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____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Terriss Theatre / Rotherhithe Hippodrome, 34 and 36 Lower Road, Rotherhithe, London
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Left - Terriss' Theatre, Rotherhithe - From a postcard - Courtesy Debbie Gosling. Right - Programme for 'Kick Off' at the Rotherhithe Hippodrome - Courtesy Debbie Gosling - Click to see entire programme. 'Many boys / men from Rotherhithe
left the area to fight in the great war, most knew one another as they
were from a close knit community and had, as boys, attended the same
school (Albion primary). A lot of them failed to return, being killed
during the conflict. About 1919
the survivors arranged for a special one off show at the Terris
Theatre and made a profit of about £100. This was placed
in a special trust, the annual bonus of which was to be spent on prizes
for children at Albion Street primary school. It developed so that near
armistice day the children would enact a play, themes varied, before
local "dignitaries" i.e. the vicar, school governors, home
beat PC and Bob Mellish the local MP. This went on from 1920 up to about
2000 when for silly reasons it was stopped, i.e. in that year the "bonus"
amounted to £4 and it was decided that this was insufficient to
supply two prizes. Text in quotes above Courtesy Christopher Lordan 2007. |
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The Story of the Terriss Theatre, Rotherhithe 1899 - 1943 by N. M. Bligh From Theatre World Magazine September 1961.
Right - Terriss Theatre, later Rotherhithe Hippodrome in 1899. Though in a locality remote and almost non-existent to the Londoner of the West End, it was a handsome and well-appointed house typical of many on the outer fringe of central London at that time. Set in Lower road, and designed by W. G. Sprague, the exterior in red brick and stone was of pleasing appearance; the finely proportioned auditorium was about 65 feet square, the stage 68 feet wide and 35 feet deep. The interior decorations were in Louis XV style, cream and gold prevailing; there were two tiers only, and an absence of pillars. The promoters included Sydney Marler (later one of the original board of the London Theatre of Varieties Syndicate) and E. G. Saunders, managing director, the manager being Lauderdale Maitland. |
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 Contemporary
reports indicate the great delight of the local populace and a feeling
almost of incredulity at having a theatre in their midst. The name commemorated,
of course, William Terriss who two years earlier had been brutally murdered
outside the stage door of the Adelphi. Previous
to the opening there was a reception at which was played the Terriss Festival
March composed by Louis la Rondelle, the musical director. Seymour Hicks
and his wife Ellaline Terriss, daughter of William Terriss, and still,
at the age of 90, happily with us, arrived from the Criterion
where they were appearing in My Daughter in-law, greeted the assembly
and wished success to the undertaking.
Right - Site of the Rotherhithe Hippodrome in 2005 - M.L. The opening night was Monday, October 16th, 1899, with The White Heather, a recent drama from Drury Lane, with a cast including Susie Vaughan, Marion Hume, Julian Boyce, and Wilfred Taylor, and all the scenic spectacle of the Lane. |
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Right - Rotherhithe Hippodrome Auditorium - From programme top right - Courtesy Debbie Gosling. In October, 1900, the theatre was leased to George Conquest, junr., famous son of the even more famous George, senr., of the Grecian Theatre, and a policy somewhat as formerly was followed. A few of the titles noted in the autumn season are The Cotton King, The Belle of New York, The Mariners of England, and In the Shadow of the Night. The pantomime was Sinbad with Maud Nelson as the principal boy and Conquest himself in the form of entertainment at which he excelled; press reports at the time bestowed the highest praise. The first half of 1901 continued the popular run of plays and melodramas; representative examples are shown by such titles as Why Woman Sins, Two Little Vagabonds, Under the Red Cross (stirring South African drama), The Sign of the Cross (William Greet's company), A Trip to Chicago (musical comedy by Walter Sealby's company), The Bank of England, and "a sensational drama", Secrets of the Harem. March saw the start of grand Sunday concerts with engagements including the Grenadier Guards Band. |
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Above - Postcard for 'The Soldier's Wedding' at the Terriss Theatre 1906 - Courtesy Debbie Gosling. The Conquest lease lasted until the end of August, 1901, and then followed what must certainly have been the most outstanding epoch in the history of this theatre, its purchase by Walter and Frederick Melville and the start of their regime of full-blooded melodrama lasting until 1907. The two brothers, coming of theatrical stock, had a remarkable flair for writing a certain type of lurid melodrama mainly on the subject of dangerous or depraved women, or girls fighting heavy odds against villains, scoundrels, or maniacs in the squalid or vicious levels of London and the great cities. They turned out a flow of these plots and the famous productions so characteristic of their time were played with immense success at the Terriss as well as at the Standard, the Elephant and Castle, and a whole circuit of theatres, and in the West End. But by the early part of the century the more sophisticated West End audiences, except for the cheaper seats, were inclined to regard these passions torn to tatters with an increasing degree of curiosity and amusement. For years, however, such melodramas held their own at the lesser houses and thrilled innumerable audiences with their stories of pathos, crime, and the triumph of good over evil.
