John Kilby Green
& the History of the Toy Theatre
Benjamin Pollock was born about 1857 in Holborn, Middlesex (record not yet found) the son of Samuel Pollock and his wife Louisa (nee Brady).
Benjamin Pollock first appears on a Census Return in 1861 at 21 Ratcliffe Row, St Lukes.
Census Extract 1861
RG9-204 - Folio 117
21 Ratcliffe Row, St Lukes, Finsbury, London
Names
|
Relation to Head
|
Age
|
Occupation
|
Place of Birth
|
|
Samuel Pollock |
Head |
32 |
Furrier |
Stepney, Middlesex |
|
Louisa D Pollock |
Wife |
35 |
Peterborough |
|
|
Mary A Pollock |
Dau |
8 |
Clerkenwell |
|
|
Sam’l Pollock |
Son |
6 |
Clerkenwell |
|
|
Fred’ck Pollock |
Son |
4 |
St Andrews, Holborn |
|
|
Benjamin Pollock |
Son |
3 |
St Andrews, Holborn |
|
|
George A Pollock |
Son |
9m |
St Lukes, Middlesex |
On the 1871 Census he appears at 243 Kingsland Road. His brothers Frederick & George don’t appear. It is possible they are in service elsewhere but more likely they died in the interval, infant mortality being relatively high during this period.
Census Extract 1871
RG10-462 - Folio ?? - Page 50 - Schedule 269
Names
|
Relation to Head
|
Age
|
Occupation
|
Place of Birth
|
|
Samuel Pollock |
Head |
42 |
Farrier |
Middlesex, Stepney |
|
Louisa Pollock |
Wife |
45 |
? |
|
|
Mary A Pollock |
Dau |
19 |
(undecipherable) |
Middlesex, Clerkenwell |
|
Samuel Pollock |
Son |
18 |
Middlesex, Clerkenwell |
|
|
Benjamin Pollock |
Son |
14 |
Scholar |
Middlesex, Holborn |
|
Slina Pollock |
Dau |
5 |
Scholar |
Middlesex, Islington |
|
Susan Pollock |
Dau |
3 |
Middlesex, Edmonton |
Soon after this Census was taken, Benjamin Pollock would have left his education and followed in his father’s foot steps into the furrier trade. However, he must have had a keen interest in the toy theatre, as he is said to have frequented Redington’s shop in Hoxton Street many times. Maybe at first he just wanted a sight of the pretty Miss Redington, but he soon developed a strong affection for the wares in John Redington’s shop and ingratiated himself into the family as a prospective son-in-law. But John Redington died in 1876 before any marriage could take place. At first Redington’s widow, youngest son William and daughter Eliza were left to run the business, but William and Redington’s widow moved to 115 Columbia Road and left Eliza with her prospective husband to run the print business at 73 Hoxton Street.
In the June Quarter of 1877 Benjamin Pollock married Eliza Redington (June Quarter 1877 – Hackney 1b 629). He gave up the furrier trade and took over the running of the “Juvenile Print Warehouse” his father-in-law had created some 27 years earlier. In 1881, Benjamin Pollock appears as the publisher of Juvenile Prints, in the home that would be his for the next 56 years.
Census Extract 1881
RG11-0394 – Folio 72 – Page 19
Names
|
Relation to Head
|
Age
|
Occupation
|
Place of Birth
|
|
Benjamin Pollock |
Head |
24 |
Publisher of Juvenile Prints |
Holborn, Middlesex |
|
Eliza Pollock |
Wife |
26 |
Shoreditch, Middlesex |
|
|
Eliza L Pollock |
Dau |
3 |
Shoreditch, Middlesex |
|
|
Mary A Pollock |
Dau |
>1 |
Shoreditch, Middlesex |
|
|
Selina Pollock |
Dau |
3m |
Shoreditch, Middlesex |
|
|
Susan Pollock |
Sister |
13 |
Edmonton, Middlesex |
Census Extract 1891
RG12-0248 – Folio ?? – Page 8
Names
|
Relation to Head
|
Age
|
Occupation
|
Place of Birth
|
|
Benjamin Pollock |
Head |
34 |
Juvenile Historical Print Publisher |
Holborn, Middlesex |
|
Eliza Pollock |
Wife |
37 |
Hoxton, Middlesex |
|
|
Eliza Louise Pollock |
Dau |
13 |
Scholar |
Hoxton, Middlesex |
|
Mary Ann Pollock |
Dau |
11 |
Scholar |
Hoxton, Middlesex |
|
Selina Pollock |
Dau |
10 |
Scholar |
Hoxton, Middlesex |
|
Benjamin Pollock |
Son |
6 |
Scholar |
Hoxton, Middlesex |
|
Samuel Pollock |
Son |
4 |
Hoxton, Middlesex |
|
|
Susan Pollock |
Dau |
2 |
Hoxton, Middlesex |
Benjamin Pollock appears as a widower on the 1901 Census.
