In November 2020 the University of Warwick Network for Parish Research organised an online symposium on ‘Remembering the Parish’. Fiona McCall, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Portsmouth, presented a paper, ‘Remembering the ‘Wickedly Wicked’ Times’, looking at loyalist memories criticising the interregnum religious regime. She was one of four speakers on the memories of the civil war in English parishes; there is a feature on these papers here on the My-Parish website.
Tag: religion
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Have yourself a puritan Christmas
Dr Fiona McCall is a lecturer in early modern history, teaching units on the British Civil Wars, and Crime, Sin and Punishment in early modern Britain, amongst others. Her current research project investigates traditionalist resistance to puritan values in English parish churches during the 1640s and 1650s, and in this blog she discusses how Christmas was banned during this period.
Christmas was officially banned during the late 1640s and 1650s along with the rest of the church calendar. But the interdict was widely ignored. Trawling through various counties’ quarter sessions depositions for the period, I have found frequent references to Christmas, Easter, Whitsun, and various saints days, the witnesses (even those testifying against suspected royalists) usually oblivious to the fact that these festivals are no longer supposed to be celebrated. At Bristol the Mayoral court was even postponed from December to January ‘because the feast of Christmas comes betweene’.[1] Some were clearly mindful that Christmas was a sensitive issue: a 1651 Cheshire case refers to the ‘tyme Commonly called Christmas’, while a 1655 Northern Circuit assize deposition refers to the twelfth day after Christmas ‘so commonly Called’ [2] The term ‘Christide’ was frequently preferred instead, but not by everyone: one Devonshire witness timed the events he reported to ‘the Feast of the birth of our Lord god last past’. [3]
Josiah King, The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas (1658) Churches were supposed to be closed on Christmas Day and shops open. That was the theory, anyway. At Norwich in 1647, the Mayor of Norwich apparently gave notice that Christmas Day was to be observed, the market kept the day before instead, and even invited the ejected Bishop of Norwich, Joseph Hall, to preach in the Cathedral. [4] The authorities in Canterbury attempted a harder line. On the 22 December 1647, the town crier there proclaimed that a market was to be kept on Christmas day. This ‘occasioned great discontent among the people’ causing them to ‘rise in a rebellious way’, throwing shopkeepers’ ware ‘up and down’ until they shut up shop, and knocking down the mayor when he attempted to quell the ‘tumult’ with a cudgel. [5] ‘That which we so much desired that day was but a Sermon’, protested Canterbury Prebendary Edward Aldey, ‘which any other day of the weeke was tollerable by the orders and practise of the two Houses and all their adherents, but that day (because it was Christ’s birth day). [6] Elsewhere in Kent, parishioners crowded round the puritan minister Richard Culmer’s reading desk in protest at the lack of a Christmas day service, and assaulted him in the churchyard. [7] Gloucestershire minister Mr Tray, unpopular on account of his opposition to the festival, became the target of malicious rumours. Stories were spread that he had sabotaged the Christmas pies of his parishioners, baking in the communal oven, by sending his own unconventional confection to be baked alongside them. Lines of verse were placed under Tray’s cushion in the pulpit:
Parson tray, on Christmas Day
To help on reformation
Instead of the word did bake a t[urd]
And poyson’d his congregation [8]
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From Margins to Centre? An undergraduate conference on marginalised histories
At Portsmouth we were delighted to have not one, but two students presenting their work at the recent ‘From Margins to Centre’ conference at the University of York – a testament to the innovative and exciting research our students are devising and doing. In this blog post our second contributor, third year student Amelia Boddice, discusses the conference and where her paper fitted into the themes of the day. As well as building her employability skills, the conference prompted some thought-provoking reflections on the nature of historical enquiry: Amelia clearly got lots out of the day – just as it should be! The whole history team here at Portsmouth pitched in to support Amelia’s preparation and secure the internal funding so she could attend, and we’re pleased to be able to feature this post.
