Not only was the city’s leading evening newspaper celebrating its 20th anniversary, but Wolverhampton also celebrated the launch of an exciting new venue that would shape the city’s entertainment scene for the next 130 years.

December 1894 marks the opening of Wolverhampton Grand Theater. And the Grand’s longevity is all the more remarkable because it was built without a foundation – literally.

“Back then, the lifespan of a theater was only 20 or 30 years,” says general manager Pete Cutchie. “They thought it wouldn’t last, or maybe it would be moved somewhere else.”

There are now foundations at the rear of the building, but there are no foundations under the front of the building.

“It was built on demolished farm buildings. It’s amazing we’re still here.”

The Grand was the final piece of what would today be billed as an “urban regeneration project”, but the PR was not so astute in the 1890s. During the previous decade a new road had been built connecting Queen Square to the station, named Lichfield Street. The city’s new art gallery had opened in 1884, followed by the Victoria Hotel in 1890. Then, in 1894, work began on the final piece of the puzzle: a sparkling new theater that would bring together some of the greatest names of the world. growing industrial city.

The Grand was not Wolverhampton’s first theatre, but it was one that would stand the test of time. Most Victorian era theaters were built with an expected lifespan of 20 or 30 years, but the Grand still forms the cornerstone of Wolverhampton’s nightlife some 130 years later. The Wolverhampton New Theater Company was established in February 1894 by the Mayor of Wolverhampton, Charles T Mander. , with prominent surveyor and auctioneer TJ Barnett also on the board. The foundation stone was laid on June 28 by Mander’s wife, the mayor, and is part of the back wall of the home. Architect Charles Phipps had been commissioned to design the £10,000 building, and construction work was entrusted to local builder Henry Gough. The work was completed at breakneck speed, with the theater completed in six months and 11 days.

The Grand boasted an imposing 123-foot facade, including four stores, but its design was quite restrained by the standards of the 1890s, when flamboyant, mock-Gothic architecture was all the rage.

Shortly before the opening, a reporter was taken backstage for a preview of the acting director, Mr. Garrett, who declared “without fear or favor that the house has no superior in London or the ‘outside’. The reporter praised the spacious dressing rooms, the stage machinery and the fly tower that rises 56 feet above the stage. He was also delighted to learn that the first director would be Mr EH Bull, who had been involved with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company for seven years.

Bull certainly made the most of the occasion by hosting not one, but two opening ceremonies. The first, an “inspection tour,” took place on December 8 and attracted 400 visitors. But the real curtain-raiser came on December 10, with D’Oyly Carte’s production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Utopia Limited. Queues stretched along Lichfield Street to get the unreserved sixpence seats in the gallery, with many customers turned away. This is not the case, think of the great and the good. In those days, theaters were divided according to social classes, with seats in the large circle reserved for the upper echelons of society, so there was no need to queue with the hoi-polloi.

During the evening, Bull came on stage and asked everyone present: “Are you satisfied with this beautiful theater?” “We are!” was the loud response from the cheap seats, while the nobility of the dress circle expressed their approval with a polite nod. However, everyone applauded when Bull read a telegram from the famous West End actor and theater director Henry Irving, which read: “May every success accompany you.” »

The opening night at the Grand attracted 2,151 spectators and rave reviews from critics.

“A brilliant first evening, where representatives of everything artistic, musical and intellectual gathered in a packed hall for the first performance,” wrote a journalist present at the show.

Like most theaters, the Grand fell on hard times: it closed twice in the 1970s and 1980s, and at one point seemed unlikely to survive. But while most of the surrounding theaters have long bitten the dust, the Grand continues to attract patrons from across the region. Much like the Express & Star, the Grand has stood the test of time.

Graham realizes his dream, but Carnegie becomes disillusioned

Just as Thomas Graham had finally realized his dream of uniting the city’s two major newspapers, his partnership with Andrew Carnegie was becoming strained.

The American was frustrated that his newspapers did not seem to land the political blows he hoped for and that they were also losing money. Graham, whose engagement with Carnegie’s incendiary politics was never more than lukewarm, was also acutely aware of the risks of alienating too many of the conservative-leaning readers inherited from the Evening Express.

Furthermore, the political tide in the United Kingdom was turning against radical liberalism, with Queen Victoria’s popularity reaching an all-time high. Gladstone’s Liberal government collapsed in 1895, and the pragmatic Graham concluded that if newspapers were to remain viable, they needed to appeal to a wide cross-section of the population, not just radical ideologues. He had happily used the Evening Star to call for the abolition of the House of Lords, but abolishing the monarchy went too far.

Carnegie began to question why he had invested his money in newspapers and was particularly critical of Graham’s leadership. At one point, Carnegie appeared to be considering replacing Graham as MNA’s executive director, but he ultimately changed his mind. Thomas Graham’s son, John Douglas Graham, recalled how Carnegie’s patience ran out rather quickly. “After Carnegie started the company, he quickly grew tired of it,” he said in 1945. Moreover, with the American steel industry experiencing an unprecedented boom, Carnegie’s attentions were inevitably focused on the other side of the Atlantic.

“Carnegie had burned his fingers,” wrote a longtime Express & Star columnist in his newspaper story The Loaded Hour. “He had misjudged the mood of the times and overestimated both the people’s enthusiasm for revolution and his own charisma to achieve it.

It was time to cut your losses and get out.