Category Archives: M. William Shanly

“An Immense Power in the Refinement of the World”: Women Musicians in Irish Picture Houses

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As the emergence of cinema in the early 1910s changed the nature of Irish popular entertainment, it offered certain women new career opportunities. Although there were some women picture-house managers and jobs in ticket and refreshment sales were generally reserved for women, the largest number of skilled picture-house jobs available to women were as musicians. Every new picture house had at least one musician, and as the 1910s progressed, the prestige of a picture house could be measured by the number of musicians in its orchestra, including known concert musicians whose solos could be advertised as discrete attractions. The boom in picture houses was also a boom in musical employment. For both men and women, these increasingly professionalized jobs required the kind of extended education available only to the middle class. The growing prestige of cinema opened up possibilities for suitably trained women of this class who needed or desired an income but who were restricted from much paid work by barriers to the professions and by such nebulous controls as the discourse on respectability, which, for example, put the menial work undertaken of necessity by many working-class women beyond consideration – or at least, acknowledgement. As such, the increasing number of women cinema musicians is also an index of the increasing acceptability and even respectability of cinema itself, which these women were helping to foster by taking these jobs.

Dorset Picture Hall’s advertisement for staff. Irish Times 20 March 1911: 1.

“Eva Hickie, late pianiste at the Dorset Picture Hall, Dublin, has accepted a similar position at Waterford,” reported Paddy, the Ireland correspondent for the British film trade journal the Bioscope,in mid-April 1914 (Paddy, 16 Apr. 1914). Three years previously, the 1911 Census of Ireland had listed just one Eva Hickie: the 25-year-old head of a household of five siblings and an aged servant, who were living in the north-city suburb of Phibsboro, not far from the Dorset. This Eva Hickie’s occupation is not mentioned, but by Census night, 2 April 1911, she may already have responded to Dorset manager William Shanly’s recent advertisement for “a Lady pianist […] who can play for pictures.” Whether or not she had applied for the job, she was not counted among the 979 Irish women who used the word “music” in the description of their occupation in the Census – the vast majority of them music teachers – and the further 94 who described themselves as musicians.

Despite this lack of self-definition as a musician, Hickie in many ways resembles May Murphy, the most prominent woman musician in Irish cinemas of the early 1910s. The Census puts both women in their mid-twenties and heading households of siblings belonging to the Catholic middle class, for whom music constituted one of the limited choices for respectable employment for women. However, Murphy appears to have been the more socially secure of the two, describing herself in the Census – as did 75 other women – as a professor of music. Although her previous career is obscure, by March 1912 she was leading the Irish Ladies’ Orchestras at James T. Jameson’s most prominent venues: Dublin’s Rotunda and the Pavilion in Kingstown, Co. Dublin:

A potent factor in the success with attends the pictures in the Dublin Rotunda Rooms and the Kingstown Pavilion is the Irish Ladies’ Orchestra, under the direction of Miss Murphy. In the Rotunda there are seven instrumentalists; in Kingstown three. Combined with the crimson and white colour scheme of their dresses, their little Zouave jackets complete a picture of dainty Bohemianism. Mr Jameson is to be congratulated on securing such a permanent attraction. (Paddy, 14 Mar. 1912)

Women’s orchestras were rare but by no means completely novel, and Dublin theatrical audiences might have been familiar with such acts as Les Militaires, a 12-piece women’s orchestra led by Mrs. Hunt and wearing Hussar uniforms and tricorn hats that had visited the city in 1889 (Watters and Murtagh 109-10). Neverthless, the visual spectacle of the Irish Ladies’ Orchestra’s dainty Bohemianism, which would be perfectly understandable in a theatre, seems out of place in a picture house, where the audience should surely be focusing on the screen. However, these musicians were expected to be noticed, a fact that indicates how the live musical portion of the programme was not just invisible accompaniment but was also a visual attraction.

