Ey Up Shakespeare!

Showcasing the Archives of Northern Broadsides Theatre Company

To mark the publication of the archive catalogue of Northern Broadsides Theatre Company (collection ref. U DNBR), an exhibition of items from the collection is now on display in the Hull History Centre Local Studies Library.

Display cabinet in the library

The theatre company Northern Broadsides was founded in 1992 by Hull-born Barrie Rutter who became its first Artistic Director. The company is based at Dean Clough Mill, Halifax, and is famous for performing Shakespearean, classical works and new writing in a Northern Voice. The company is especially known for its Shakespearean productions, its first ever production being ‘Richard III’ with the titular king being portrayed with a strong northern accent. Other productions through the years have covered a wide variety of writers, genres and styles from Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘The Tempest’ and ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, to Ted Hughes’ ‘Alcestis’, Blake Morrison’s ‘The Cracked Pot’, Tony Harrison’s ‘The Mysteries’, and Alan Plater’s ‘Sweet William’. The company performs shows at their theatre in Halifax, on nationwide tours to local venues such as Hull Truck Theatre, and they have also performed internationally. 

The company’s archives, held by Hull University Archives at the Hull History Centre, contains a wealth of information relating to all the company’s productions from 1992 to 2018. There are production files relating to each individual production, with highlights amongst the records including wardrobe books, scripts and promotional material. Other material includes production correspondence, photographs, reviews, props lists, touring schedules, cast lists, rehearsal notes and prompt books. There are also administrative files within the collection containing press cuttings, Northern Broadsides publications, and general promotional material.

Page from the wardrobe book for 'Macbeth'

On display in our Library exhibition are a wardrobe book for a staging of ‘Macbeth’ (2002), which contains colourful draft costume designs with fabric samples, and a provocatively designed theatre programme for the play ‘Lisa’s Sex Strike’ (2007) by Blake Morrison. There are also production photographs for stagings of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ (2000) and ‘The Man with Two Gaffers’ (2006). Other items include an advertising poster for ‘1984’ by George Orwell and publicity material for a double-bill production of ‘Comedy of Errors’ by William Shakespeare and ‘Sweet William’ by Alan Plater.

Detail of one of the display cabinets

The Northern Broadsides archives is an ideal collection for anyone interested in studying local professional theatre companies or local actors, and compliments the University archives’ other drama collections, including those of local playwrights Alan Plater (ref. U DPR), John Godber (ref. U DJG), and Richard Bean (ref. U DRBE). We also have you covered if you’re interested in local theatre venues, actors and drama groups. Hull History Centre is home to a vast number of theatre programmes and playbills for local venues such as Hull New Theatre and its many predecessors. There are also collections dedicated to local theatre companies and drama groups including Humberside Theatre in Education (ref. U DHE) and Kingston upon Hull New Theatre Company (ref. C TFNT).

The catalogue for U DNBR can be found on our online catalogue.

For more information about our theatre and drama collections, please see our online guides:

Literature, poetry and drama

Literature, theatre and drama source guide (PDF)

A Woman and her Typewriter - Historical Perspectives in the Letters of Lady Constance Wenlock

On the 14th January 1926 Lady Constance Wenlock (nee Lascelles) writes from the family home at Escrick Park, Yorkshire, to her daughter, Irene Constance Lawley who is residing in India with her husband, Colin Forbes Adam, a British Civil Servant working for the Indian Civil Service:

...when I am dead, or before any wet day or empty evening, you can read anything you like of letters kept and of my letters that have been returned to me by executors. I have destroyed everything that ought not to be read either on my account of someone elses. [U DDFA3/6/1/257]

Earlier in 1921 she writes:

I am afraid my very interior life must make very dull letters. But if you are leading an interior life the minutest details of it will not seem dull to me, I should like to know what you are playing and what you are reading. Of course, most of all what you are thinking and feeling, and you have a happy knack of generally letting that transpire. It runs easily from the tip of your pen. [U DDFA3/6/1/65]

Written between the wars, and far from ‘dull’, the letters of artist and writer of poetry, Lady Constance Wenlock reveal much about an unstable period in history seen through the eyes of a fascinating, imaginative woman with aristocratic connections.

