I’ve been fascinated by the crossovers between theatre and industry for a few years and have written a book on theatrical activity at Cadbury’s called Theatre in the Chocolate Factory. In that book I also explored theatre at the factory run by the Cadbury family’s friend, and competitor, the Rowntree family. I’m currently exploring theatre at Rowntree’s further, thinking about the various ways theatre appeared and functioned in this huge industrial organisation. This blog delves in to some of my early ideas ….
In the Summer of 1935, an open-air production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was staged in the Museum Gardens, right in the centre of the city of York. It was performed by what The Yorkshire Post identified as a ‘capable and representative company of the best amateur talent’[i] from ‘all the leading dramatic societies of the area’[ii], supplemented by choreographed crowd scenes made up of extras drawn from local Women’s Institutes. The week of performances were designed to raise funds for the York Diocese. This was high profile, civic theatre-making; a peak of what Jane Milling has identified as an ‘era of theatrical ‘joining-in’’’ that she dates to the early years of the twentieth century.[iii] That culture of theatrical joining in was very present at Quaker-led manufacturing firms, including Rowntree’s of York, and we can see one example of this in the actress who played Helena in this al fresco 1935 Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Ann Elizabeth Leaf Benson was born in 1900, and she was a clerk at Rowntree’s by 1921. She was a star of the factory’s theatre productions throughout the 1920s, and familiar to York audiences more widely through her numerous amateur appearances on the city’s stages. The recognition Ann Benson received as a Rowntree’s actress also made it possible for her to appear professionally for a short period of time; she was given consent by Rowntree’s to join Percy Hutchison’s touring company in 1930 – with her job held open for her on her return.
Benson’s theatrical activities – and this support for them – can be seen in many ways as a reflection of Seebohm Rowntree’s thinking around recreation and industry. In 1921’s The Human Factor in Business he wrote:
That adequate opportunity for wholesome recreation is desirable for all workers […] will not be disputed. The only question is whether an employer has any responsibility in connection with the matter. I think the right answer is that if many of his workers live near the factory he should satisfy himself that adequate recreational facilities exist for them [by] either providing […] facilities for his own employees only, or, by his influence and his financial help, he may assist communal effort to provide such facilities for the community as a whole.
Strong arguments [he concluded] can be brought forward in favour of both courses.[iv] There is a sense of employer duty here, in relation to civic provision and wider communities. No surprise, perhaps, from Seebohm Rowntree, with his own focus on understanding and alleviating poverty and as the son of Joseph Rowntree, who had created New Earswick Village between 1902 and 1904 to supply good quality, affordable housing for a wider population of workers than his own.
Theatre as recreational activity entwined with industry, community and York’s civic culture had a long history by the time A Midsummer Night’s Dream was staged in 1935. The production echoed 1909’s York Pageant – written and produced by the best-known Edwardian pageant master Louis Napoleon Parker and staged on that same site in the Museum Gardens. 1909’s pageant celebrated and shared core ideas about community-making – of theatre, its props, sets and costumes – and about recreation that can be seen in early theatrical activity at the Rowntree’s factory. It’s impact on how people spent their spare time is recorded in the 1908-1909 General Report of the York Public Library Committee, which noted a reduction in use during the year due to ‘special reasons […] ‘the leading one being ‘the enormous work of the York Pageant occupying almost the whole of the leisure time of many people during the Winter and Spring [which has] necessarily had a serious effect upon their reading, which has been neither so rapid, nor so continuous’.[v]
Seebohm Rowntree’s support for theatre as recreation reflected and shaped the civic theatre making and community production in York that had been in place since the early years of the twentieth century. Through this ongoing research I am also discovering that the Quaker capitalism of the turn of the twentieth century is a space in which multiple histories of industrialism, creativity and women’s leadership are present – in production, in performance, and in management.
You can read more about some of these women here:
Port Sunlight’s star: Sophie Somers | Port Sunlight Village
The Rowntree Society | Brynhild Benson: Star of the Cocoa Works Stage – The Rowntree Society
[i]‘York Diocese Appeal Fund’, Yorkshire Post, April 9 1935, p.4
[ii]‘Open-Air Play at York’, Yorkshire Post, June 20 1935, p. 4
[iii]Jane Milling (2024) ‘Theatre, Recreation, Education’, in Claire Cochrane, Lynette Goddard, Catherine Hindson and Trish Reid, eds., The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre and Performance, London; New York: Routledge, pp. 46-58, p.46
[iv]Seebohm Rowntree (1921) The Human Factor in Business. London: Longmans, Green and Co., p.120
[v]Fifteenth General Report of the Public Library Committee, 1908-09. York: Woods Excelsior Printers, 1909, p.4