935, the Vic-Wells Ballet had stopped dancing regularly at the Old Vic for a variety of reasons, not least the expense and confusion of moving between the Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells, where the company and school had been based since 1931. Thus in the latter half of the 1930s the company was increasingly, but unofficially, referred to as the Sadler’s Wells Ballet. The school was to change its name first, after the Governors decided it should be titled the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School in 1939. However, the first sighting of the new name came in an advertisement for the school published in Dancing Times in January 1940. The company did not officially change its name from the Vic-Wells Ballet to the Sadler’s Wells Ballet until February 1941. The Sadler’s Wells Ballet School later moved to Barons Court, W14, in 1947, becoming The Royal Ballet School in 1956, before settling into its current location adjacent to the Royal Opera House on Floral Street, Covent Garden, in 2002.