Eliza Doolittle’s London

‘Cheer up, Captain, if it’s raining worse it’s a sign it’s nearly over. Come on buy a flower off a poor girl’ 
 
We first meet Eliza Doolittle in Covent Garden where she is selling flowers in the rain. It’s here we meet most of the main characters of the play too, all sheltering under the portico (the entrance walkway, supported by columns) of St Paul’s Church.  
 
After Eliza sells a flower to Colonel Pickering, Henry Higgins – a professor of phonetics – mocks her speech and bets Pickering that he ‘could pass her off as a duchess at an ambassador’s reception’ in three months’ time.  

‘Oh, what harm is there in my leaving Lisson Grove? It wasn’t fit for a pig to live in, and I had to pay four and six a week’ 
 
Eliza returns briefly to her home in Lisson Grove. Lisson Grove can be found near Regent’s Park, and it was notorious throughout the 19th century for extreme poverty, alcohol abuse and crime. 

‘So now you know, don’t you? I’m come to have lessons, I am. And to pay for ‘em too, make no mistake’ 
 
At the start of Act Two, Eliza arrives on the doorstep of Henry Higgins’ at 27a Wimpole Street, demanding that he follows through on his promise that he could teach her to speak and act like a lady.  
 
In the early 19th century, a Georgian townhouse on Wimpole Street was the home of Professor Horace Hayman Wilson, a professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University – and a possible inspiration for the lifestyle of Professor Henry Higgins.  

‘How do you do, Mrs. Higgins? Professor Higgins told me I might come’ 

Higgins takes Eliza to his mother’s house to practice taking afternoon tea and discussing appropriate topics. Eliza embarrasses Higgins by talking of her father’s drinking and her aunt’s illnesses, and afterwards Mrs Higgins scolds her son for treating Eliza as ‘a live doll’, only to be discarded afterwards. 

‘But I will tell Your Excellency, she has the right to know who Miss Doolittle is’

In what became a famous scene in subsequent adaptations, Eliza is taken to an Ambassador’s Ball to be passed off as a lady. If no one finds her out, Higgins has won his bet against Pickering.

The play refers to ‘an Ambassador’ and never says who the Ambassador is, or where his house is. It’s likely Eliza would have visited a grand residence in central London for the ball. One possible location could have been Grosvenor Square where the US ambassador to the Court of St James took up residence from 1913–1918.  

‘Freddy’s not a fool. And if he’s weak and poor and wants me, maybe he’d make me happier than my betters that bully me and don’t want me’ 
 
Although we don’t find out much about him, Freddy Eynsford Hill falls for Eliza and is shown in contrast to Higgins as he’s a man who sees Eliza’s true spirit. He takes Eliza in a taxi to Wimbledon Common one evening, against Higgins’ wishes.