There was a son Walter aged 6, therefore Eliza must have died between 1895 and 1901 (No record found as yet)
Census Extract 1901
RG13-0274 – Folio 50 – Page 11
Names
|
Relation to Head
|
Age
|
Occupation
|
Place of Birth
|
|
Benjamin Pollock |
Head |
44 |
Juvenile Print Publisher |
Holborn, London |
|
Benjamin Pollock |
Son |
16 |
(undecipherable) |
London, Hoxton |
|
Samuel Pollock |
Son |
14 |
(undecipherable) |
London, Hoxton |
|
William Pollock |
Son |
8 |
London, Hoxton |
|
|
Walter Pollock |
Son |
6 |
London, Hoxton |
|
|
Eliza Louise Pollock |
Dau |
23 |
Dressmaker |
London, Hoxton |
|
Mary Ann Pollock |
Dau |
21 |
Scholar |
London, Hoxton |
|
Selina Pollock |
Dau |
20 |
Scholar |
London, Hoxton |
|
Susan Pollock |
Dau |
12 |
London, Hoxton |
The business that Benjamin Pollock “inherited” from his father-in-law wasn’t a thriving one. Virtually all the other publishers and print sellers had gone by the wayside. One of the last engravers WG Webb, later taken over by his son HJ Webb, still had a business just half a mile away at 124 Old Street, St Lukes, but the two businesses rarely interacted. By this time Webb was the elder statesman of the toy theatre business and probably enjoyed the lion share of the dwindling market for play sheets and the like. It was Robert Louis Stevenson who, in 1887, catapulted Pollock to the forefront of the remaining print sellers, with his essay on the “Penny Plain and Tuppence Coloured”. RL Stevenson had acquired a love for the toy theatre in his youth whilst buying play sheets from Wilson’s the Stationers at Antigua Street, Edinburgh and when in London he searched out the print sellers in the hope of finding his favourite “Skelts”. He is supposed to have visited Webb first and quarrelled. HJ Webb told Mr Langley Levi that RL Stevenson visited his father’s shop on at least three occasions and that Stevenson had asked WG Webb to provide him with illustrations for an article he was writing. An argument ensued when WG Webb is supposed to have asked what his involvement was to be in the article and whether he was to receive some payment for his contribution, upon which Stevenson replied “that the only interest of the article was that he was writing it”. WG Webb was reported to have been so furious that he was not allowed to participate in the articles writing, that he refused to allow Stevenson to have the illustrations he had requested for the article. However, on leaving the shop with the illustrations (the article included mostly Webb’s work) Stevenson is said to have shook his finger at WG Webb and said, “this is going to cost you a good deal”. HJ Webb probably exaggerated the actual events that led up to RL Stevenson’s near complete omission of a mention for his father in his essay. However the effects of Stevenson’s omission with regard to WG Webb had far reaching consequences and his parting shot was quite accurate in that it did cost the Webb family a great deal. The end result was an article that finished off with the line (as many journalists subsequently quoted) 'If you love art, folly, or the bright eyes of children, speed to Pollock's!’. In actual fact this famous line reads: “If you love art, folly, or the bright eyes of children, speed to Pollock's, or to Clarke's of Garrick Street.” However, Clarke didn’t benefit from this quotation, as although the original article was written in April 1884 for “The Magazine of Art” it wasn’t published in “Memories and Portraits” until 1887, when the article met it’s full audience. In the three intervening years Clarke had all but gone out of business. So it was left to Pollock to reap the rewards of RL Stevenson edited quotation. In every enthusiasts mind Pollock had become “the last of the toy theatre makers”. Many famous people made the pilgrimage to 73 Hoxton Street including the likes of Gordon Craig, GK Chesterton and Charlie Chaplin.