Equipped with her typewriter and ear trumpet, she not only writes at length about politics, the partition of Ireland, Socialism, Russia and strikes but also about men, women, love and relationships, childbirth, birth control, and art and literature. However, almost 100 years later, and armed with our knowledge of history, her candid expressions regarding herself and her acquaintances, also reveal the stories of those who were not part of that privileged, affluent society. Amongst the engaging gossip, philosophies of life, love and political ideologies, the polite conversation also exposes classist and racist attitudes, and a chilling endorsement of eugenics.

In some ways these letters become a form of ‘skeleton diary’, like that which Constance advised Irene to keep as a record 'for future generations':

Extract from letter, 6 Jan 1924 [U DDFA3/6/1/214]

For the purposes of this blog I have selected a small number of letters from the collection that I hope do indeed help ‘reconstruct’ her life and that of the period for future researchers.

The Mirror Inside Me

Focussing on letters written between 1921 and 1924 we can begin with this letter from Constance at the age of 71, as she reflects on her life as woman, revealing a sense of regret that she has not achieved all that she wished, but she is fulfilled by the happiness of her daughter and her love of painting.

My darling I do understand all you feel about ambitions. I used to think just the same only with extra vehemence because in the 70s and the 80s of the last century there was more opposition to the idea of a woman having any vocation, beyond being a wife and a mother and a housekeeper. I was determined to be not only an artist but a philosopher, a litterateur, a poet, a novelist. Then I had ambition for making society, for creating a salon. I succeeded in nothing, but now it is curious that I do not mind. I feel now that if you are happy, I do not want anything else. (Extract from letter, 31 Oct 1923 [U DDFA3/6/1/190])

A year later, despite the effects of aging and struggles with increasing deafness, she is still driven by her love of painting:

Extract from letter, 16 Mar 1924 [UDDFA3/6/1/232]

Women and Men, Love and Relationships

The letters cover many subjects, but one of the most engaging aspects of her writing are her contemplations on women and men, love and relationships. Reading them almost 100 year later it is easy to get drawn into her world, as if she is a fictional character from a classic novel of the early twentieth century. In fact, the letters very much lend themselves to a character study for a book, or a film or stage production. It’s easy to imagine them as a one woman play, a solo tour-de-force, with the letters as the script.

To her daughter, Constance often reflects on the pain endured by women and motherhood:

Extract from letter, 11 Apr 1923 [U DDFA3/6/1/71]

Extract from letter, Jan 1923 [U DDFA3/6/1/57]

It is also interesting to see how open Constance is with her daughter when discussing intimate relationships between men and women, often including references to acquaintances, in gossip-like assessments. We have to remember these letters were originally addressed to Irene privately and not meant for public view and, in that sense, they are a valuable insight into the private thoughts of a woman of her time.

Extract from letter, 9 May 1921 [U DDFA3/6/1/74]

Constance values her female friends and finds them ‘the most indispensable’, particularly those founded on ‘admiration’. She indicates her annoyance with recently married Margaret Talbot who ‘patronisingly’ suggests otherwise, as the following quote illustrates:

Perhaps you have not been very fortunate in your men friends and she insisted that a man friend was always worth a hundred of a woman friend. I said rather sharply "if by men friends you mean lovers, of course that may matter most, but if you mean friends literally as a friend it is rare that a man can be as much to one and as close to one as a woman" (Extract from letter, 15 May 1923 [U DDFA3/6/1/153])

Childbirth, Twilight Sleep, Chloroform and Cocaine, and Horse-Riding as Birth Control

Of particular value to researchers might be the letters which record Constance’s recollections of the experiences of women around this period as regards childbirth, pain relief, and how women dealt with the lack of birth control:

Extract from letter, 30 Apr 1923 [U DDFA3/6/1/152]

In the following letters Constance indicates she may also have been given cocaine as pain relief, and there is an indication that pain relief varies according to a woman’s income:

[11 Apr 1921, U DDFA3/6/1/71]

