When the great railway engineer George Stephenson was driving his railway through Derbyshire, he fell in love with Chesterfield and decided to live here. He had also discovered a thick coal seam at Clay Cross and founded the Clay Cross Company and the business man in him said that it would also be a strategic point from which to oversee this.
Society Facts and Figures
Income for "The Mikado" in 1905 was £278 with expenditure of £175. The sum of £62 was donated to charities.
Life Member, Muriel Watts, is only the second member of the Society to complete 60 years service. Muriel completed her 60 years during the run of Half a Sixpence, and was awarded her Diamond Bar at our Centenary Ball.
Production costs for "Half a Sixpence" in 1987 were over £12,000 - in 2005 they are estimated at over £37,000!
Life Member Geoff Gratton has been the longest serving Musical Director (1963-1999).
Members are sometimes asked how much they get paid for appearing in a show - the answer if 'Nothing at all!'. In fact, they are required to pay an annual subscription, pay for scores and libretti, and sometimes items of wardrobe.
After rehearsing in the Queen's Park Hotel and elsewhere over 65 years, the Society purchased its own rehearsal rooms (and headquarters) in 1970.
The Society is fully self-supporting. It receives no financial assistance from anywhere other than Patrons' Subscriptions. It maintains it own headquarters and needs to sell around 85% of the Pomegranate Theatre's seating capacity at every show in order to break even.
So he settled in Tapton House and ended his days there. He is buried in the Holy Trinity Church on Newbold Road.
In 1871 a scheme was put forward for a new public hall to be built as a memorial to him.
It was first put forward at a meeting of the Chesterfield and Derbyshire Institute of Mining, Civil and Mechanical Engineers and the Chesterfield Mechanics Institute. Both needed new accommodation and there was also a need of a building for scientific and educational use where a museum and library could be formed.
A site on the new Corporation Street was chosen and on October 17 1877 the foundation stone for the new Stephenson Memorial Hall was laid by the Marquess of Hartington. The finished building opened on July 14 1879 by the Duke of Devonshire. It consisted of two parts, accommodation for the original bodies who proposed the building of the Hall and a lecture hall.
In 1889 the Hall was sold to the Chesterfield Corporation for £4000. By this time, however, the building was found to be inadequate and the Corporation acquired a piece of land to the east end of the building to enlarge the public hall and adapt it as a theatre with a new stage and dressing rooms.
The newly extended Public Hall became known as the Corporation Theatre, providing a mixture of variety shows, concerts, plays, musicals, opera, pantomimes, local amateur productions and film shows until 1926.
The History of our Theatre
Chesterfield Operatic Society were the first amateur company to play in the new hall when we presented our first ever show, The Mikado, in 1905.
From 1926 the Theatre was used almost exclusively as a cinema until 1948. The last film was shown on 30 June 1948 and after a further period of alterations and improvements it reopened on February 19 1949 as the Chesterfield Civic Theatre, the first municipally owned repertory theatre in the country.
1980-81 the Theatre was completely refurbished and renamed the Pomegranate Theatre after the pomegranate tree that forms the centrepiece of the old Borough Seal and the present Borough Coat of Arms.
Chesterfield Operatic Society was founded in 1905 and we are proud to still be performing more than 100 years on!President: Mr. George Kenning We're on http://www.britinfo.net
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