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Description: | This small collection comprises late 18th century and early 19th century theatre material, and includes: in the hand of Myrton Hamilton, a manuscript volume of The dangers of a lee shore: or an impartial view of the Bath Theatre in the year 1759 (1760) by J Brownsmith. Myrton Hamilton first appeared in Smock Alley, Dublin, 1729 and became manager of a small theatre company in Ireland. He opened a playhouse in Belfast in 1778. There is also a Xerox copy of the printed version, as well as Xerox copies of photographs of 19th century playbills, for example, of The Mummy played at the Daventry Theatre in 1847. There is a newspaper cutting of Uncle Tom's Cabin at Sunderland's Theatre Royal in 1853. In addition, the collection contains the papers of Charles Hamilton Simms (presumably a descendant) who was an illustrator, actor and playwright. He created some of the decorations for the North Shields Theatre in 1846 and scenery painting in Beverley and was also possibly the author/illustrator of Landscape sketches from nature (1853). He lived in the north of England and worked for the Theatre Royal at Sunderland and the Theatre Royal at Scarborough. Items include a sketchbook of watercolour sketches of scenery and landscapes (with a frontispiece date of 1825), some miscellaneous poetry and engravings in a scrapbook, a theatre admission ticket and five manuscripts of plays: Weaving the spider's web, The secret avengers, Universal harmony, Old and young and another untitled play. Separate volumes contain charades and conundrums by Simms, as well as some comic songs; Catalogues and lists are available in the Library and the National Register of Archives; copies of which are also available on-line via the the World Wide Web. Card indexes arranged by person and place are available in the Archives Reading Room, as is a card catalogue of the Theatre Playbills. The playbills are listed on the Brynmor Jones Library Main catalogue, also available on the Web.
Publications include the pamphlet 'Literary Manuscripts and Archives' (1996), which is also available on the web site. R. Pyle and R Johnson, "Sweeping the dust from the boards: dramatic pieces', Paragon Review, No. 5 1997, pp.7-10.
Archives & Special Collections Department
Brynmor Jones Library, University of Hull, | Format: | Playbills Written / typed ephemera Scenery Photographs (miscellaneous) Paintings Ephemera, e.g. tickets Scrapbooks Playtexts (manuscripts) Song sheets | Subjects: | 18th Century; 19th Century | Temporal: | 1750 1850 | Source: | Backstage | Address: | Cottingham Road, Kingston-upon-Hull,,
HU6 7RX | Creator: | Charles Hamilton Simms | Identifier: | www.backstage.ac.uk/records/collection/c | Language: | en | Format: | Playbills Written / typed ephemera Scenery Photographs (miscellaneous) Paintings Ephemera, e.g. tickets Scrapbooks Playtexts (manuscripts) Song sheets | Go to resource |
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