Extract from letter, 19 Apr 1921 [U DDFA3/6/1/73]

There is also an interesting account speculating on the use of horse-riding to provoke miscarriage as a form of birth control. The letter then evolves into comments about her ‘ugly’ aunt. There are other instances in the collection that demonstrate Constance’s willingness to share her thoughts on anyone she regards as ugly, including children:

Extract from letter, 18 July 1923 [U DDFA3/6/1/168]

Fear and Politics in the Interwar Years

The interwar years, during which these letters are written, saw the collapse of the Liberal Party, and Labour becoming the main opposition to the Conservative Party. Women over 30 had received the vote in 1918, providing they met certain property qualifications. Resistance to British rule led to the partition of Ireland in 1921, the Russian Revolution paved the way for Communism, the land-owning aristocracy were in decline and the number of men killed in World War I had impacted the workforce. Lady Constance Wenlock found it difficult to find good quality servants, and we can see that political events of the time led her to fear for the future and, although she has some concern for the poor, this is selective:

Extract from letter, 18 Apr 1923 [U DDFA3/6/1/150]

In the same letter, Constance continues:

I have never appreciated warmth and comfort in my life as I have all this winter while thinking about homeless people of Ireland.

Extract from letter, 25 Apr 1923 [U DDFA3/6/1/151]

Extract from letter, 23 Mar 1923 [U DDFA3/6/1/145]

Constance writes extensively about the situation in Ireland and the 1921 Miner’s Strike. The letters give an insight into how these events are perceived at the time by gentry, landowners, and those close to the aristocracy. They also indicate she is aware of her privileged position in society. 

As to taking care of myself, I feel ashamed to be so comfortable when almost everyone is in a state of acute privation. (Extract from letter, 9 May 1921 [U DDFA3/6/1/77])

However, it would seem Lady Wenlock would not consider education, or the introduction of dole, as a solution to hardship, and voices an admiration of Mussolini:

Extract from letter, 16 Mar 1924 [U DDFA3/6/1/232]

Extract from letter, 10 Dec 1923 [U DDFA3/6/1/202]

Extract from letter, 23 Mar 1923 [U DDFA3/6/1/145]

Extract from letter, 10 Dec 1923 [U DDFA3/6/1/202]

Class and the Poor Little Kitchen Maid

Throughout this collection of letters there is a lot of material that would support research into perceptions of class during this period, or indeed, how some of these attitudes perpetuate today in a society where inequalities persist.

Lady Wenlock laments the erosion of class distinctions:

Extract from letter, 3 Jun 1923 [U DDFA3/6/1/158]

Also contained in the letters is a detailed account of a ‘poor little kitchen maid’, accused of being pregnant. The 16 year old girl is not referred to by name and has been sent to work for Lady Wenlock from St Hilda’s industrial school for girls in York:

Extract from letter, 23 Sept 1923 [U DDFA3/6/1/184]

Lady Wenlock would refer to the quality of employees sent from St Hilda’s again, this time suggesting the problems arise from inherited qualities:

Extract from letter, 25 Feb 1924 [U DDFA3/6/1/228]

‘The Very Low Type’ - A Warning From History

The letters make for uncomfortable reading when Lady Constance Wenlock recommends a book to her daughter, ‘The Revolt against Civilisation’ by Lothrop Stoddard. Stoddard was an American advocate of eugenics, a white supremacist and member of the Ku Klux Klan, whose work inspired the Nazis. This letter, written in 1924 is particularly chilling as an acquaintance suggests ‘a lethal chamber’ as ‘a way of doing good’ and Constance also reaches the conclusion ‘that multitudes ought to be killed off’ although she ‘cannot say how it is to be done.’

Extract from letter, 21 Jan 1924 [U DDFA3/6/1/217]

Lady Constance Wenlock died aged 80 in August 1932. She would not live to see where eugenics ideology and experiments with ‘lethal chambers’ would take the world just 7 years later.