I was invited to speak at this conference, on government solutions to racism in the British education system c.1976-1985 with a focus on the policy of dispersal. This was the first time I have prepared a paper for a conference and delivered a talk in front of more than a handful of people. But the helpful feedback I have received from individual/group presentations during my undergraduate degree helped to prepare me for this moment. I was apprehensive but ready for the challenge as marginalised histories is something I have been passionate about since my second year of university study. During the conference I was inspired by the range of topics covered by each of the panellists and the passion with which each person delivered their talks. It was also encouraging to see the diversity of the audience; I felt like I had found a place to discuss freely a topic which was so important to me and be received with friendliness and open discussion. It felt like a safe space to talk about issues within the historical field and to feel hopeful that we were all doing our part to shed light on topics previously under-researched. Some of my favourite talks included Farida Augustine’s paper on Identifying West Africans in the French resistance, Joe Moore’s paper on Marginalised groups in the Miners’ strike and Tallulah Maait Pepperell’s paper on Feminism, pacifism and aristocracy: the politics of Irene Clyde.
Amelia presenting her paper I was especially inspired to hear the keynote speaker, Catherine Hall, say “if there are issues taught in your department, say so.” This emboldened me, it made me realise that questioning things, opening the margins and discussing concepts such as intersectionality is not being rebellious against the historical status quo but rather part of being a historian. These are issues faced in our society today, part of living life, everything is intersectional to an extent and understanding these nuances and asking further questions is essential. We should not accept things just because they seem to be the authority on the topic, whether that be an influential text or a key historiographical argument. Upon reflection, my dissertation rebels against the historiographical status quo, as it asks whether Catholics only used items to pray in the Elizabethan household. What evidence is there for this? What about the prayer manuals of the period? Did every household have access to religious items and/or did every household conform to the set standard for religion? On the other hand, to what extent were Elizabethan Protestants iconophobic? So, now it is clear to me that I have always been questioning the historical status quo but I need to take this further and use my platform to discuss the issues which really matter to me. This is because, as Catherine Hall stated, what starts at the margins can begin, slowly and surely, to unpick the centre. What was once marginalised history can become the norm; the history we teach to the younger generations should reflect the society around us. It should include diverse nationalities, ethnic origins, ages, abilities and sexualities. We need to find new histories and make new stories.
Recusant pendant found on the Isle of Wight I would like to say thank you to Clare Burgess and Olivia Wyatt for inviting me to be a panellist at their conference and for being so organised and welcoming. I would also like to thank Katy Gibbons and Mike Esbester for being so encouraging and helpful in organising everything in addition to their useful feedback on my paper.
Photo credits:
Courtesy Olivia Wyatt & Clare Burgess.
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Going to the cinema? The changing uses of Portsmouth’s cinema buildings
In this blog, the second in a series of posts looking at sites of historical interest in Portsmouth, Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in History, discusses the changing uses of the city’s cinema buildings. Rob specialises in researching society’s leisure activities and teaches a number of units on film and the cinema, including, as part of the Problems and Perspectives unit, ‘History at the Movies’ in the first year, ‘The Way to the Stars: Film and cinema-going in Britain, c. 1900-c. 2000’ option in the second year, and a Special Subject on ‘Cinema-going in Wartime Britain, 1939-1945’ in the third year.
Going to the cinema was an important leisure pastime in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century. Millions of the country’s citizens flocked to the cinema on a weekly basis, leading one prominent historian to refer to the activity as the ‘social habit of the age’. [1]
In order to respond to the growing number of people going to the cinema, thousands of new venues were built across the country. On top of this, many existing buildings were converted into cinema halls. Here in Portsmouth, for example, a tobacco factory located in Queens Street, Portsea was modified, opening as the Queens Cinema in 1914 with enough space to accommodate over 500 patrons. [2] What was once a site of labour, became a site for relaxation.