Sacheverell Sitwell brought Serge Diaghilev and the Russian Ballet to Pollock’s humble shop in the Hoxton Road. Diaghilev was so inspired by what he saw in the little shop in Hoxton Street that he created “The Triumph of Neptune”. The scenes were inspired by Green’s “The Silver Palace”. Lord Berners wrote the music, which was orchestrated by Sir William Walton and conducted by Henry Defosse for the performance staged at the Lyceum Theatre, London, with the first performance held on 3rd December 1926.
Like his late father-in-law before him,
Pollock substituted his own imprint on all his productions. The list was almost
identical to Redington’s, but with a few additions from Arthur Park: -
The Woodman’s Hut
The Blind Boy
The Maid and the Magpie
Pollock’s (formerly A Park’s) version of “The
Maid & the Magpie”
Of all Benjamin Pollock’s children, William Pollock was the only one with a genuine interest in Toy Theatre. He helped in the printing process and was seen by the family as the one member of the family to continue the business with his father. But war broke out in 1914 and a young William went to France to help his country’s cause. Much to the family’s anguish, William was killed in September 1918 as the war drew to a close. It was left to Pollock’s daughter, Eliza Louisa, to give up her dressmaking and join her father as his shop assistant and colourist. Pollock never entrusted anyone else to do his work after the death of William and continued to print alone until he died in August 1937. Selina joined Louisa after their father’s death and they carried on from where their father had left off. Benjamin Pollock was buried in a common grave in Chingford Mount Cemetery, North East London; but his passing earned him an obituary of 8 column inches in The Times, probably the only person to have died in Hoxton to gain so much interest.
(Benjamin Pollock in his shop at 73 Hoxton St)
(The Times Obituary Column 7th
August 1937)
Pollock’s daughters knew little of printing, as throughout Pollock’s life he had employed his daughters as colourists and cutters. It is doubtful if he ever let them near his printing press. The two sisters continued the business into the Second World War, but stocks dwindled and in 1940 a bomb partly destroyed their premises at 73 Hoxton Street. This was enough for the two sisters to close the shop. Rumour has it that the business was failing with the rent far exceeding the sale of a few penny plain and tuppence coloured sheets. In 1944 they sold the business to an antiquarian bookseller by the name of Alan Keen. Keen is reported to have acquired 1,200 copper and zinc engraved plates (mostly Green’s); 60 lithographic stone blocks with a lithographic printing press; over 170,000 “penny plain” sheets of characters, scenery and side wings; 13,000 theatrical portraits; and 15,000 playbooks.
In a letter from Eliza Louisa Pollock to George Speaight dated 20th November 1940, valued the following at £1000:-
“List of Engraved Copper and Zinc Plates for “The Juvenile Drama”
98 Plates for Small
Plays
15 Plates for Large Scenes
88 Plates for Single Figures, Drop Scenes and
Odd Figures
7 Plates for Stage Fronts and Orchestras
825 Plates for Small Plays dated 1834-1857
21 Plates for Single Figures, Drop Scenes and
Soldiers
2 Plates for Stage Fronts
70 Plates for Small Plays
30 Odd Plates
52 Plates for the Last Scene when set of
various plays
1208 Plates
(Richard III is the only play where some
plates are missing, those being Characters No. 3, 4, 8 & 9 and Scene No.1,
but a printed copy is packed with these plates.)
60 Drawings on Stones for Large Scenes,
Orchestras, Drop Scenes, Top Drops etc.
Litho Press & Rollers, & Boxes in Shop
for Plays
14,500 Printed Books of Words
166,000 Small plain sheets for the plays &
various odd sheets.
13,000 Single Plain Figures
6,800 Large Plain Scenes 12”x9”
(Click here
to see an index for the current stock of Plates at Pollock’s)
World War II intervened and the sale was
delayed until mid 1944, but a comparison between the two sets of figures shows
little changed in the quantities of stock
(Eliza Louisa Pollock at 73 Hoxton Street –
Notice the “Pollock” Name letters have been removed)
So was Benjamin Pollock the “Last of the Toy
Theatre Makers” as the title to Time Obituary stated? Read on and see that the
Toy Theatre was to experience a significant revival.
(All images on this page have been published with the kind permission of “Pollock’s Toy Theatres Ltd”)
(Visit
“Pollock’s Toy Theatres Ltd” web-site here)
Click here to see Benjamin Pollock’s family tree.
Chapter 9 - In the Name of Pollock