CASE STUDY: ‘DO YOU REMEMBER THE ‘BLACKAMOOR AT HAREWOOD’

By highlighting a number of letters in this collection, I hope to have demonstrated how the voice of one woman, and her candid personal accounts, can aid researchers and creative writers in uncovering real lives and lived experiences of the period. One particular letter written on the 6th January 1924 became an important piece of the jigsaw in research by Audrey Dewjee for the ‘Historycal Roots’ project, which aimed ‘to raise awareness of the black and mixed heritage people who have played a part in shaping society.’ Bertie worked as a footman for the Lascelles family at Harewood House. After stealing £50 Bertie was forced to leave his employment. The reasons why he stole the money are revealed in this letter written by Constance on the 6th January 1924.

Extract from letter, 6 Jan 1924 [U DDFA3/6/1/214]

The research of ‘Historycal Roots’ would lead to an exhibition at Harewood House about George ‘Bertie’ Robinson and uncover the story of what happened to Bertie and his child after leaving Harewood. You can read about the research here: Bertie Robinson of Harewood House.

You can read more about Lady Constance's daughter Irene in the blog Nursing in a Crisis: Irene Lawley and the Escrick Park Auxiliary Military Hospital.

Andrea Lamb (Archives Customer Experience Advisor)

Agriculture to Archive: A history of Mason Street and the site of the History Centre

 Image: The History Centre prior to 

opening, 2009. Mike Park,

University of Hull

To celebrate 15 years of the History Centre, we will look at the past peoples and uses of the land on which it now sits. As it is today, on Worship Street the centre opened its doors to the public on the 25 January 2010. However, before the collections arrived here, they had been held in separate institutions across the city. The city’s collections had come from no. 79 Lowgate, a site some of the staff today remember well. Prior to this they had been held at the Guildhall from 1913 and before that the town hall in the 1860s. (P. Lever, ‘Paid eight guinuyes for an index’: the origins of the Hull History Centre, Archives & Records, vol. 34, no. 1, p. 95-100, 2013). The local studies collections came from Hull Central Library which had been collecting material since its inception in 1894. Whereas the university collections had been held at the Brynmor Jones Library since 1960 and before that were held in the old science and refectory building on campus since 1929.

The new building was built to house the repositories of these three collections and today the service provides a single point of access for anyone with in interest in the city’s history.

The land on which the History Centre now sits, likely started life belonging to the Carthusian Priory and Charterhouse (also known as Gods House Hospital). However, at the dissolution in 1536 the priory lands were taken over by the Corporation of Hull but the hospital survived in its own right with its own lands until 1552 when its patronage was also taken over by the Corporation. Many of the priory buildings also survived the dissolution and some were inhabited by prominent local families, whilst the lands were also sold off.

It is not, however, until the mid-1600s that we can match a name to the specific site of History Centre, Charles Vaux, the town clerk. On his death in 1680 his lands passed to his family, evidenced an early survey of Sculcoates, dated 1691. This along with deeds held in the collection reveals that the land was owned by Mercy Vaux, likely Charles’ daughter who also owned several other plots around the Charterhouse (see image below).

Image: A Survey of Sculcoates, 1691, showing the lands owned by “Vaux” highlighted in red and
the land the History Centre sits on bordered in black.
Ref: C DOX/18, Hull History Centre. 

These lands along with others totalling around 25 acres passed to a merchant from Boston, John Wood of Boston, through marriage in 1685. In 1697 they were released to Hugh Mason collector of Customs in Hull for £742.10s, around £115,000 today. The lands encompassing the History Centre were described as:

...close within the moats and walls where the Charterhouse lately stood…with the moats and ponds about it ''all which grounds sometimes was called .. the site compasse circuit and precincts of the late Priory or howse of the Carthusians' near Hull;

- U DDKE/12/7, Hull University Archives, Hull History Centre

By 1731 the land in possession of Hugh Mason (marked red on the below plan), that surrounded the current History Centre is described in a bit more detail:

…brick messuage covered with tiles, stable and shade house, large garden or orchard with a long garden wall for fruit trees, 3 closes of meadow and a stable, all in Sculcoates, lying within a great gate or portico and parcel of the site of the Charterhouse…

- U DDJE/12/9, Hull University Archives, Hull History Centre

These gardens, meadows and pastures can be seen below in a plan of Hull made in 1715. You can also begin to see the field boundaries that would later define some of the streets we know today. 