Queens Cinema, Portsea By the start of the Second World War there were 29 cinemas located across the town. Many of these were plush ‘picture palaces’, constructed as part of the boom period of cinema building in the 1920s and 30s, such as the Odeon and Regent (later Gaumont) cinemas in London Road, North End, the Plaza (later Gaumont) at Bradford Junction, Fratton, the Tivoli, in Copnor Road, Copnor, and the Palace in Commercial Street (now Guildhall Walk).
Many of these buildings have long been lost. Not, as may be assumed, to enemy bombing during the war (only one cinema – the Princes Theatre in Lake Road – was completely demolished in the Blitz), but to the bulldozer after the Council began its post-war reconstruction programme. [3]
Bomb damage to the Princes Theatre, Lake Road A good number of buildings survived the bulldozers, though. The Odeon in North End still stands, as does the Plaza/Gaumont in Fratton, and the Palace in Guildhall Walk. They are no longer cinemas, however, but serve other purposes. The Odeon is now a Sainsbury’s Local store, the Plaza/Gaumont was turned into a Bingo hall in the 1990s, and then became a mosque, while the Palace is now a nightclub – the Astoria – and a popular haunt for our students!
Odeon cinema, North End 
The former Odeon cinema, now a Sainsbury’s Local supermarket 
Plaza/Gaumont cinema, Bradford Junction 
The former Plaza/Gaumont cinema, now Portsmouth Tami Mosque 
The Palace cinema, Commercial Street (now Guildhall Walk) 
The former Palace cinema, now the Astoria nightclub The changing uses of buildings is a fascinating history to uncover. As society’s leisure activities alter as the years go by, certain pastimes fall out of favour while others replace them, so the purposes of the buildings in which these activities took place changes too.
Some buildings become redundant and are lost to the cityscape forever. But many remain; they just serve a different purpose. So the next time you are in the Astoria strutting your stuff, think about the generations of people before you who have whiled away their leisure hours in that space in the past. Think, too, about what may become of that venue in the future. Will other generations use the space for different purposes?
Notes
[1] Cited in Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain 1930-1939, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 11.
[2] Robert James, ‘Cinema-going in a Port Town, 1914-1951: Film Booking patterns at the Queens Cinema, Portsmouth’, Urban History, 40.2, 2013, pp. 315-335, p. 317.
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Enriching the learning experience: Exploring Tudor heritage in Southampton
In this blog, Dr Katy Gibbons, Senior Lecturer in History at Portsmouth, reports on a field trip undertaken as part of her Special Subject Module, ‘Conflict, Conspiracy, Consensus: Religious Identities in Elizabethan England’.
One of the challenges of researching a society that is several hundred years removed from our own is in understanding the physical and material aspects that seem so different – the places in which people lived and interacted with each other, the clothes they wore, the objects they owned, and the meanings that were invested in them. This might be particularly challenging when thinking our way into religion and religious experience, and grasping the ways in which religion (encompassing far more than attending church once a week) structured and influenced all aspects of life, in a number of complicated ways. One really useful way into this is to consider the material objects (large and small) that do survive, how they were put to use in religious activity, and what they suggest to us about contemporary approaches. This is something that students taking the final year Special Subject unit, ‘Conflict, Conspiracy, Consensus: Religious Identities in Elizabethan England’ got to grips with in a field trip. Seeing the physical remains of 16th century religion and society through the lens of a parish church and a ‘private’ house offered a fresh insight into a number of aspects of the unit, from the importance of parish identity to the role played by personal, familial and public display.
A few weeks into the unit, the seminar group took a trip to Southampton, in order to visit two adjacent sites rich in Tudor heritage: the parish church of St Michael’s (the city’s oldest building), and the Tudor House Museum and Garden, which stands opposite. The trip was funded by the School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies, so free to students. We were lucky enough to benefit from the expertise and knowledge of church wardens and stewards in St Michael’s, and of a member of tour guide team at The Tudor House, who was an archaeologist and a key member of the team who restored the house and garden. We saw and thought about many aspects of life in the 16th century: here I will mention just a few examples.
