Thank
you so much to Tony Jarram for the last blog post, which was on the most
interesting subject of artists with a connection to Loughborough, Leicestershire
and Rutland. I had thoughts that I might do a follow-up post, but last week was
rather busy and a blog post simply didn’t emerge as I was saying cheerio to the
youngest offspring who has gone off to help at the George Eliot hospital in
Nuneaton.
Anyway,
this week, while I was hunting around for some specific piece of information
about Loughborough, I happened upon one Nita Isobel Bell. She popped up on the
1911 census, which was taken on 2nd April 1911, and she was recorded
as being in Loughborough on that night. She was a visitor to Harry Mullholland,
a joiner, who was living at 117 Derby Road. This particular property is a large
one, on the corner of Grange Street and Derby Road opposite the Italian shop, and
on the other side of Derby Road is what used to be the Station Hotel at the
bottom of Station Street.
Since
I’ve been in Loughborough this building has been a second-hand shop, but is now
converted to residential use. It has one of those corner doors which indicates
it was built as a shop, and this is borne out by the residents in 1927 being Mr
E.C. Game, a grocer, and in 1939 being Alfred and Ellen Kemp, Alfred being listed
as a sailor and grocer. The property isn’t listed in my 1901 directory, so this,
along with the 1911 census entry, the style of the property and the date stone
on the nearby properties of 1903, indicates to me that the property was built around
1903.
Anyway,
back to Nita Isobel Bell … why was she in Loughborough on the night of the 1911
census?
Nita
was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 12th February 1886 to parents
Henry James Butler, and Margaret McHale. On the 1891 census the family are listed
in a theatre in Castleford, near Pontefract in Yorkshire, and Henry and
Margaret are listed as actors, as are Nita’s older siblings, Henry (19) and
Herbert (16). Nita also has other older siblings, Edith (14), Florence (11) Reginald
(8), and Gertrude (6) and younger ones, Beatrice (2) and Maude (a couple of
months old).
The
theatre in which they are staying was not actually named, but was on Albion
Street, and whilst there are two buildings there today which were clearly
theatres or cinemas, I think the one in question has since been demolished. The Castleford Borough website was most useful in pointing me in the right direction.
Anyway,
by the night of the 1901 census, Nita is listed alongside her widowed father
and her siblings Edith, Florence who is now a barmaid, Gertrude, and 8-month
old James, at 97 Prospect Road in Scarborough.
In
1910, Nita married Thomas Bell, in Leeds. Thomas joined the Northumberland Fusiliers
as a lance corporal and fought in the First World War. Their daughter, Josephine
was born in 1919. What happened between 1919 and 1939 is not known to me, but
Thomas died in June 1939 and in September of that year, when the census was
taken, Nita and Josephine were registered at 267 Central Drive Blackpool. I
know no more of Nita’s life, and her death was registered in Blackpool in 1970.
Nita’s
appearance in Loughborough in 1911 may have been because she was a music hall
actress, so perhaps she had come to perform in one of Loughborough’s venues?
The Theatre Royal on Mill Street (now Market Street) with its entrance on Packe
Street was built in 1904/5 and in 1910 was being run by Mr Leon Vint, and was
known as Vint’s Electric Hippodrome. Is it possible that Nita was playing here
when she stayed in Loughborough in 1911?
Or,
perhaps Nita played at the Philharmonic Hall, which was sited on the corner of
Beehive Lane and Southfields Road, and opened in 1889? Although, in 1906 the theatre
was put up for auction, and wasn’t bought until 1912, so there perhaps wasn’t
any activity during that period. It is unlikely that Nita was playing at the
theatre on Ashby Road, which had opened in 1896 as the New Theatre, because
after its reincarnation as a skating rink, in 1911 it was an electric theatre,
so one of the early cinemas, before being rebranded in 1912 as the New Picture
House. The Temperance Hall, on the corner of Granby Street and Devonshire Square,
was probably a YMCA Hall at the time of Nita’s visit, and the former theatre on
Sparrow Hill had long since ceased to be a theatre.
I’ve
written extensively about the latter in earlier blog posts, which you can find
here:
You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:
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Thank you for reading this blog.
Lynne
