Stratford in the Autumn is always lovely, particularly when the weather is as kind as it was on Monday and Tuesday of last week. After a nightmare journey during which delays and severely overcrowded trains led to missed connections and my intended arrival time of 5.30pm became 7.45pm, it was a relief to step out on Monday morning to this gloriously blue sky. I'd travelled on Sunday to maximise time to research and offset the more expensive accommodation costs of Monday and Tuesday nights with a bargain Sunday stay and, on the whole, it was worth the extra effort. Engineering on the East Coast mainline all weekend had threatened a lengthy bus replacement journey and so I opted for travel to Carlisle and then onto Birmingham - a trip that costs approximately half the cost of a CrossCountry train from Newcastle to Birmingham... a cost fully re-imbursed without question thanks to 'Delay Repay'!
Monday was spent in the Shakespeare Institute Library which is an absolute delight: space, silence, helpful librarians and things one just can't get anywhere else! Working from 10 till 4, I accessed several books that have eluded me over the years and also a dissertation that I needed to look at and which opened up a few more lines of enquiry for further visits.
Tuesday and Wednesday morning were spent in the more familiar surroundings Shakespeare Birthplace Archives where I'd asked to see the boxes of material connected to W.H. Savery, the former business manager and sometime partner of the Bensons.
There are several large boxes which have been loosely organised into themes, but there is no catalogue listing of what is in each box, so it really felt like a bit of a treasure hunt. Some of it was not really useful to me - Savery remained connected to the Memorial Theatre long after Benson left in 1919 - but all of it was fascinating, particularly the material connected to the laying of the foundations of the new theatre and its subsequent opening.
As always, time went quickly, and although there were sparks coming off the paper I was writing so fast, there remains one (very large!) unopened box which I still need to explore the next time I'm there in February.
I've come home with around 60 pages of handwritten (scribbled!) notes which I'm gradually deciphering and expanding, with several things I'm already following up in the British Newspaper Archive.
One of them concerns the Coronet Theatre in Notting Hill where the Bensons had a regular four week season, supported by subscription bookings. As I went through the contents of Box 2, I found a stack of typed and handwritten letters going back and forth between W. H. Savery and Henry Tossell, the Company's representative in London, concerning the rather dubious financial activities of the theatre's Lessee, one John Halpin.
Because of the way the letters had been arranged in the folder, the most recent was on the top so I effectively discovered the story in reverse order. The first letter confirmed the cancellation of the Coronet season for 1912 which came as something of a surprise - the Company generally did well out of the season and it provided a London showcase for their productions (albeit away from the West End).
Letter followed letter, criss-crossing between London, Liverpool and Birmingham through the middle of October, (Company headed notepaper contained the sub-headings 'This week' and 'Next week' on the address side!) much the way that emails do today. Tossell's letters were typed, but several of Savery's were handwritten - he had very even and readable handwriting, thankfully! and between them they reveal an attempt to defraud the Benson Company of advance bookings.
Savery was initially concerned at the way Halpin - who only held a six month lease on the theatre - wanted to handle all the subscription booking through his own box office. The Company offered good discounts for patrons who booked across all ten productions in the season and, generally, the money for these would be placed in a separate joint account, set up by the Company and the Theatre, to be kept separate from general box office takings. Halpin had initially agreed to these terms but then become difficult, saying his 'Directors' would not countenance such an agreement. In addition, Savery discovered Halpin was offering the Company's tickets at a further reduced price as part of his own 'subscription season'.
"It shows there is some shady business behind everything(...)" Savery wrote to Tossell on October 16th. "It all proves he wants absolute cash in his hands and this would never do. (...) I like Halpin's sauce in saying the agreement must lapse unless we stand to arrangements made. He is the one not sticking to arrangements..."
Tossell agreed: "It is perfectly obvious that he does not want to agree to this in order that our advance bookings may be at his disposal."
By doing a bit of digging through accounting and legal channels, Savery discovered that the 'Directors' were actually just Halpin himself and a sleeping partner friend, that Halpin was in serious financial difficulty and that he had set up John Halpin Ltd whilst still an undischarged bankrupt as a result of a previous theatrical endeavour which had collapsed.
Halpin, in the meantime, stopped replying to letters and did not appear at prearranged meetings with Tossell, claiming illness. Savery then took the decision to cancel the season, writing to the 'Committee' of supporters - some 220+ people - to explain that due to "an inability to agree to terms", the season would not be going ahead, even though the publicity materials had all been printed.
Savery's instincts were proved entirely right. By December, Halpin was up in court, having been arrested for 'non-compliance' with a court order to hand over box office funds in lieu of rent, the theatre landlord having started proceedings against him. Halpin again pleaded illness for his delay and was released. The theatre was forced to close through lack of funds in February 1912 and by April, 'John Halpin Ltd' had been declared bankrupt. Halpin's expenditure on the theatre had been greater than he had expected and the costs for the lavish pantomime 'Babes in the Wood' had not been recovered through ticket sales. At its winding up, the liabilities of the company stood at £2,762 and its assets, which included the office furniture, were only worth £164.
From the details in The Stage and The Era, it seems as if Halpin was more a chancer than a rogue: he found work quickly as Company Manager for a touring company and continued in that role until his sudden death from consumption in 1916.
Savery found alternative dates for the Benson Company in February 1912 and when they returned to the Coronet in October 1912, it was under new management, sub-let to Messers Murray King and Clarke by lessee W.H. Savery!
J.C. Trewin wrote Savery's obituary when he died, aged 81: "Probably he knew and kept more secrets than anyone in that organisation [The Memorial Theatre] (...) Frank Benson, with his charming vagueness about expenditure, owed a great deal to Bill's financial knowledge. Time and again, Savery was able to ease FRB through periods of stress with (...) charm and understanding." Birmingham Post 11/8/1960
Having spent so much time 'with' the man last week, I have a great deal of admiration for him - and am very grateful for his hoarding instincts!
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