Even as Paddy was asserting the permanence of the attraction, it was changing to offer an opportunity for another woman musician. Just a month after his announcement that Murphy was leading the two orchestras, he revealed that she had found it impossible to manage both the Rotunda and the Pavilion, located in a suburb 12km south of the city. Murphy focused on the Irish Ladies’ Orchestra at the Rotunda, and Jameson – “in no way minded to cut off the musical treat which the people of the Premier Township always expected” – employed a Miss D’Arcy to lead the newly renamed Pavilion Ladies’ Orchestra:

To fill up the place of one who has gone in such a manner that those left behind scarcely feel the vacancy is always a laudable ambition. That Miss D’Arcy has succeeded in maintaining the high state of excellence for which the Pavilion has been famous in the past speaks well for her directorship and ability. (Paddy, 25 Apr. 1912)

 

Publicity photograph of John Bunny, signed and dated 5 June 1914 (http://theloudestvoice.tumblr.com/page/328); and Vitagraph ad including Bunny Blarneyed (with title misspelled). Bioscope 12 Jun. 1913.

Vitagraph’s comic star John Bunny praised the Irish Ladies’ Orchestra and outlined the kind of benefits women musicians brought to the cinema. Bunny made his remarks on a working trip to Britain in 1912, during which he visited Ireland to shoot the short comedy Bunny Blarneyed, or The Blarney Stone (US: Vitagraph, 1913) at Cork’s most famous tourist attraction. Taking in a show at the Rotunda, he remarked that

“Women are always an immense power in the refinement of the world. The manager who, seeking to make his show suitable for all – from the little mites up – neglects this truth is only cheating himself of ultimate end. An orchestra composed of women is an undeniable asset to every hall in the world.” (Paddy, 12 Sep. 1912)

For Bunny – and for Paddy who quoted him favourably – such initiatives as the Ladies’ Orchestra put cinema at the forefront of respectable entertainment by putting women at the forefront of the cinema entertainment. There, they were visible signs and guardians of a refined amusement suitable for all the family.

Although Jameson made a particular feature of his Ladies’ Orchestras, other women musicians were also well known to audiences, even when they were less visible during screenings. Miss Frazer, the pianist at the Pavilion’s rival Kingstown Picture House, garnered special praise for her beautiful singing during the run of The Badminton Hunt in January 1913 because “she did not sing from a platform, the film was not stopped at any time. Simply you heard her charming voice coming out of the darkened stillness at the piano” (Paddy, 30 Jan. 1913). Paddy also noted that May Louise O’Russ conducted a very able orchestra at Dublin’s Mary Street Picture House, which was managed by her husband, Bob O’Russ (ibid).

As summer 1914 approached, it appeared that women were taking a more proprietorial role in Irish cinema. On 30 April, the Bioscope published the registration details of the Blackrock Picture Theatre Company, which had been incorporated in Dublin on 20 March. The report listed four women – Mrs. R. Murphy, Mrs. L. Casey, Miss E. Lineham and Miss M. Lineham – among its five directors (“World of Finance”). Little is known of these women, but Lucy Casey was the postmistress and a shopkeeper in the seaside village of Blackrock, Co. Louth, where the company’s new picture house was to be located. Blackrock was south of Dundalk, the largest town in the region, with its population of 13,128 supporting two competing picture houses. Blackrock, by contrast, had a very small resident population of just 418 that was swelled at holiday time by a large influx of tourists. Regardless of the success of their venture, these women joined the few other female picture-house owners and musicians to whom the cinema offered career opportunities.

References

Paddy. “Pictures in Ireland.” Bioscope 14 Mar. 1912: 759; 25 Apr. 1912: 275; 12 Sep. 1912; 797; 30 Jan. 1913: 329; and 16 Apr. 1914: 313.

Watters ,Eugene, and Matthew Murtagh. Infinite Variety: Dan Lowrey’s Music Hall 1879-97. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1975.

“World of Finance: New Companies.” Bioscope 30 Apr. 1914: 411.