The tomb of Richard Lyster St Michael’s gave us a good sense of what changed within an urban parish church in the course of the Reformation, and subsequently. The interior of the church in the 21st century looks very different to the 16th century! But there were some key features to consider, most notably the very fine tomb of Richard Lyster, a notable figure in the civic life of Southampton and a man who held important ‘national’ office, as well as the inhabitant of the Tudor House across the square. This was a useful insight into attitudes towards burial and remembrance in the 1560s, as Protestantism was reintroduced as the official faith of England, and of the close physical and material, and also emotional ties that parishioners might have to their parish church. Other highlights in the church included being able to view copies of the church wardens’ accounts and the records of baptisms and burials: mentions of those who were not native to the city serving as a useful reminder of the shifting and varied population of a port town such as Southampton.
Exploring inside St Michael’s Church In exploring the Tudor house, we benefitted hugely from the guided tour, which highlighted aspects (including the lofts and the original Tudor kitchen in the basement) that we would otherwise not have had access to. Amongst other things, we talked about cultures of display for wealthy families in an urban context; the presence of ‘witch’s marks’ in some of the rooms and the persistence of traditional beliefs about evil spirits and liminal spaces in the building, and the range of graffiti on the walls of one of the upstairs chambers.
The Tudor kitchen 
An example of ‘Witch’s marks’ in the church All in all, this was an enjoyable and rewarding field trip. It offered plenty of food for thought, gave us the opportunity to think about the physical and material aspects of some of what we had read, and even gave some of us the chance for some dressing up! It also provided some material for the individual research that students went on to conduct for their assessment. Thank you to St Michael’s and the Tudor House and Gardens!
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‘Make your public curious’: The highs and lows of being a cinema manager
In this blog Dr Rob James, Senior Lecturer in History, discusses the challenges of being a cinema manager in Britain in the first half of the 20th century. Rob specialises in researching society’s leisure activities and teaches a number of units on film and the cinema, including, as part of the Problems and Perspectives unit, ‘History at the Movies’ in the first year, ‘The Way to the Stars: Film and cinema-going in Britain, c. 1900-c. 2000’ option in the second year, and a Special Subject on ‘Cinema-going in Wartime Britain, 1939-1945’ in the third year.
Going to the cinema is the result of a series of choices. A number of ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors operate in those decisions. Simply put, ‘push’ factors are things like bad weather, where patrons would go to the cinema in order to keep cosy and warm; ‘pull’ factors are those that draw cinema-goers in, such as the film being shown. In the first half of the twentieth century, when cinema-going was, to use the often quoted phrase by A.J.P. Taylor, the ‘social habit of the age’, cinema-goers were offered a wide variety of films to watch and a large number of cinemas in which to watch them. [1] Here in Portsmouth, for example, there were 29 cinemas located across the town at the start of the Second World War. [2] On top of this, consumers had a host of other leisure activities – pub-going, dancing, reading – competing for their free time, so going to the cinema was a conscious decision made after taking a series of choices. Cinema managers knew that if they were to run a successful and profitable business, they had to respond to the needs of the public. As a result, they paid close attention to their patrons’ film preferences, and many managers ran extravagant publicity campaigns in order to attract customers into their cinema halls.
