IF YOU WISH TO KNOW ABOUT THE ORIGINS OF BRUNSKILL AND LOVEDAY LIMITED, please read on:

First registered as a limited company on 26 July 1939 Brunskill and Loveday Limited was formed by the amalgamation of two, by then, well-established, and very successful, Scenery-building firms - John Brunskill Limited and Loveday & Higson. With the 'Second World War' almost about to start the two firms, previously each often the other's principal (but friendly and, at times, very co-operative) competitor, came to-gether because each felt that they would have a better chance of economically surviving the War as one unit than as two competing units.

The success of the two businesses which gave birth to Brunskill and Loveday Limited was principally due to three people - John Brunskill, Edwin [Ted] George Loveday, and John [Jack] Higson.

John Brunskill, the founder of John Brunskill Limited, was born in Penge, London in 1870 to William Brunskill a Carpenter/Joiner who was born in Melmerby, Cumberland (now part of Cumbria) in 1836 and who became the Master Carpenter in London's Empire Theatre. When a boy John Brunskill went to work for the Impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte as a trainee Stage Carpenter on original productions of Gilbert and Sullivan's Comic Operas in Carte's then newly built Savoy Theatre. After having learned the skills necessary to enable him to become a Theatre Master Carpenter he, assisted by the D’Oyly Carte Family, branched out as a builder of Scenery on his own account and built the Scenery for D’Oyly Carte’s Gilbert and Sullivan ‘Savoy Operas’; and by 1927, so the London Evening News informed its readers in August of that year, he had "been making scenery for London and provincial theatres for a quarter of a century". By then John Brunskill was in a partnership, but still trading as John Brunskill, with his Son, John [Jack] Robert Brunskill, and with another Scenery builder, HP Flack. The business was incorporated as John Brunskill Limited in 1931.

Ted Loveday (my Father) was born in Aylesford Street, Pimlico, London in 1880. Charles, his Father (my Grandfather), was a Musician, and one of my Grandfather's brothers, Henry Joseph [HJ] Loveday, was also a Musician who, when aged only 19, was appointed Conductor of the Orchestra in Edinburgh's Theatre Royal. In 1877 HJ Loveday became Stage Manager, Adviser, and friend to the Actor-Manager Sir Henry Irving at Irving's Lyceum Theatre off London's Strand. [They first met when Irving was appearing in Edinburgh between 1857-1860], He remained as Irving's Stage Manager, Adviser, and friend until Irving's death in 1905. [Their Assistant at the Lyceum Theatre was Bram Stoker, the author of 'Dracula' (a story doubtless much influenced by Irving and the dark, draughty, creepy eeriness of life, as it then was, backstage at the Lyceum).] Another of my Father's Uncles was George Beaumont Loveday, a Manager of Theatres and of Artists [including the then very famous comic Actor (and Producer) John Lawrence Toole] and an Impresario for whom, in 1883, Eastbourne's Theatre Royal [now known as The Royal Hippodrome] was built. [Their Grandfather was an Actor at The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in the days of the Kembles. Their Father, William Loveday, was an Actor at The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane with Edmund Kean and their Mother was an Actress with Kean.] In his early teenage years my Father became proficient in the crafts of Joinery and of Cabinet-making before, in 1899 when aged 19, starting his own Scenery-building business [One of his first customers being the Impresario Sir Oswald Stoll for whom my Father, when aged 24, built much of the Scenery for Stoll’s opening Production at his brand new London Coliseum Theatre (of Varieties)].

Jack Higson was the eldest of the three. When aged only 11, he was already in paid work doing all sorts of 'behind the scenes' jobs in professional Theatre before becoming first a trainee Stage Carpenter, then a Stage Carpenter, then a Theatre Master Carpenter. Thereafter he became Technical Advisor to such Theatrical 'greats' as the Impresario Sir Charles Blake [CB] Cochran. Jack Higson's technical knowledge of Scenery, of Stage Construction, and of Stage Mechanics [traps, revolves, ascending and descending Scenery, etc] was considered to be of the finest quality. He also built Scenery on his own account and continued to do so until 1922.

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Public radio broadcasting did not commence in the UK until the early 1920s [several years before Television] and therefore, although increasing numbers of Cinemas were coming into existence, Music Halls and Theatres were the principal places where large numbers of people went to be entertained. Most towns, even many villages, had at least one Music Hall and/or one Theatre, and many large towns and cities had several of them [see, for instance, the website of Arthur Lloyd for further information]. Therefore, given, due to its many Music Halls and Theatres, the considerable amount of Scenery that was required in the London area in the early years of the 20th century, there were in London many Scenery builders some of whom - such as Bruce Smith, Francis Bull, George Hemsley - made Scenery in conjunction with, or which they sub-contracted to, John Brunskill, Ted Loveday, and/or Jack Higson (the sub-contractors sometimes receiving no public acknowledgement whatsoever, even if they actually built all the Scenery for the entire Show).