Above - Postcard for 'The Soldier's Wedding' at the Terriss Theatre 1906 - Courtesy Debbie Gosling. Let us recall the titles of some of these Melville classics as here staged-their titles are usually self-explanatory-and the names of the leading players: Between Two Women (1902); The Female Swindler, A Girl's Cross Roads (both 1903); Her Forbidden Marriage, A Disgrace to Her Sex, The Ugliest Woman on Earth (all 1904); The Soldier's Wedding (1906) (See postcards above); Her Road to Ruin (1907). The players included Ashley Page, Algernon Syms, Marion Denvil, Felix Pitt, Leonard Yorke, Violet Elliott, Olga Andre, Eva Dare (wife of Walter Melville), Newman Maurice, and Rule Pyott. The pantomimes of 1901 and 1902 were both by the Melvilles and entitled, respectively, Cinderella and St. George and the Dragon. Prices at the Terriss were suited to the locality and to the times, when the public, not sated with entertainment, flocked to avail themselves of what the living theatre offered and when an evening's enjoyment could be obtained, as here, from a dress circle seat at 2/- to a gallery seat at 4d. The brothers did not, of course, stage exclusively plays of their own authorship, and amongst presentations by other authors we select at random A London Actress by Emma Litchfield, a well-liked play which has enjoyed revivals up to the present time, Sailors of the King, a drama by F. Bateman, and When Other Lips, a melodrama by T. Arthur Jones. A new era opened late in 1907 when the theatre was sold to Walter Gibbons who, with considerable difficulty, obtained a licence for music and dancing, but excluding drinks, and in December the house reopened under the new name of the Rotherhithe Hippodrome for twice nightly variety. The London Theatre of Varieties Syndicate had been formed by this time and the Terriss under its new name, although frequently leased to other managements, appears to have been under the control of the syndicate for the rest of its history. Plays and full scale productions were by no means permanently lost to the house, but variety seems to have continued until 1918 (Under the management of Charles Gulliver. See programme below right - M.L.) The variety bill for the 1907 re-opening included Hackenschmidt, the famous strong man, and the bioscope. This last is significant, for it is said that cinema items were given here from the early days, usually on a Sunday, and during the variety period a bioscope turn was normally included in the bill.
Above - The Terriss Theatre, Rotherhithe, at the time of its opening.
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Right - Programme for 'The Red Heads' at the Rotherhithe Hippodrome under the management of Charles Gulliver, September 4th 1916 - Click to see entire programme. There was again a change of ownership at the end of 1921. and for the following two years revue held first place later giving way mainly to films and variety,. In July, 1923, the premises closed and a receiver was appointed; but by December they re-opened as a theatre under the management of Charles Gulliver (again - M.L.) with the very successful Dorothy Mullord company which appears mainly to have been in occupation until 1927, with melodrama once again taking pride of place. The company also included Donald Edwards, Herbert Evelyn, Dorrie Hemming, and Lillian Drake. By now the cinema as an entertainment had been thoroughly established for several years and stage melodrama was very much in decline, so it is of interest to mention the titles of a few of the offerings of the Mullord company which in themselves disclose a fair idea of the nature of the play. Thus we have The Sheik of Araby, A Mother Should Tell, The Face at the Window, The Unwanted Child, and The Lure of the Yellow Man.
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Above - The Rotherhithe Hippodrome in 1954 after extensive bomb damage to the area - From a photograph held by the Southwark Local Studies Library.
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Above - The site of the Rotherhithe Hippodrome in 2007 - Photo M.L.
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From the autumn of 1927 a policy of mixed variety and cinema lasted two years, until in June, 1929, talking pictures commenced, and from then on the house became almost exclusively a cinema. The premises closed in June, 1943, re-opening a few months later for a short final season of plays and variety. Soon after this the theatre closed and was damaged by enemy action; the building was not repaired and remained an empty shell until it was demolished in about 1955. So ended the life lasting less than half a century of a theatre little known outside its own neighbourhood, opened at a time when the thrill of melodrama still held provincial audiences in its grip, but soon having to contend with the growth of easy transport to the West End and changes of taste in entertainment. Closely following this came the immense and rapid spread of the cinema habit and the coming of sound pictures. Such was the line followed by the Terriss until it finally received its death blow in the war time raids. Text from 'The Story of the Terriss Theatre, Rotherhithe 1899 - 1943' by N. M. Bligh From Theatre World Magazine September 1961.The writer acknowledges gratefully the kind help of the staff of Bermondsey Central Library, the L.C.C. Architects' Department, Andrew Melville, Esq., and various correspondents. Also see Britain's Hippodrome Theatres on this site here...
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THERE
are few London theatres of the past for which it is not reasonably easy
to obtain some measure of information, however sketchy, by consulting
standard books and literature. But there is at least one, opened and
closed within living memory, for which these sources may be searched
in vain. We refer to the Terriss Theatre, Rotherhithe.
The
audience was said to have numbered 5,000, which seems more than an exaggeration,
but "no vacant seat" is not surprising. The first succeeding
run of shows, mainly by the Henry Dundas company, whose leading lady
was Maud Elmore, were of a type finding great favour at the time and
were, in order, Thou Shalt Not Kill, A Life of Pleasure (military drama),
The Harbour Lights (one of William Terriss's greatest successes), Paul
Jones (nautical comic opera), Cheer, Boys Cheer, Alone in London, and
East Lynne, with Maud Elmore as Lady Isobel. At Christmas there was
Augustus Harris's 
