• Intro to Compiling the History
  
• Rotherham - Location
  
• Earliest Films in Rotherham
  
• Elisha C. Clayton (1882-1963) - Pioneer
  

Intro to Compiling the History
This history of Rotherham's cinemas was started in 1980 where my interest was really on one particular cinema - the Regal/Odeon/Scala to which I was to make a number of visits at the invitation of a friend in connection with the Conacher organ.

By 1983 it was thought the Scala Cinema would soon close (it finally stopped showing films in September 1983) and my plan was to document its history as there was no other record available of the town's prestige showplace. As I was researching and gathering material, I also came across useful information on other Rotherham cinemas.

Around the same time I was busy collating a vast amount (lifetime collection) of material on West Yorkshire's Bradford Cinemas History and the History of Shipley Cinemas - over 70 of them spanning 110 years to the present day.

By comparison, Rotherham's small handful of picture houses was an easy task so I decided to document all the information I had.

The Internet seemed a good place to make it available and this website was constructed in 2004 to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the opening of the luxurious Regal (later Odeon/Scala) and explains why it is the longest and most detailed history in these pages which also contain new and previously unpublished material. Please read and enjoy.

Rotherham - Location
Rotherham is 6 miles north-east of Sheffield in South Yorkshire.
Once a busy industrial town involved mainly in steel with forge and rolling mills, coal and iron-founding and glass. Situated on the River Rother at its influx to the River Don. A 5-arched bridge over the River Don connects Rotherham proper with Masbrough.

In the cinema heyday of 1951 it had a population of 82,334 rising to 193,628 in 1971 and to 251,336 in 1981 by which time only two cinemas remained. Now in 2004 there are no cinemas operating in the town centre so necessitating a journey to an out-of-town multiplex.

Earliest Films in Rotherham
As in most towns, the very early animated films were shown by the travelling showmen on the Bioscope (or similar named apparatus) as a side show at visiting fairgrounds.

There is record that animated films were shown regularly from 1900 in the Rotherham Rifle Volunteers Drill Hall (later Clifton Hall) in Wharncliffe Street. The Theatre Royal and Hippodrome also included animated films as part of their variety shows on stage before each was converted to cine-variety on a regular basis then each became a full-time cinema.

The Town Hall Assembly Rooms also hosted travelling films shows. A Sheffield man Elisha C. Clayton, originator of Clayton's Bioscope, showed his very early films in the Assembly Rooms in 1908 with "Tram Rides to Kimberworth" - a popular novelty film made by strapping a cinematograph apparatus (camera) to the open front of a Corporation tramcar.

All this was to change in 1911 (after the Cinematograph Act of 1909) when the first full time cinema, the Whitehall, opened and quickly followed by the Electric Pavilion (also 1911) and Premier Picture Palace in 1912. Others were to follow in 1913 and 1914. Rotherham's cinema scene had now taken off.

Elisha C. Clayton (1882-1963) - Pioneer
Elisha Montague Charles Clayton a local film pioneer of Sheffield first entered the cinematograph trade in 1903 at the age of 21. He was the originator and proprietor of Clayton's Bioscope which he exhibited around the area as a travelling fairground cinema.

In 1905 he installed animated pictures at Sheffield's Attercliffe Palace as part of the regular variety bill and advertising his mix of 'shorts' as The Palace Pictures. Clayton set up and ran his own film rental agency in 1909 and by 1911 had build his own Heeley Electric Palace.

1920 saw the creation of Heeley and Amalgamated Cinemas Ltd of which he was the managing director. At its peak the company controlled twelve cinemas around the greater Sheffield and Rotherham area which included the Electra Palace at Parkgate and the Regal in Rawmarsh.

Those cinemas in the circuit still remaining in 1955 when Elisha Clayton retired were taken over by Walter Eckart's Star Group of Companies.