Fire at the Grand Theatre
The Grand Theatre, Derby.
If you take a stroll down Babington Lane these days, then on your right-hand side as you near the bottom you will come to House of Holes – an adults only crazy golf venue. For many residents of Derby, depending on their age, the building itself houses lots of memories.
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Before it was home to crazy golf it was the May Sum restaurant, but it was its life before that as an entertainment venue that will bring back memories for many people. If you’re around my age, you might remember it as McCluskey’s, Eclipse, Ritzy, Confettis, or Tiffany’s. If you’re a little bit older than that, then it’s memories of the Locarno ballroom that will come flooding back.
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Of course, before all of these the building was home to the Grand Theatre, and this can still be clearly read on the building façade. What some of you might not know about the building, however, is that a huge fire almost made sure that none of those memories of the building would even exist.
The theatre was designed by architect Oliver Essex for Andrew Melville and opened its doors on March 25, 1886. Described by the local press as a theatre ‘of which any town might be proud’, it was immediately a very popular location. The Derby Mercury stated in an article about its opening night that ‘if the public continue to roll up as they did it will be found that the building is, if anything, too small’. Sadly the excitement and promise of the theatre was soon to be hit by a disastrous and tragic event less than six weeks after its opening.
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On the evening of Thursday May 6, and only forty minutes before the evening performance was due to begin, a fringe overhanging a wooden scene caught fire. Alfred Whyatt, the scenic artist at the theatre, called out at once and alerted Andrew Melville who was standing in the wings. The audience at the time was thankfully quite small as the only people admitted were those who had paid for early admission – around thirty to forty people all told.
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Melville initially called for the audience to stay in their seats as around ten people on the stage attempted to put out the fire. Their attempts at this proved unsuccessful with the rest of the scenery catching fire before the flames – in the words of the Derby Daily Telegraph – ‘spread like lightning’.
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Whilst those behind the curtains made their escape the audience cleared out of the building, and though one man suffered a head injury while overcome by a fit, it was initially thought that fatalities had been avoided. This was sadly incorrect as it was later found that the blaze had ultimately claimed the lives of the actor John Adams and James Locksley, a carpenter who worked at the theatre.
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As the fire consumed the building, word of what was happening spread throughout the town and a crowd of around 20,000 to 30,000 thronged to the surrounding area, inevitably hampering the efforts of the fire brigade and police. In an effort to keep the immediate area clear, around two hundred members of the 1st Derbyshire Militia – who were undergoing their annual training at the Normanton Barracks – were drafted in and the men ‘rendered admirable co-operation in keeping clear the immediate vicinity of the theatre’.
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By the time the blaze was finally brought under control all that remained of the theatre was its façade and side walls.
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During and after the fire, much was made of the efficiency of the fire extinguishing apparatus with the Derby Daily Telegraph exonerating the Derby Brigade of all blame but noting that the water pressure itself was far too low to fight a large fire.
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But what of the theatre itself? How did so many of you make so many fond memories in it under its various guises if it was destroyed by fire?
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The answer, of course, is that a determined Andrew Melville had the building rebuilt even bigger and better and it reopened in November of that very same year.