Snapshots of the Great War nu 3 ........... entertaining the wounded troops at the Ardwick Empire in 1917

If you were wounded and recovering in hospital in a city far from home I guess time must have weighed heavily.

And so the Special Matinees for Wounded Soldiers would have been an attraction not to be missed.

The programme and ticket are dated May and August 1917 and were for the Ardwick Green Empire.

Now in time I will find out exactly what was on offer because my old friend David Harrop turned up a copy of the programme with the inside pages.

Just as now some of the support for wounded soldiers came from charities and the performance of August 2nd 1917 was provided by the “Lloyds Bank Entertainment Fund for Wounded Soldiers."

The Ardwick Empire was built in 1904 on the corner of Higher Ardwick and Hyde Road and stayed in business till it was demolished fifty years later having changed its name to the New Manchester Hippodrome in the mid 1930s.

Back in 1917 our wounded soldiers would have been recovering in one of the many Red Cross Hospitals across the city.

Pictures; from the collection of David Harrop








*The Ardwick Empire, http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/gone/empire.html