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Holloway Theatre Company (c1830 - 1943)

 Organisation

Dates

  • Existence: 1830 - 1943

Biography

The Holloway's Theatre Company was an itenerant family theatre. The company travelled mainly around the Midlands, North Wales, Yorkshire and some part of Lincolnshire. In the early days, they followed the annual calendar of fairs and feast until the 1860s when the popularity of the fairs started to fade and they moved their business to village halls, music halls and theatres. When at the fair, they travelled a portable booth, consisting of wooden shutters bolted together and a canvas roof to shelter the audience from the weather. Two wagons drawn across the front formed the promenade where they paraded in costume to attract customers.

Throughout its history the Holloway theatre played hundreds of plays and wrote versions and adaptations of their own. The theatre thrived until the 1930s when the business started to dwindle partly due to the Great Depression and partly because of the devastating effect the cinema had on travelling entertainments. The last record of a performance by the The Holloways is at Hatton's Village Hall near Burton-on-Trent in 1943.

Found in 15 Collections and/or Records:

Business Records , 1888 - 1991

 File — Box Holloway Family Box 1
Reference code: 178H44
Scope and Contents

Business records related to theatre performances including six diaries of performances and four hand written play scripts entitled Buffalo Bill, Hindle Wakes, A Beautiful Criminal and King's Romance, a typed list of plays, a questionnaire for a G.V.5 permission request, a photocopy of Holloway's theatre floor plan and a letter, and a business card for Mona Holloway versitile actress and authoress. Also a floor plan of Hull Fair and a ground reference list of showmen.

Dates: 1888 - 1991

Holloway Family Collection

 Fonds
Reference code: NFA0210
Content Description

Business records related to the fairground and theatre, posters and photographs of performers and showmen.

Dates: c1880 - 1993

Holloway Theatre Posters, c1880 - 1920

 Series
Reference code: 178R62
Scope and Contents

Posters advertising plays at the Holloway Theatre.

Dates: c1880 - 1920

Holloway’s Great ‘Number One’ Pavilion of Varieties Poster, c1880 - 1920

 Item
Reference code: 178R62.2
Scope and Contents

Bredon Road, Tewkesbury. Black type on orange background listing the plays. Green Bushes, Fettered at Last, My Sweetheart, Mother's Dying Child, Esmeralda, Cavaliers & Roundheads or the Days of Oliver Cromwell. Printed by William North, 139 High Street.

Dates: c1880 - 1920

Holloway’s Great ‘Number One’ Pavilion of Varieties Poster, c1880 - 1920

 Item
Reference code: 178R62.3
Scope and Contents

Bredon Road, Tewkesbury. Black type on pink background listing the plays. Lady Audley's Secret or the Muder in the Lime Tree Walk, Cottage in the Holly or The Widow's Wrong, Life of the Ocean Wave.

Dates: c1880 - 1920

Holloway’s Great ‘Number One’ Pavilion of Varieties Poster, c1880 - 1920

 Item
Reference code: 178R62.4
Scope and Contents

Bredon Road, Tewkesbury. Black type on green background listing the plays. The Shaughraun, The Innkeeper of Abberville or The Ostler and the Robber, Dead Hang or The Will Forger, Silver King, Staff of Diamonds, Idiot of the Mountain.

Dates: c1880 - 1920

Holloway’s Great ‘Number One’ Pavilion of Varieties Poster, c1880 - 1920

 Item
Reference code: 178R62.5
Scope and Contents

Bredon Road, Tewkesbury. Black type on orange background listing the plays. Aurora Floyd or The Dark Deed in the Wood, Nobody's Child or The Stolen Fortune, The Orphans or The Blind Girl of Paris, The Unknown a River Mystery, Life's Cross Roads or Treachery Exposed, Grean Hills of the Far West, laughable farce. Printed by william North, 139 High Street Twekesbury.

Dates: c1880 - 1920

Holloway’s Great ‘Number One’ Pavilion of Varieties Poster, c1880 - 1920

 Item
Reference code: 178R62.6
Scope and Contents

Bredon Road, Tewkesbury. Black type on green background listing the plays. Streets of London, Jenny Foster or The Winter Robin, Leah or The Jewish Maiden's Curse, Called Back of A Blind Man's Story, Mistletoe Bough or The Mystery of the Old Oak Chest, Dumb Girl of Genoa, Robert Macaire or The Two French Jack Sheppards, laughable farce. Printed by William North, 139 High Street, Twekesbury.

Dates: c1880 - 1920

Holloway’s Great ‘Number One’ Pavilion of Varieties Poster, c1880 - 1920

 Item
Reference code: 178R62.7
Scope and Contents

Bredon Road, Tewkesbury. Black type on green background listing the plays. Mary Warner of No.15, The Female Convict, Katheleen Mavourneen or The Dream of St. Patrick's Eve, Ingomar or The Son of the Wilderness, Factory Girl of All That Glitters is not Gold.

Dates: c1880 - 1920

Horace Holloway’s Electric Prince of Wales Theatre Poster, c1880 - 1920

 Item
Reference code: 178R62.8
Scope and Contents

Levett's Field, Lichfield. Blue type on off white background listing the plays. The White Sheik, The Dumb Man of Manchester, Ingomar The Barbarian of A Son of the Wilderness, Klondike, Peace. Printed by Baxters, Printers, Atherstone.

Dates: c1880 - 1920

Horace Holloway’s New Prince of Wales Theatre Poster, c1880 - 1920

 Item
Reference code: 178R62.1
Scope and Contents

Fair Field, Bewdley. Blue type on silk listing the plays. Our Lads in Red, Sentenced to Death, day performance for children Litte Hero, Sexton Blake, Man they Could Not Hang, Man Against Man, Mona or The Girl I love, comic concert and funny farce.

Dates: c1880 - 1920

Photographs, c1890 - 1910, 19 June 1943

 File — Box Holloway Family Box 1
Reference code: 178C149
Scope and Contents

Black and white photographs of members of the Holloway family in theatrical and variety costume including Mona Holloway and Horace Holloway, and a photograph of Harder Jonsson.

Dates: c1890 - 1910; 19 June 1943

The King’s Romance Poster, c1900 - 1920

 Item
Reference code: 178R62.9
Scope and Contents

Colour lithograph showing The Prince's Wooing scene with a couple sat on a bench outside a building and a man looking at them from the door. Play written by E. Vivian Edmonds.

Dates: c1900 - 1920

The King’s Romance Poster , c1900 - 1920

 Item
Reference code: 178R62.10
Scope and Contents

Colour lithograph showing The Prince's Wooing scene with a couple sat on a bench outside a building and a man looking at them from the door. Play written by E. Vivian Edmonds.

Dates: c1900 - 1920

The King’s Romance Poster , c1900 - 1920

 Item — Frame Holloway Family Frame 1: Series 178R62
Reference code: 178R62.11
Scope and Contents

Written by E. Vivian Edmonds. 'The son of a Prince yet not his son. In the eyes of the world an outcast’. Colour illustration of man standing in a room wearing bronze colour trousers, waistcoat and hat and black cape and a Moises basket on the floor covered in white drapes and blue ribbons. Printed by David Allen & sons Ltd, 17 Leicester St. London, Belfast, Harrow, Birmingham, Liverpool, Glasgow & Dublin.

Dates: c1900 - 1920

Additional filters:

Type
Archival Object 14
Collection 1
 
Subject
Animal trainers 1
Business 2
Fairs 2
Musical performances 1
Performers 14
∨ more
Showman 1
Variety 1
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