“A Terrible Lot of Pups in Balbriggan”: Ensuring the Observance of Cinema Regulations

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Reporting on their work in the final quarter of 1913, the Dublin Corporation councillors on the Public Health Committee revealed that they had granted an application for a pay increase made by two public servants. Building surveyors J.J. Higginbotham and William Mulhall deserved an extra £15 per annum because

the duties of examining plans of proposed Places of Public Resort, and the inspection and charge of the several Theatres, Cinema Houses, and other Places of Public Resort, had, to a large extent, devolved to them. […] There had been a large increase in the number of places of public amusement within recent years. These were scattered over a large area, and required frequent inspection to ensure the observance of the Regulations” (Dublin Corporation).

In 1910, the Corporation had increased the pay of Walter Butler, inspector of theatres and places of public resort, in acknowledgement that his work had increased with the introduction of the 1909 Cinematograph Act. However, with the growth in the number of picture houses and their wider distribution around the city than any other places of public resort, Butler delegated more of that work to Higginbotham and Mulhall, and they had to be compensated for the extra workload in their turn. Although the most obvious manifestation of the popularity of cinema was the appearance of a new kind of building on the streetscape, among many less apparent but wide-reaching material effects was its contribution to the careers of certain public officials.

Map of Dublin indicating main places of public resort, that is, theatres and cinemas.

Map of Dublin indicating main places of public resort, that is, theatres and cinemas.

Building regulation was one of the ways that cinema became a cultural institution imbedded in the institutional landscape of 1910s Ireland, and it raises questions about who was doing the regulating. This process was driven from inside Dublin Corporation and other local councils by powerful councillors and other senior officials who were sometimes themselves picture house proprietors or shareholders. John J. Farrell – Dublin’s mayor in 1911 and proprietor in 1913 of the Electric Theatre, Talbot Street and Mary Street Picture House – is frequently cited in this regard (Rockett 28-9, 33-4). However, Farrell was by no means alone in his conflict of interest. Dublin’s long-serving chief medical officer Sir Charles Cameron performed the opening ceremonies of several picture houses, including such early ones as the Dublin Cinematograph Theatre – later the Picture House, Lower Sackville/O’Connell Street – in April 1910, and Farrell’s Electric Theatre in May 1911. When he opened the picture house at the Clontarf Town Hall in July 1913 – receiving a gift of a gold-mounted umbrella – he revealed that he was a shareholder in a cinema company “which was paying 20 per cent., and he was only sorry he didn’t sell out all he had and invest the proceeds in a picture house (applause and laughter)” (“Clontarf Electric Theatre”).

Dorset Picture Hall in its later guise of the Plaza. (Irish Architecture Online.)

Dorset Picture Hall, in its later guise of the Plaza, clearly retaining its origins as a Baptist chapel. (Irish Architecture Online.)

Twenty percent was also the handsome return on profit enjoyed by Farrell and the shareholders of the Talbot Street Electric Theatre, but Cameron was not among these shareholders; “he only honoured us by opening it” (“Dublin Electric Theatre”). Nevertheless, Farrell appealed the Electric’s £160 valuation in November 1913, and the Recorder (chief magistrate) reduced it, accepting that the Electric should not have a higher valuation than the Dorset Street Picture House, which Farrell claimed could hold 1,600 people and charged 3d, 6d and 1s when the Electric had to do away with the top rate on its 3d-6d-9d scale. Effectively shifting attention onto the Dorset, whose owner had no known links to the Corporation, Farrell observed that “in Lent, when other places of a like character were nearly empty, the door porter at Dorset street held out his hands and said, ‘Room for no more’ (laughter)” (ibid).

Handbill for M. W. Shanly's Dorset Picture Hall in July 1914, featuring the latest film adaption of T. W. Robertson's play David Garrick.

Handbill for M. W. Shanly’s Dorset Picture Hall in July 1914, featuring the latest film adaption of T. W. Robertson’s play David Garrick. (Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.)

