As a celebration of the recent Chorlton-cum-Hardy's Arts festival, I decided to investigate some of the area’s past artistic connections.
As I have previously written here (1) of Thomas Mostyn’s art school (now the Buddhist’s World Peace Café) and the three Knowles siblings, artists who lived in the house which is now Our Lady and St. John’s Parish Centre on the corner of High Lane and Chequers Road.
I have also written of The Oaks Music School on Wilbraham Road run by the Haigh family (who, coincidentally were related by marriage to the Knowles’s) (2)
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| Knowles's residence on High Lane |
This time I have decided to look into the area’s theatrical heritage.
Picolo Theatre
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| "Chorlton-cum-Hardy" Con Club |
The Picolo Theatre was a short-lived theatre company which, aided by a grant from the Arts Council, performed a number of plays at Chorlton-cum-Hardy's repertory theatre (3) based in the public hall on the upper floor of the Conservative Club on Wilbraham Road in 1954
This was a serious professional company as is indicated by the plays they put on that season.
They opened with “Mistress of the Inn” a comedy by the 18th century Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni.
Their repertoire also included J. M. Synge’s “Playboy of the Western World”, “The Barber of Seville” by Beaumarchais, Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” as well as two somewhat lighter offerings, “Treasure Island” and “Dial “M” for Murder”.
The personnel involved, both acting and off stage included many who became well-known names later in their careers. One of the actors was Patrick Wymark, who played in a starring rôle in two popular T.V. shows of the mid-1960s, “The Plane Makers” and “The Power Game”. Another was Eric Thompson who found fame as the voice of “The Magic Roundabout” for which he also provided the English commentary. His two daughters also became accomplished actors, the multiple Academy Award winner, Emma, and her younger sister Sophie, also an award winner (Olivier). (4) A third cast member, Mike Morgan, had just had his big break into films, playing alongside Sir Alec Guinness, when near the completion of his second film he was taken ill with meningitis and died tragically young, aged 29.
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| Design sketch of Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre 1976 |
The leading female actor was Avril Elgar who was newly-married to fellow member of the company James Maxwell. Avril has been prolific in her appearances on Television over nearly half a century. She passed away, sadly only a few days ago on the 17th September, 2021. Her husband, James, acted too on television and in films but it is his Theatre work which is most well-known particularly in this area. Initially with his work, as both actor and artistic director, with the 69 theatre company based at the Manchester University Theatre and, following the success of that venture, the development of Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre, for which he was a co-founding art-director
Another of the co-founding art directors and the designer of the theatre itself was also a former Picolo Theatre member, Richard Negri. All of the company had been trained at the Old Vic Theatre School in London founded by George Devine who was the director of the Picolo Theatre’s first production. A director of some of its later shows was the company’s founder Frank Dunlop; now 94-years-old he has directed in London’s West End, on New York’s Broadway, the opera, Carmen, at the Royal Albert Hall, and for eight years (1984-91) ran the Edinburgh Festival.
Hon. Secretary of the Chorlton-cum-Hardy theatre club at this time was Cecil Walkley Lloyd of 32, Cavendish Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester. Cecil was born on the 12th February, 1907. However, there is something of a mystery concerning his place of birth, the birth was registered in Hulme, Manchester but the 1911 census shows him as born in the Maida Vale area of London. His family were then living at Ashton Barracks, Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire where his father having completed 21 years' service in the army was working as the canteen manager. The family’s residence on the 11th March, 1908 recorded, on his discharge, in his father’s army records was 46, Beresford Road, Moss Side, Manchester
Cecil Walkley, trained to become a teacher at Chester teacher Training College, qualifying in 1927, when he started working, as an assistant master, at Christ Church Boy’s School. He later moved on to Heald Place Boy’s School, then Ladybarn Senior Boy’s School, Withington, Manchester. In the June quarter of 1936, at St Ann’s Church, Tottington Nr. Bury, Lancashire he married Mabel Lois Mary Peachment, the daughter of George Henry, a hairdresser and newsagent and Mary (née Barnes), an elementary school teacher. The couple had two children a son born in Stretford in the March quarter of 1937 and a daughter born in Manchester in the March quarter of 1943.
On the 21st June, 1949, Cecil Walkley Lloyd applied to Manchester City Council to be registered as a Stage Manager as required by the Theatrical Employers Act of 1925 and its subsequent amendment of 1928. (5)
Walter Stott – Film maker and Theatre Propriet
Walter Stott was both the manager and one of the directors of Chorlton-cum-Hardy's first cinema. He was also a producer of commercial films for a wide variety of organisations. These ranged from The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, Henry Bannerman & Sons Ltd. Cotton Spinners and Manufacturers Ltd. to a propaganda film for The Hospital Saturday Fund and even a film of a local football match shown at the Trocadero, Rusholme in October, 1919.
