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Lord Chamberlain

From British Culture

a member of the Royal Household. In the Elizabethan times, the Lord Chamberlain was de jure the central institution for the censorship of plays. In the Restoration period, the post of the Master of the Revels dealt with questions of censorship. As most of the Masters of the Revels saw their job as "sinecure", in the 18th century, the authority for censorship went back to the Lord Chamberlain and was re-inforced by the Licensing Act of 1737.

Source:

Winton, Calhoun (1980), "Dramatic Censorship", in: Robert D. Hume, ed., The London Theatre World, Carbondale/Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 286-308.