Image: A plan of Hull by Wollner, 1715 with additions. Ref: C DOX/33, Hull History Centre.

When the Hull Dock Company acquired the land to construct what would become Queens Dock, now Queens Gardens in 1772, including some of the Mason’s property, there resided a bowling green. It ran north from Princess Row, now Charlotte Street Mews and across what would become Mason Street and the History Centre. 

Image: Plan of the grounds purchased by the Dock Company in Sculcoates, 1772, showing the bowling green that ran under the History Centre, with additions. Ref: C DOX/19, Hull History Centre.  

The bowling green subsequently moved west off Albion Street and much of the Mason’s land was tenanted by a man named Joseph French of Sculcoates. French was gardener, seedsman and nurseryman by trade who worked for the Master of the Charterhouse, John Clarke in the 1760s. It is not known exactly when French took tenancy of the ground but from at least 1775 it was known as Frenche’s Gardens (C WT/4/16, Hull History Centre). 

The gardens covered almost 12 acres stretching from the Hull Dock Company Wall in the South, to the lands of John Jarratt in the West, to the north by Peter Middleton and the charthouse in the East, extending to Paradise Row (See plan below). French would have supplied vegetables from his gardens to many living in Hull, including the Mayor.

Image: Receipt for vegetables
from Joseph French, 1777. Ref:
C DMT/4/464, Hull History Centre.

From the record you can see the types of items grown and supplied by French, such as raspberries, strawberries, soup herbs, carrots, turnips, horseradish, beans, kidney beans, peas, cauliflowers and flowers. Perhaps even from the site of the History Centre today!

French vacated the ground in 1788 (L.9.7, History of the Streets of Hull, Hull History Centre) but it continued to be known as Frenche’s Gardens. Still in the hands of the Masons, specifically, Rev. William Mason of Hull, (grandson to Hugh Mason) well known poet and Canon of York who sold the land in 1796 to Joseph Sykes of Kirk Ella (related to the Sykes of Sledmere). Joseph began to sell off portions of the gardens for building 6 months later, and over the next decade most of the ground had been fully covered, apart from a few small sections. 

Image: Anderson’s plan of Hull, 1814, showing the rough
area that was Frenche’s Gardens and the location of the
History Centre. Ref: C DPD/2/13/2, Hull History Centre

You can see from the plan above, dated 1814, how much of the area had been built upon but the earliest reference to Mason Street occurs in 1800 by which time there were already properties present along the new road. The buildings constructed on Mason Street, Sykes Street, Princess Street and Bourne Street, were at this time rather deceptive from the exterior. The outer facing buildings were often larger and nicer than those of the inner courts and alleys, many of which were below street level and accessed by stairs from the main street which were sandwiched between the larger buildings. 

Many of the early occupants of these exterior houses were gentlemen, merchants, and master mariners who were looking for housing outside the cramped old town but still close to the docks. The History Centre itself occupies the premises of what was, no. 1-12 Mason Street, 1-2 Chapel Court, 1 & 11 James’s Place, 1-2 Robsons Place, 3 & 13 Williams Square, 1-2 & 10-12 Catherine Square and lastly 19-21 Worship Street.

Image: Ordnance Survey Map, 1853, showing the location of the History Centre in black. Ref: Hull History Centre.

Around the time the above map was surveyed the following families lived on the site: 

Image: Residents on the site of the History Centre on Mason Street in 1851.

The Sherwins, Medds, Walkers and Lees would be living in what is today the library and archive store. The Bromby, Caley, Clark, Thompson, Wright, Kirkins and Bibbing families would be in what is now the lecture theatre and archive store. The Jacks, Grant, Brown, Pullan, Madison and Elwood families would be in what is the cataloguing room, staff offices and archive store.

