The Holborn Empire (1857 - 1941)
Dates
- Existence: 1857 - 1941
- Usage: 1857 - 1868
- Usage: 1868
- Usage: 1892
Biography
Weston's Music Hall opened on 16 November 1857 in High Holborn, London. By 1906, it was popularly known as The Holborn Empire.
The theatre was constructed on the site of the Six Cans and Punch Bowl tavern and the former National Holborn Schoolrooms by Edward Weston.
In 1868, it was renamed the Royal Music Hall, and in 1892 the Royal Holborn Theatre of Varieties.
By the early 1900s the Holborn started to decline and in 1905 it was sold to variety impresario Walter Gibbons, who contracted Frank Matcham to refurbish it the following year. Gibbons renamed the theatre The Holborn Empire.
The Holborn offered a programme of variety acts and moving pictures. It showed the first full-length feature film in 1914, entitled The World, the Flesh and the Devil.
The Holborn was destroyed by a bomb during Wold War Two and laid derelict until 1960 when it was demolished.
Found in 2 Collections and/or Records:
Holborn Empire, High Holborn, W.C. Poster, Commencing Monday 1 April c.1912
The Holborn Empire Programme, 19 February 1906
Black type on light brown background with floral illustration and illustration of theatre stage on the front cover, inside commercial advertising and programme listing Fred Karno's Company, Jail Birds, The Mezzettis, J.P. Ling, Jordan & Harvey, Tom Costello, The Poluski Brothers, The Carlyles, Gladys Mavius, Virginia & Piccaninnies, The Tramp's Dream on the bioscope, Miss Camilla Dalberg & Co., and sheet music for I Want to Get Away Back Home song, 4p.p.