Odeon Cinema, North End, Portsmouth Across the country cinema mangers went to significant lengths to promote the films their cinemas were due to screen, and their campaigns were often mentioned in the film trade papers. One of the most important cinema managers’ journals of the period, Kinematograph Weekly, ran regular features that detailed the techniques local managers employed to advertise a film, using feature titles such as ‘What managers are doing’ and ‘Showmanship’. [3] The paper often awarded prizes to managers who ran the most enterprising campaigns. One particularly active manager operating in Portsmouth during the 1930s and 1940s, Patrick Reed, won a prize for the campaigns he ran while managing the Odeon cinema in North End in 1938. As part of his film promotion strategies he arranged tie-ins with a large number of shops to advertise fashion house drama Vogues of 1938 (1937), and overprinted the pay envelopes of the employees of several large companies in the town with notes about the musical film Something to Sing About (1937). [4]
Queens Cinema, Portsea, Portsmouth Cinema managers faced a number of challenges, however, and not just competition from other cinemas operating in the area. One particularly sad event took place in April 1931 when the manager of the Queens cinema in Portsmouth, Mr H. E. Bingham, took his own life after a film failed to arrive in time for what would have undoubtedly been a busy Easter weekend, leaving a note written in chalk on the wall reading ‘NO SHOW. FINISH’. [5] The cinema was situated in Queen Street, near the naval barracks and Dockyard, and had attracted cinema-goers who lived in the immediate vicinity along with those working in and around the Dockyard and naval barracks. Problems started for Mr Bingham when the Council initiated a policy of slum clearance and moved lots of the district’s working-class residents to a new housing estate in Hilsea. [6] Mr Bingham had repeatedly complained to the Council about the effects of their policies on his business, and threatened to close the cinema a number of times due to the fall in takings at the box-office. [7] The failure of the film to arrive clearly tipped him over the edge.
Harry Sanders For many managers, though, the cinema industry offered a long and productive career. One particularly successful manager, Harry Sanders, ran a number of cinemas in England from the early 1920s until the mid-1960s, most notably the State cinema (later renamed Granada) in Grantham, where he served for over 20 years until his retirement in 1963. [8] Sanders recognised the importance of film promotion and, in October 1933, wrote a piece for Kinematograph Weekly in which he advised managers to ‘Make your public curious’ in order to obtain ‘big box-office business’. [9] Many of Sanders campaigns were highly flamboyant, but one particularly noteworthy campaign occurred in 1952 when he arranged for a herd of elephants to be paraded through Grantham in order to promote the circus film The Greatest Show on Earth. What a sight it must have been for the residents of that modest Lincolnshire market town to see elephants roaming through their streets! The stunt was, of course, remarked upon for making quite an impact, and it is still mentioned in popular histories of the town whenever ‘Uncle Harry’ – as Sanders was affectionately known – is remembered. [10]
Promotional poster Cinema managers like Sanders expended considerable energy ensuring that their businesses were successful. Unfortunately, most of their activities have been forgotten and the material they collated over the years has been lost to the historical record. I will, therefore, end this blog with an appeal. Harry Sanders kept much of the material that documented his life as a cinema manager – cinema ledgers, promotional material, exhibitors’ diaries, etc. – and his papers were donated by his son Howard to the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford. If you have (or had) a relative who worked as a cinema manager, or know of any such material, please get in touch with me on robert.james@port.ac.uk. It would be a great way to add to our limited knowledge of cinema managers’ lives in the twentieth century.
Notes
[1] Cited in Jeffrey Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain 1930-1939, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 11.
[2] Robert James, ‘Cinema-going in a Port Town, 1914-1951: Film Booking patterns at the Queens Cinema, Portsmouth’, Urban History, 40.2, 2013, pp. 315-335, p. 317.
[3] See, for example, Kinematograph Weekly, 12 February 1931, 35 and ibid., 30 June 1938, p. 52.
[4] Kinematograph Weekly, 7 April 1938, p. 50; ibid., 23 June 1938, p. 62.
[5] Sue Harper, ‘A Lower Middle-Class Taste Community in the 1930s: Admissions Figures at the Regent Cinema, Portsmouth, UK’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 24.2, 2004, pp. 565-587, p. 566.
[6] For an analysis of the Council’s housing policies in this period see C.P. Walker, ‘Municipal Enterprise: A Study of the Interwar Municipal Corporation of Portsmouth 1919-1939’ (unpublished University of Portsmouth MA dissertation, 2003).
[7] Evening News, 8 April 1931; Kinematograph Weekly, April 16 1931, p. 29.
[8] Harry Sanders Collection, National Science and Media Museum, Bradford.
[9] Ibid.
[10] See ‘Sanders, Harry – Uncle Harry put the fun into Grantham’, http://www.granthammatters.co.uk/sanders-harry/ (accessed 21 March, 2018).