You can see from the occupations that the inner courts and squares were mostly occupied by the working-class families. The street also had its own pub, called the Lord Raglan which emerged in the 1830s and closed in the 1930s. It stood in what is today the cataloguing room where many of the archivists and assistants carry out their work, though there is a strict no eating and drinking policy, far different from the pub that once stood here! There was a second pub close by at no. 19 Worship Street, the Starr Inn, which also closed in the 1930s, and would have been located where the microfilm readers are in the library today.

Over the coming decades the squares and courts became increasingly packed with residents as the city grew. By 1901 there were almost 200 people living in the five courts and squares where the history centre sits. In 1885, the Housing of the Working Classes Act was passed which allowed local authorities to condemn unsafe housing and led to the pulling down of thousands of dwellings deemed unsuitable for living. Prior to this however, many of the streets and properties were photographed. The following image shows how Mason Street looked during the early 1900’s. 

Image: Photo merge view of the houses on Mason Street that were once situated where the History Centre now is. Ref: L THP/408, 761, 860-863. Hull History Centre. 

The council would never get the chance to purchase and rebuild housing in this area as was done with many of the so called “slum clearances” in the city. This was due to the heavy bombing Hull received during the Second World War which would see the area drastically changed.

Several bombs dropped on and around Mason Street during the war, the first two being on the 8-9 May 1941 and the last on 23/24 June 1943. The image below shows some of the damage to the area.

Image: A view of Mason Street by the junction with Bourne
Street, showing the bomb damage, 15 Sep 1941.
Ref: C TSP.3.429.31, Hull History Centre.

Despite the last bomb dropping in the area in 1943, much of the site had been levelled and cleared by mid-1942. Two years later, the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act was passed which aimed to provide large numbers of homes quickly and economically, due to the severity with which Hull was bombed these “Prefabs” as they would be known were common sites across the city for decades after the war. 

Image: The site of the History Centre and surrounding area
cleared of housing, 1946. Ref: Aerial Mosaic Maps, 0929 SE,
Hull History Centre.

Image: View of prefabs looking down Worship Street towards
the Old English Gentlemen, 1947. Ref: C TSP.3.652.16,
Hull History Centre.

There were initially 43 prefabs on the site between Mason and Sykes Street which were completed by the end of 1947. Though the prefabs were small there were only three situated where the History Centre is today, as opposed to the twenty-four residences that were here previously.

Some of the early residents on the site of the History Centre in 1948 were:

• Joseph William Bowie a brass finisher and his wife Harriet.

• Harold E. Stretton, his wife Lillian and daughter Pauline. 

• Fred Eggleton a paint and distemper mixer, his wife Marjorie a gas tap assembler and their two             children, Michael and Peter.

Some of the prefabs remained on the site until the early 1980s, when the new northern orbital route, also known as Freetown Way was constructed. Built to help divert traffic away from the city centre, it was named after Hull’s twin city, Freetown in Sierra Leone. The first section of the road from Beverley Road to Worship Street was completed in April 1986. The new road cut the site of Sykes Street, Worship Street, Mason Street and Princes Street in half and the tenants of the remaining prefabs on site were rehoused within the city. The area immediately to the south of Freetown Way became a car park, known as Mason Street Car Park.

By the late 1990s, the city, university and local studies collections were all running out of room in their respective organisations. Consequently, in the early 2000’s surveys were carried out for the possibility of a new archive and history centre in the city that would house all 3. It had to be close to the museum quarter and some of Hulls other main attractions such as the theatre. It also had to have good public transport links to the city and Paragon Station. There were not many options at the time, but the site of Mason Street Car Park was chosen as it fulfilled all of the criteria.

The car park remained in place until the land was cleared in preparation for the new History Centre which began construction in 2006/2007. After construction finished in 2009 the centre was opened a year later. Now after 15 years of serving not just the city and people of Hull but national and international researchers the history centre has seen almost 400,000 visitors pass through its doors, with many more to follow! 

Image: (Left) A view of Mason Street Car Park, 2003. Ref: The GeoInformation Group, Google Earth, Google, 31/12/2003. (Right) A view of the History Centre, 2022. Ref: Google Earth, Google, 22/06/2022