BPMTG Archive Chester Lee Costumes

The Guild, together with the Puppet Centre, were recently the recipient of a very generous donation from Richard and Elizabeth Gill of Parasol Puppets. Any of you that were able to attend either the Guilds 2005 AGM at Bridgnorth or the Buxton festival of the same year, would have seen many wonderful Lanchester figures and four beautiful costumes belonging to the Victorian marionette troupe “Chester and Lee.”

The costumes consist of two clowns (one being Joey Grimaldi), one elegant ladies dress and one gentleman’s outfit. All are beautifully crafted and tailored. It is believed these costumes are the only remaining items from the ‘Chester and Lee’ troupe.

Not much information is known about the troupe. John McCormick in his wonderful book “The Victorian Marionette Theatre” mentions them a few times and Waldo’s archives in our present collection talks about them a little. It is from Waldo’s scrapbooks that I discovered the photographs lower down this page. What I have found is that the troupe were originally part of one of Bullocks, acquired by H. Chester and Clarence Lee at Hampstead Heath in 1864, (the remaining Bullocks troupe were sold up to and around 1900). They were reconditioned by Chester and Lee and opened again at Cremorne Gardens, London in 1869.

Advertisements began appearing around 1876, advertising “French Marionettes and Negro Varieties” as well as “Pantomimes”. They mainly appeared on the Variety circuit and travelled the whole of the United Kingdom and Ireland. At one performance, at the "Red, White and Blue" Music Hall in Aldershot, the Prince of Wales (eventually King Edward VII) was in the audience and later went on to the 'bridge' and manipulated the figures. Gerald Morice in a 1956 ‘Worlds Fair’ article wrote in detail about a play bill of Chester and Lee’s performance in St Helier, Jersey in the 1880’s. The show consisted of Fantoccini and Pantomime and included “Marvellous Chair Balancer, Grand Sultan of Turkey in his gorgeous Turkish costume and Old Mother Shipton and her numerous retinue of little ones” amongst many others. The pantomime was “Old Mother Goose” and was played in four scenes, with the finale of the whole show being “Clown and Pantaloon going to London in the wonderful and famous Donkey cart” and then “change to the magnificent and brilliant Grand Transformation scene entitled; The realms of beauty and sparkling waters”.

In 1882 Chester and Lee ended their partnership, with Lee continuing the troupe and keeping the name. Unfortunately during Lee’s ownership they appear to have suffered two fires. The first in the 1890's at Rhyl, North Wales, (the fire these costumes were rescued from) and in 1928 at Herne Bay, Kent.

Following the fire in Rhyl a benefit was organised at the towns Palace Theatre in order to raise money to help ‘Chester and Lee’ get a new “outfit” and, as they described it on the theatre bill; “help a lame dog over the stile”. The losses in the 1890’s fire were described as “32 elegantly dressed electrical mechanical figures; 10 sets of scenery (including the Grand Transformation), all the electrical fittings and effects, the complete marionette theatre and stage and the elaborate plush and silver proscenium and draperies. The whole valued at £200”.

Clarence Lee died in 1931 at the age of 84, and it was in 1937 that Waldo Lanchester had the opportunity to acquire the figures from their storage in Worcester. From looking at the pictures of the figures, taken at the time they were bought, it is clear that the fires took their toll. The heads of the figures are not of the same quality as their outfits and Waldo Lanchester himself described them as; “papier mache and of no great artistic value, a few of the best were retained with a view to keeping the costumes”.

When the costumes were removed it was discovered that many of the limbs were scorched; they had evidently been salvaged from the Herne Bay fire and hurriedly reconstructed in order to carry on. The costumes were displayed for many years at Waldo and Muriel’s puppet shop and museum in Stratford Upon Avon and then in Polka Children’s Theatre, Wimbledon.

We are extremely fortunate to have been the recipient of such a wonderful donation, and our thanks to Richard and Elizabeth Gill for considering us worthy beneficiaries. If anyone would like to see the costumes they will be on display at various Guild exhibitions around the country and when not travelling, at the Childhood and Costume Museum in Bridgnorth, Shropshire.

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