MERCIA CINEMA SOCIETY
29 Blackbrook Court Loughborough LE11 5UA
www.merciacinema.org.uk
Registered as an educational charity - no. 1001524
Press Release from Kate Taylor
Issued 24 July 2006 01924-372748 (absent till 1st August)
New book traces history of York picture houses
What do a furnishing store in Fossgate, a car park in Clarence Street, and Fairfax House in Castlegate, York, have in common? They are all associated with former picture houses.
Their past is recalled in a new book by cinema and theatre historian Mervyn Gould which provides a detailed account of the Electric, the Grand, and the St George’s Cinema, as well as the other eighteen venues where moving pictures were shown in the past or are still screened today.
Cinemas of York, published by Mercia Cinema Society, is an extensively researched 226-page amply illustrated history which goes back just a hundred years when York audiences had their first opportunity to see animated pictures on 19 December 1896 at the Theatre Royal. It traces the rise and fall of picture houses between 1908 and the present day, bringing the story right up-to-date with the opening of the City Screen in 2000 and the imminent closure of the Odeon.
Mr Gould’s book tells of the first permanent home for films in York in a converted Methodist Chapel, which opened as the New Street Hall in 1908 and was later renamed the Palace of Varieties and subsequently the Hippodrome. It tells how a former skating rink became the City Picture Palace in 1914 and was later known as the Casino and the Rialto. It tells of York’s first purpose-built cinema, the Electric of 1911, and of its super cinemas such as the 1934 Regent, the re-built Rialto of 1935 and the 1937 Regal.
It details the cinemas’ projection equipment and provides some insight into their programmes.
The book sets the history of the cinemas in a wider context of cultural change and the impact of two world wars. A social and ethical issue covered in the book was the question of the opening of cinemas on Sundays. Following the Second World War, when picture houses were opened to maintain public morale and provide clean entertainment for troops stationed in their vicinity, the Government gave local authorities powers to keep the cinemas open, or to close them, according to the wishes of their electorate. The Church and Non-conformist chapels strongly opposed Sunday opening (although the Roman Catholics remained aloof from the canvassing). At a public meeting in York in 1947 the religious bodies secured 478 votes to the ‘Sunday opening’ supporters vote of 320. However a subsequent poll reversed the weight of opinion with 10,377 votes in favour of Sunday opening and only 5,929 against it.
A prominent figure in the book is Jack Xavier Prendergast who masterminded the building of the new Rialto, and of the Clifton Cinema in 1939 using a local architect, Frederick Dyer on both occasions, and who played an active part in the wider York entertainment scene. Prendergast was a large man, literally as well as metaphorically. He did not find the standard cinema seating comfortable so he designed his own and had it manufactured by a Scarborough firm. Originally named The Prendergast, the seat was later advertised – having been installed there - as The Rialto.
The book builds on earlier research undertaken by Peter Wrenn in the early 1990s when he was a student at the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies.
Among the 241 illustrations are recent photographs taken by Ian Houseman, whose parents live in York. There is also the most extensive range of photographs of the Odeon ever to be published and provided for the book by courtesy of the Harry Weedon partnership. (Robert Bullivant, architect of the York Odeon, was by then on Harry Weedon’s staff and was later to become the senior partner in the practice.)
An appendix provides details of all the cinema organs which were installed in York picture houses. The book is fully indexed.
Mercia Cinema Society is the country’s leading publisher of books in the history of cinemas. The Society, which is a registered charity, was founded in 1980 to foster research into picture-houses and their proprietors.
Cinemas of York, ISBN 0-946406-58-8, is available from bookshops or directly from the Society, c/o Stuart Smith, 100 Wickfield Road, Hackenthorpe, Sheffield, S12 4TT. Cheques for £14 50p should be made payable to Mercia Cinema Society.
IAN HOUSEMAN has Yorkshire roots. His father is a native of York, his mother grew up there, and they married at Acomb Parish Church sixty years ago. After many years away from the county, they returned to York to live in 2003. Ian was born in Sheffield, but was moved away at an early age. After early days in electronics and pub management, he is now a non-destructive tester, mainly in the aeronautic field. His love of photography has been nurtured over the years, with many hours spent in darkroom processing, before the advent of digital cameras and scanners. The interplay of light and shadow brought him to architectural photography. He has worked before with Mervyn Gould on Loughborough’s Stage & Screen and Boston and Spalding & the Aspland Howdens.
MERVYN GOULD worked in independent cinema and commercial touring theatre, before becoming a university technical tutor. Academically an historian, he has a Master’s degree in Arts Administration, and with a keen interest in architecture from an early age, combines these with research into entertainment buildings and the companies behind them. Future projects include the life of Richard Thornton (Edward Moss’ original partner in what became Moss’ Empires) for a Ph.D., and the cinema histories of Burton-on-Trent, Crewe & Nantwich, and St. Albans. Wearing another hat, he is the administrator of the Mercia Cinema Society.
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Mervyn Gould ’phone 01509 218393 Mervyn.Gould@virgin.net
