Nita Isobel Bell in Loughborough

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 2^nd 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 12^th 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:

https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2014/04/handels-messiah-snibston-discovery_28.html

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

Dyer, Lynne (2020). Nita Isobel Bell in Loughborough. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2020/04/nita-isobel-bell-in-loughborough.html  [Accessed 12 April 2020]

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Lynne