WELLS, Ware, 1885-1890

February, 2008

Lynn Morris (lyndy_snowbird31 @t hotmail.co.uk) of Thrapston, Northamptonshire, writes: I am researching my family history and have found in census returns for 1891 and 1901 that two of my ancestors married women from Ware and Amwell in Hertfordshire.  also checked free BMD for marriages. The family name is Wells, George Wells married Susan Bowman from Ware in Q3 1888 and Frank Clement Wells married Alice Wallis from Amwell in Q3 1888, (although the latter couple didn't marry in Herts).  The two men were brothers.  George and Susan's first child Leonard was born in Ware in 1888.  Their sister Margaret Daisy Wells also married in Ware but to a man from Rushden, Northamptonshire by the name of Samuel Denton in Q4 1886.

My question to you is this, our family had a travelling theatre company usually known as the Wells Pavilion Theatre Company or Wells Portable Theatre, and were very hard to track, but must have stayed in Ware Hertfordshire on numerous occasions.  I wondered if you have any way of finding out about the whereabouts of this theatre during the later part of the 1880's, say from 1885 - 1890.  Did you have particular feast days, fairs, carnivals etc where showmen gathered, as our theatre has been known to be in the same place as fairgrounds at times.  They often posted theatre bills in shops and other useful areas, they produced silk programs for some of their performances and were known for putting on plays and shows including Drama, Comedy, Shakespeare, and Musical Items.  When in towns some of them stayed in lodging houses or Inns and the rest of the family stayed in caravans on suitable pieces of land.  Most of the actors and musicians were family members and the whole thing was managed by my gt gt grandfather Joseph Wells.

I am trying to find anything such as newspaper items, memorabilia or advertisements to suggest the theatre was in your area about those times.  Sometimes they rented theatre buildings and stayed for a few months and other times they moved with fairs etc and built there stage on the backs of wagons under the 'tilt' with the help of local carpenters and only stayed a few days. 

I would be very grateful for any help you can provide or any suggestions as to where I might search next.

Lynn also provided some images relating to the theatre and the following silk programme, which was apparently given to people who were sent complementary tickets, refers to the mayors of St Albans and Hertford being patrons,

Lynn also provided a photocopy of a newspaper article, published circa 1955, which reports the memories of a Mrs Jesse Bird who had taken juvenile parts many years before. The relevant parts are:

A Line of wagons trundling into the High Street one morning in the 1880s brought Rushden [Northamptonshire] its first theatre. On an open piece of ground ... carpenters set to work putting up the portable playhouse of the Wells Pavilion Theatre Company. The stage was built on wagons with a supporting pole at the back. It stood in the Rectory garden. In the covered auditorium were plush-lined walls and plush seats, with both stalls and boxes - price 6d and 1s. And every night for three months Rushden packed in to enjoy a repertoire ranging from Shakespearean tragedy to Victorian melodrama. ...

The Wells Pavilion was always a family affair. It grew from one of the "penny gaffs" of the fairground. Joseph Wells ... brought the portable theatre some 75 years ago circa [1880] and took his family - three generations of them - on tour. It was one of the biggest theatres of its kind. In these days of patronage it boasted a list of patrons "too numerous to mention." ...

There was a different programme for every night of the three month run. "Hamlet" took its turn with musical comedy and melodramas were the favourites. Lord Lytton [of Knebworth]'s "The Lady of Lyons, or Love and Pride," and "Ten nights in a Bar Room" ... were typical attractions. But best of all was "Maria Marten or Murder in the Red Barn." The story is told by Mrs Bird that a performance of "Maria" by the  Wells Company actually closed down Sangers Circus one night when the two shows were on at the same time. A five piece orchestra accompanied the entertainment - first and second violin, piano, cornet and piccolo.

Twice the Wells Pavilion came back to Rushden. ... Three rival portable theatres also visited Rushden about the same time - Demay, the Whitney Company and Harry Farris. Some 50 years ago [circa 1905] the Wells Company amalgamated with Harry Farris and the old Pavillion Theatre was sold somewhere in North Wales.