Indeed, the Dorset was an interesting venue; one of the largest picture houses in Dublin, it had been barely converted from the former Bathesda Chapel by M. William Shanly, who was known primarily for providing chairs at parks in London and Dublin (“Dorset Picture Hall”). Despite having a much larger capacity than the Electric, it resembled Farrell’s picture house in housing a tearooms and being located well off the city centre’s main thoroughfares and close to a large railway station; in the Dorset’s case, this was Broadstone Station. “Travellers can see the pictures, and have their tea, with the assurance that they have not far to go when the time comes to catch their train” (Paddy, 14 Mar. 1912). Already an imposing building, the Dorset was by night “a veritable blaze of light. No less than 300 electric lamps adorn the building, and they have been grouped with care” (Paddy, 5 Dec 1912). Although many patrons smoked, “improved ventilators on the sides and roof of the hall, and on the stage [ensured that] there are scarcely any smoke rays form the operating box to the screen” (ibid).

Dorset small ad for staff. Irish Times 20 March 1911: 1.

Dorset small ad looking for staff. Irish Times 20 March 1911: 1.

With such a large clientele, the Dorset required an extensive staff, and Shanly and his manager Frederick William Sullivan advertised for many of these positions in the Irish Times in March 1911. These included ticket checkers, bill posters, a lady pianist who could play to pictures, two young women to sell tickets and refreshments, an experienced assistant operator to help with the picture house’s five projectors, and boys to sell programmes. The requirements for the door porter mentioned by Farrell were most specific: the two men who were sought must have retired from the police, present a smart appearance, be active and be prepared to wear a uniform. Shanly and Sullivan clearly intended to give the impression that whatever the state of picture houses in other parts of the city, the behaviour on their premises would be well regulated.

Not all Irish picture shows in late 1913 had an imposing attendant or two on the door capable of deterring unruly behaviour. On 22 November, the small County Dublin town of Balbriggan witnessed scenes of uproar, when a group of six local young men rushed the Town Hall to gain free admittance to a picture show (“At the Cinema”). Rather than a burly ex-policeman on the door, a man named McInerney “constituted himself doorman at the outer entrance on the occasion, and was trying to keep order, in the hope that his efforts in that direction might be rewarded by free admission to the pictures” (ibid). McInerney was no match for the six young men, some of whom

went into the passage where tickets for the cinema performances were being issued, and by their frightful language and disorderly and violent conduct caused such a scene of confusion that many intending patrons of the show turned away from the door, while other, who were already inside, came out again through fear and went home (ibid).

At the trial of the young men for riotous and disorderly behaviour, local lamplighter Patrick Darkin “informed the magistrates that there was ‘a terrible lot of pups in Balbriggan,’ and advised their Worships to put a stop to their conduct, which, he said, had resulted in a great deal of damage to the Town Hall” (ibid). Effective regulation of picture houses would be necessary for the cinema to considered respectable entertainment. This would serve the business interests of owners and shareholders, including those working within Dublin Corporation to ensure that their own business interests were legally protected.

References

“At the Cinema: Wild Scenes in Balbriggan.” Evening Telegraph 3 Dec. 1913: 6.

“Clontarf Electric Theatre: New Picture Enterprise.” Freeman’s Journal 19 July 1913: 5.

“Dorset Picture Hall.” Irish Builder 13 May 1911: 317.

Dublin Corporation. Committee Minutes, 1914: 1, pp. 592-3.

“Dublin Electric Theatre: Appeal Against Valuation of Premises.” Dublin Evening Mail 4 Nov. 1913: 3.

Paddy. “Pictures in Ireland.” Bioscope 14 Mar. 1912: 759.

Paddy. “Pictures in Ireland.” Bioscope 5 Dec. 1912: 725.

Rockett, Kevin and Emer. Film Exhibition and Distribution in Ireland, 1909-2010. Dublin: Four Courts, 2011.