Cinemas of the Medway Towns by John Clancy, price £8.95, £7.90 Mercia Members

Click on covers for a larger picture (front cover is a pdf file)

The following review appeared in issue 115 of Rewind, the Projected Picture Trust magazine Autumn 2006

John Clancy provides a detailed history of the early screening of films in the first years of the twentieth century, and the picture houses which were established from 1910 in the Medway towns of Chatham, Gillingham, Rochester, and Strood. He traces the first showing of film to Gillingham Hippodrome, where moving pictures were shown in 1906 as part of music-hall entertainment. The first super cinema in the Medway area was the 1800-seat Plaza, in Duncan road, Gillingham, which opened on 12 October 1931 and was the first to have a sound system incorporated in its original design.
Built originally by independent proprietors, cinemas were subject from the 1920s to take-overs by national circuits. The New Regent, Chatham, became part of the Associated British cinemas circuit in 1929. Chatham’s National Electric Theatre of 1911 was acquired by a subsidiary of the Gaumont-British circuit in 1928. Gaumont-British itself bought the rest of the shares in the Majestic Rochester in 1950. In 1938, Odeon took control of the recently built Embassy in Chatham.
Mr Clancy includes a section on the surrounding area including Rainham, Cliffe, Snodland and Cuxton, and as an appendix, the author provides an account of the Croneen family who were pioneers of moving pictures in the Medway towns, building Invicta Cinemas in Gillingham, Chatham and Strood and the Plaza In Gillingham.
The Cinemas of the Medway Towns, ISBN is 978-0-946406-57-9, is available at £8.95 from local booksellers or by post from Stuart Smith, Mercia Cinema Society, 100 Wickfield Road, Hackenthorpe, Sheffield, S12 4TT. Cheques should be made payable to Mercia Cinema Society.

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CINEMAS of the MEDWAY TOWNS

Press Release

New book traces history of Medway picture houses

Entertainment in the past flourished in the Medway towns of Chatham,
Gillingham, Rochester and Strood, in response to the presence of the armed
services, claims local historian John Clancy in his new book, The Cinemas
of the Medway Towns. Certainly the choice of film for the opening night of
the Chatham Picture House on 19 February 1917 seems appropriate: it was
'Advance of the Tanks' showing aspects of life on the Western Front! The
naval barracks in Chatham had its own brick-built cinema, HMS Pembroke,
which could be used also for talks and live entertainment.

The area attracted showbiz entertainers as well as the top films of the
day. Ralph Lynn attended the opening night of the Majestic, Rochester, in
April 1935. In March 1937, Jack Buchanan opened the Ritz, Chatham. John
Mills dropped in at the Plaza, Gillingham, in 1945 to see 'Meet me in St
Louis'.

Touching only briefly on the theatres which preceded the days of the silver
screen, Mr Clancy provides a detailed history of the early screening of
films in the first years of the twentieth century and the picture houses
which were established from 1910. He traces the first showing of film to
Gillingham Hippodrome where moving pictures were shown in 1906 as part of
music-hall entertainment. Strood people saw films in the early years of the
twentieth century at the fairground. At Rochester a visiting company
screened films in October 1910 in the Corn Exchange. The first venue in the
area to be dedicated solely to films was the Cinema de Luxe (later named
the Cornerhouse Cinema) in Chatham which was a conversion of a shop and
which opened in 1911.

The first super cinema in the Medway area was the 1800-seat Plaza, in
Duncan Road, Gillingham, which opened on 12 October 1931 and was the first
to have a sound-system incorporated in its original design. It was unusual,
too, in having a woman projectionist, a Miss Barnes who had been an
usherette at the Invicta Cinema.

The book speaks of the 'magic' of going to the pictures in the depression
of the 1930s when 'people needed something to get them out of the rut of
day-to-day life' and found it in 'escapist fiction' ? romance, adventure,
westerns, musicals and comedies, which they found in cinemas built like
palaces with their plush seating, vast foyers and lounges, central heating
and air-conditioning not found in the average home of the day.

Built originally by independent proprietors, cinemas were subject from the
1920s to take-overs by national circuits. The New Regent, Chatham, became
part of the Associated British Cinemas circuit in 1929. Chatham's National
Electric Theatre of 1911 was acquired by a subsidiary of the
Gaumont-British circuit in the early 1930s. Gaumont-British itself bought
the Majestic, Rochester, in 1950. In March 1938, Odeon took control of the
recently built Embassy in Gillingham.

Mr Clancy write, too, of the reasons for the collapse of the cinema
industry in the 1950s: the impact of entertainment tax, the high
import-duty on American films and the advent of television.

Memories of some of those who worked in the theatre and cinema industries
are included in the book. Mrs Joan Cook was an usherette at Chatham Empire
in the 1930s when, dressed in her red and gold, she sold cups of tea as
well as ice-cream during the intervals. Les Bovis, a stage-door keeper,
recalls the annual staff outings. Mrs Maureen Saunders, employed as an
usherette at the Palace in Chatham in the 1950s, remembers the daily
inspections when the manager checked the cleanliness of the staff uniforms
and tested the batteries in their torches. At the Globe Cinema in Cliffe,
Mrs Joyce Wilson experienced the cold winters when staff and customers
brought blankets to wrap round their legs

Although writing primarily about Chatham, Gillingham, Rochester and Strood,
Mr Clancy includes a section on the surrounding area including Rainham,
Cliffe, Snodland and Cuxton.

As an Appendix, the author provides an account of the Croneen family who
were pioneers of moving pictures in the Medway towns, building Invicta
Cinemas in Gillingham, Chatham and Strood and the area's first
super-cinema, the Plaza in Gillingham.

This is John Clancy's second book about cinemas written for the Mercia
Cinema Society, his previous being 'The Long-gone Cinemas of Swale'. John
is a freelance writer with a particular bent for local history, a passion
that goes back only eight years, but in that time he's written two major
books for Sutton Publishing Ltd, this his second book for the Mercia Cinema
Society and several leaflets and booklets for local museums. He took early
retirement from his former job in local government and it's this that
enables him to devote much of his time to his favourite subject. John is so
passionate about local history he enrolled on a degree course in
archaeology with Exeter University and has been awarded an Undergraduate
Certificate; he is currently studying at Diploma level.
John's interest in old cinemas developed in around 2000 when he first
read about the Mercia Cinema Society in a history magazine. Having found
out that the society publishes a range of books about long gone cinemas in
different towns, he volunteered to write one about his home town,
Sittingbourne in Kent. The town's three former cinemas could not supply
enough information to fill a book so John expanded it to include Faversham
and the Isle of Sheppey, the three areas making up the civic authority
known as Swale.
He said: 'Local history is such a fascinating subject to study. You
are forever on an upward learning curve, discovering new snippets of
information all the time. It's very much like doing a giant sized jigsaw
puzzle in which you are forever adding new pieces, hoping to eventually
reveal a complete picture.'
Although John currently resides in Sittingbourne, his home town, he
spent over 30 years in the Medway Towns following his marriage in 1965. He
lived in Gillingham.

The Cinemas of the Medway Towns ISBN is 978-0-946406-57-9 price £8 95p

is published by Mercia Cinema Society, the country's leading publisher of
books in the history of cinemas. The Society, which is a registered
charity, was founded in 1980 to foster research into picture-houses and
their proprietors.

The Cinemas of the Medway Towns is available at £8 95p from local
booksellers or by post from Stuart Smith, Mercia Cinema Society, 100
Wickfield Road, Hackenthorpe, Sheffield, S12 4TT. Cheques should be made
payable to Mercia Cinema Society.

John Clancy Tel: 01795 476812.