MERCIA CINEMA SOCIETY
www.merciacinema.org.uk Administrator: Mervyn Gould
29 Blackbrook Court Loughborough Leicestershire LE11 5UA
01509 218393 mobile 07812 723 270 Mervyn.Gould@virgin.net
BOSTON and SPALDING ENTERTAINMENT
and the ASPLAND HOWDENS
PRESS RELEASE
The life and work of fairground worker turned cinema proprietor George Aspland Howden (1883-1955) is central to this study by Mervyn Gould. It follows his career starting from early days - travelling on the fairground amusements his father and uncle owned - to transferring to a permanent cinema base.
Building a local entertainment empire as the managing director of two companies, he was a most successful entrepreneur.
To introduce the story and lay the scene, a prologue gives a rapid glimpse of the theatre history of these two Lincolnshire fenland towns, from ‘plaies’ being barred by the Corporation of Boston in 1578 to them paying for the erection of a theatre in 1777 – the shell of which still stands - and the Lincoln circuit playing there and at Spalding. Both towns had Corn Exchanges in the mid-19th century, which later staged theatrical and early cinematograph performances.
Act One then takes us to two men, George Aspland from Holbeach and Benjamin Howden from Boston, who between them built a then well-known fairground business, and married sisters. When George Aspland died in 1911 his obituary and photograph formed the centrepiece of the front page of The World’s Fair that week.
Ben Howden’s second child and eldest son, George Aspland Howden, was named after his business partner and brother-in-law. He was brought up and educated by George Aspland, his uncle and mentor. Leaving commercial school at 16, he joined the fairground business and travelled with the roundabouts, soon becoming manager of the ‘Whirl of the World’. Later he was to recall – “I tackled the business in all its phases, from engine-driver to taking the money, or any other job. We had to do everything or anything in those days.”
In 1906 the firm invested in an organ-fronted Bioscope show, which then were moving into a new phase of opulence. Young George became the manager of this – he had bought a moving picture camera in 1904 – and here his working life was set for the future. In 1910 he left the travelling life and set up in business as a ‘Cinematograph Proprietor’ at Boston Corn Exchange. Two years later he was in partnership with a Spalding businessman and built the Picture House there, running both ventures. This forms Act Two.
Two opposition ventures opened in Boston in 1914, one being almost adjacent. So successfully did he ‘see off’ this competition that in 1917 the board of the more opulent new house next door asked him to be the managing director of a joint operation. In Spalding success meant the building of a second cinema in 1927.
Act Three is the heart of the book. It was at this time the Boston Corn Exchange was thoroughly re-built as the New Theatre in 1926, and in 1930/31 George installed Western Electric sound in all four houses. A valuable interview with a former cinema pianist tells of the dispersal of the orchestra at Spalding following the installation of a ‘Sonatone’ triple-deck gramophone reproducer before sound films proper came.
In the mid-30s, his corner of the fens was invaded by the rapidly-expanding Odeon chain, so before they opened their halls he built a modern Super-Cinema in each town, just before the two Odeons opened. An Interval tells the story of the Oscar Deutsch expansion and the Odeons in each town.
War and eventual decline of theatre and cinema in the 50s, after a remission caused by 3-D and CinemaScope, occupies Act Four, ending with the death of George in 1955 and the closures of the Boston New and Spalding Regent in 1959 and 1960.
Many illustrations, ranging from plans, photographs of the buildings, to artefacts and ephemera, accompany the relation of the tale and bring the buildings back to life, and there are several interpolations concerning members of staff, and the careers of two of George’s sons, who were to run the companies later. Technical and stage management equipment and problems are related, giving the reader an insight into less public matters of cinema and theatre operation.
The surprise of the book is Act Five, whereby Ralph, George’s second son, takes over the helm at Boston and, after closing the New Theatre, uses the money to build a complete stage and fly-tower onto the Regal, opening this as a commercial theatre as late as 1963! Details here include not only the technical side of the Regal, but local cultural life and the opening of a second theatre, the Blackfriars’ Art Centre, in 1965.
The story of the two Odeons is continued, with Boston becoming a theatre/cinema/ bingo operation after the Regal closed, and Spalding being twinned. Sadly, both are now demolished.
Ralph’s elder brother, George Benjamin, retired from the Spalding operation in 1970, and Ralph Aspland Howden closed the Regal in 1976, ending the Howden presence in these towns from 1910 and 1912 respectively. An epilogue charts the subsequent entertainment history of the area with film closure at Spalding, the re-opening of the Regal as a circle-only mini, until the rebuild of the Spalding Corn Exchange to the present highly-successful South Holland Centre, and the opening of a 5-screen multiplex near the now burned-out Regal in Boston.
Deposited annual accounts are used to show the financial structure of the companies, and the fact that dividends of 15 and 20% were not uncommon in the years of plenty. This is a social, as well as a cinema, history, and records changes that occurred not just here, but throughout the country.
The author knows his subject well, as that is where he started his career, which later was to take him to the West End, major provincial pantomimes and number one tours, and culminated in seventeen years as technical tutor and Theatre House & Stage Manager at a well-known midlands university.
Publishing the book, the Mercia Cinema Society celebrates twenty-five years, and brings its list up to sixty texts. Founded in 1980, it is now a charity defined as ‘a national society for the promotion and publication of research into cinema history’. Members, who pay only £10 per year, receive the quarterly journal The Mercia Bioscope, and have the privilege of discounted book prices.
All Mercia publications may be obtained from: Stuart Smith Mercia Sales Office 100
Wickfield Road Hackenthorpe Sheffield S12 4TT - 0777 155 4605.
ENDS
1047 words
Octavo – 6¼’ wide x 8¾’ high. 353pp including appendices and full index.
Binding: sewn – drawn-on laminated colour card covers. ISBN 0 946406 59 6
Publication date –
7 November 2005
Price £19.95
TRADE TERMS – 331/3%