I was having a good deal of trouble tying together various strands of information I had on him until I read Andrew Simpson’s pieces on The Chorlton Pavillion and Winter Garden, one of which provided me with Walter’s address in 1910. Armed with this vital item of data I am now able to tell his story.
Walter was born in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester on the 14th December, 1877. He was the 4th child of Charles Stott, a pawnbroker, and his wife Elizabeth (née Longmore). His mother died, aged just 29, before he had celebrated his second birthday. The 1881 census shows his widowed father at 12, Milton Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock as the lone parent of 4 children all under 10. (Edith (9), Charles (7), William Longmore (5), and Walter (3)). He was aided by a general servant in the household 27-Years-old Elizabeth Eccleston, from Market Drayton, Shropshire. Before the next census was taken, in 1891, Walter had lost his remaining parent too; he had died, aged 39, on the 4th October 1889. Under the provisions of their father’s will Walter and his siblings were placed under the guardianship of their “Auntie” Elizabeth Jennett and her husband, Walter Broadhead Jennett, (6) a fellow pawnbroker, of 37, Union Street, Ardwick, Manchester. However, the 1891 census shows all 4 Stott siblings living with another “Auntie and Uncle”, William, a silk finisher, and Caroline Pearce, both of whom were born in London. They were at 19, Lincoln Street, Rusholme, Manchester together with Mr. & Mrs. Jennett, 4 of their grown-up children and a servant.
Walter’s tragic early life continued as, having already been bereaved of both his parents his step-father William Pearce died in the March quarter of 1894, Walter having just turned 16.
He married first Louisa Bell Selby, the eldest daughter of James Selby, the publican of The George Hotel, 67, Clowes Street, West Gorton, Manchester, and his wife Isabella Barlow (née Mills). In the March quarter of 1905, Louisa Bell died very likely due to complications arising from the birth of the couple first child, Nora Louise. Walter and his baby daughter went to live in The George Hotel, where they were when the 1911 census was taken. Also in the household was James and Isabella’s youngest daughter, Edith, an elementary school teacher, who Walter was to make his second wife in the December quarter of 1915
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| Chorlton Pavilion and Winter Gardens |
Walter Stott’s connection to Chorlton-cum-Hardy in the records is in 1910 when he is described as both the manager and a director of the newly opened Chorlton Theatre and Winter Garden in various issues of “The Stage” and “The Era” of that year. This was only one of a number of cinemas he operated as he became a leading figure in the embryonic film industry. Although initially a great success the Chorlton Theatre---- did not prosper long term. The original owners put it up for auction in December 1911, and it was sold again in 1916 by which time it was being “upstaged” by The Palais de Luxe, a purpose-built cinema on Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy opened in April, 1914.
Walter Stott’s enterprises were divided between two companies. His cinemas and film distribution business, The National Film Agency, was carried out with his partner, and an old schoolfriend, Frederick White. His partner in his film production company, Manchester Producing Company, was Jerry Somers, a gifted film cameraman.
As befits an entrepreneur engaged in the highly fashionable and lucrative if sometimes volatile business of the early growth of the film industry, Walter was apparently a “larger than life” character who held positions on several committees and could be relied on to be the life and soul of any gathering. On one particular occasion, in April, 1921, he issued a challenge to his fellows in the cinema industry to consume 12 Eccles cakes at one sitting, a challenge he completed himself the following day. His unconventional behavior did however on one occasion became unacceptable. In September, 1913 he appeared in court in Huddersfield charged with making unwanted sexual advances towards a 16-year-old programme seller in his employ. After a three-day hearing the magistrate dismissed the case through insufficient evidence but in doing so admonished Walter and his fellow defendant saying their behaviour “---- had been disgraceful and reprehensible as regards to their position----”
Pictures; Knowles's house on High Lane and Conservative club from collection of Tony Goulding , Plans of Royal Exchange Theatre m 06619 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information, and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass, Chorlton Pavilion and Winter Gardens from the Lloyd Collection.
Notes: -
1) “The Art Heritage of Chorlton-cum-Hardy" (15th August 2017).
2) “The Haigh Family of Chorlton-cum-Hardy" (23rd January, 2017).
3) Joan Sims one of the stars of the “Carry On” films made her stage debut in this venue in 1950.
4) Sophie Thompson has been nominated 6 times for an Olivier award but only won it the once in, 1999, for “Best Actress in a Musical” in “Into the Woods”.
5) These acts were introduced to tackle the problem of bogus managers who would “hire” a troupe of performers only to disappear with the theatre’s takings leaving them stranded.
6) The ties between the two families were further strengthened when Charles Stott’s eldest son, Charles Henry, married Walter Broadhead Jennett’s first-born daughter, Amy, on the 4th September, 1901 at St. Thomas’s Church, Ardwick, Manchester.
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