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Knowing what king of "animal" the theatre was, and the fact that it might have been in St Albans in 1888, I decided to have a quick scan through my collection of photocopies of the Herts Advertiser to see if by chance I had copied something about the theatre "by accident". To my surprise I found the following brief entry.

Obviously it is the wrong theatre - but it demonstrates that mobile theatres were visiting St Albans in 1888. Perhaps more importantly it reminded me that they need to be licensed as places of public entertainment under the Theatres Act 1843.

Scanning about 5 years I saw no other reference to a portable theatre or to a circus - but as my sample must be much less than 1% of the paper over this period - and the collection was made with other interests in mind this is not surprising. The search showed regular reports of local charity events and the occasional visiting actors for short performances at St Albans Town Hall and other permanent venues. One entry, while relating to a visiting performance in a permanent licensed hall, suggest one other type of official record which would be relevant to a travelling family troop.

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A first sight looking for information and ephemera relating to the theatre, and its performances, is like looking for a needle in a haystack, but it would seem that the theatre company could be considered to be a large extended family moving around together. I carried out a quick (and incomplete) search of the 1881 and 1891 censuses for some of the members of the theatre, and combined with the information above came up with the following provisional list of locations:

[In the following table The Era entries were added in June 2012, and are discussed below.]

You may well be able to add further lines to the above table from information you have already gathered. Some of the dates and places need confirming by buying the relevant birth or marriage certificates. It is possible that the troop was always around for the marriages - particularly if both bride and groom were members of the troop. Births may be less certain - but almost certainly indicate the general area where the troop was based. By looking through the complete census returns for Stony Stratford in 1881 and Sutton in Ashfield in 1891 you will almost certainly find other members of the troop in caravans or in lodgings (sometimes identified by occupation) and this may suggest other locations for marriages and births. You could also look to see if you could trace the theatre (or its predecessor/successor) by looking at the 1871 and 1901 censuses. (I haven't done this, but in looking for John Clements I noted that he was in lodgings in Wales in 1871.)

One problem, of course, is that you will get a large number of leads to many different parts of the country, involving different records offices, etc. and how far you go depends on how much effort you want to put into the research. On the other hand there could be a number of museums which have, for example, posters or other ephemera in their collections about which they know virtually nothing. For instance they may not know that it involved a portable theatre. I am sure they would be happy to provide you with a copy in return for information on the nature of the theatre troop.

I could make many more suggestions but at this stage I would suggest that you concentrate on the Hertfordshire connection. You have three datable events linked to Ware (from birth/marriage certificates), and pointed to visits to nearby Hertford and also to St Albans. Wycombe is not far over the Hertfordshire border into Bucks and Northamptonshire is not too far away. It may well be that for reasons linked to the short days and inclement weather, portable theatres had an "off season" in the same way a circuses. If so the theatre would have needed a winter base where they could maintain their equipment, prepare new plays, etc., and it may well be that this base was in Hertfordshire - possibly near Ware.

This looks like a very exciting project and I would be delighted if you could keep me informed of progress.

Lynn commented: Although you haven't really told me much that I didn't already know about the people involved, i.e. births marriages etc, you have given me some food for thought and a few leads to follow up that I had not thought off.  And incidentally Thomas Young married Emma Wells, they married in Droitwich on October 15th 1879.  I have a copy of their marriage certificate.  Frank Clement Wells actually changed his name from Joseph Wells sometime between 1881 and 1891.  By 1901 census most of the Wells family were out of the theatre and had gone their separate ways.  We are now trying to trace family of the younger members of the family to see if we can make contact with any living relatives.  I must admit I hadn't thought of looking for other members of the theatre in 1901 to see if any of them were still in the business then, or where they may have settled, if not.

I am glad you found it useful. I included information you already knew because I feel that the answer will help other people to research their mobile families - and in order to serve as an example it is necessary to include enough background information.

March, 2008

Having never investigated licensing records (beyond noting some as reported in local newspapers) I decided to find out how they worked - starting with an attempt to local the court records the Excelsior reference quoted above - which could suggest where one might look for records of the visits of the Wells portable theatre to Hertfordshire. Having failed to find any reference to Portable Theatres on HALS online catalogue I wrote to them for advice and got the following very helpful reply.

November 2010		Information from Luarence