John Brunskill, Ted Loveday, and Jack Higson had advantages over many other Scenery builders for each had [1] been born into a family deeply involved in professional Theatre with a bias towards Scenery, [2] been brought-up surrounded by very 'useful' influential theatrical 'contacts', and [3] in his childhood learned in great practical detail the art and skills needed to, almost entirely by hand in those days, construct Scenery. Also, not only in the 1890s was flat Perspective Scenery (cloths, etc, with walls, ceilings, doors, windows, and so on painted on them) beginning to be replaced by Realistic Scenery (actual walls and ceilings, real doors and windows that actually opened and closed, and so on) but in the 1900s the trend of sending 'London' Shows touring around the UK had begun to seriously evolve : And sending Shows around the UK involved not, as is now usually the case, just a handful or so of Theatres but sometimes scores, if not hundreds, of Theatres (see the Database), the Scenery being transported around the landmasses of Great Britain and Ireland either over, often very poor by to-day's standards, roads in lorries (sometimes in excess of 20 lorries, some with one or more trailers, per Show) or transported from railway station to railway station in carriages (occasionally as many as 8 or more per Show) especially made/adapted for Scenery by the railway companies of the day. [In London Scenery, of lengths at times in excess of 30ft (9.14M), was sometimes trundled through the, often very crowded and tram-track grooved, streets on 2-wheeled handcarts, the 'made to last' sturdily-built Scenery having been stacked on board the handcarts by the several men and boys who to-gether pushed, pulled, shoved, and manoeuvred the carts over the setted, stoned, and/or tarmacked streets.]

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John Brunskill operated his business out of premises in Newport Street in Lambeth, South London and my Father operated his business out of premises sited almost next to The Oval Cricket Ground in Kennington Green, also in Lambeth, the one business being just a few minutes' walk away from the other. [In 2004 I asked the Theatrical profession's much respected former maker of Stage Props, Jack Lovell, what was so special about Lambeth. Then aged 92 but still very mentally alert, Jack, who had known my Father well, informed me that "in those days" Lambeth (including Brixton and Kennington) abounded with highly skilled Theatrical trades- and craftspeople, many of whom operated as one-, two-, or three-person businesses and that therefore, what was in effect, a unique 'production line' culture existed in Lambeth which, whenever called upon to do so, could instantly feed skills and products into assisting the Scenery Contractors so that the Contractors could immediately respond to the demands of Impresarios and others who required Scenery, often large quantities of it, to be built and delivered within a matter of days if not, as sometimes happened, within hours.]

The third member of the trio, Jack Higson, although very knowledgeable insofar as the mechanics of Theatres and the construction of Scenery were concerned, was not the best insofar as the running of a business was concerned and by 1921 his business was, 'paperworkwise', struggling : And so, in 1922, my Father - out of gratitude for the many instances of technical assistance that Jack Higson had given to him over many years [and doubtless with a desire to have Jack Higson's technical skills and knowledge within his own business] - amalgamated his successful and very profitable business with Jack Higson's successful but not very profitable business. Thus Loveday & Higson was formed and continued beyond Jack Higson's death in the 1930s until 1939 when Loveday & Higson amalgamated with John Brunskill Limited [then being run by John Brunskill's Son, Jack, following John Brunskill's death in August 1933] to form Brunskill and Loveday Limited. [My Father died in October 1958 and Jack Brunskill died in November 1977.

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Much of the information in this website's Database - which is an ongoing undertaking - originates from account books held by us which were handwritten in times, commencing over 100 years ago, long before computers came into existence and in an age when accounting procedures were somewhat 'skeletal' compared with to-day's accounting procedures. Those account books held by us remain private but we reproduce the following 7 pages by way of illustration:

IF YOU WISH TO NOW GO TO THE DATABASES (1) OF SHOWS FOR WHICH BRUNSKILL AND/OR LOVEDAY BUILT ALL OR PART OF THE SCENERY AND (2) OF SOME OF THE THEATRES INTO WHICH THOSE SHOWS WENT [1] go to the MAIN MENU on the left and then [2] click on DATABASE OF SHOWS AND THEATRES.

1. Part of the 1903-04 account for the Theatre Manager and Impresario OSWALD STOLL for a Show staged in Manchester. [Unfortunately we have as yet been unable to work out either the name of the Show or the name of the Theatre(s) in which the Show was staged (Perhaps a Visitor to this website knows and can tell us ?)].

3. Part of the account for MOSS EMPIRES in respect of work done for Shows in or going into The Empire Theatre, Stratford (East London); The Empire Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne; The Empire Theatre, Cardiff; The London Hippodrome; and The Empire Theatre, Glasgow, all during October to December 1920.

6. Part of the account for the Actor, Singer, Dancer, Director, and Manager JACK BUCHANAN's 1936 Production [tried out first at the King's Theatre, Southsea in 1935] of 'This'll make you whistle' at London's Palace Theatre, and for an additional Set made in 1936 for the Show's Touring version.

7. Part of the account for the Actor, Singer, Playwright, Composer, Producer, and Impresario NOEL COWARD's 1936 Production of 'Mademoiselle' at London's Wyndham's Theatre, of the account for his 1937 Production of 'You can't take it with you' at London's St James's Theatre, and of the account for his 1938 Production of 'Operette' at London's His Majesty's Theatre.

Scenery Contractors not only 'churned out' Scenery. Their skills and knowledge were such that they advised many a Scenery Designer on what, technically, was or was not possible, and their Staffs were often required to travel far and wide to erect the Scenery that they had built, to advise and instruct others on how to erect and service it, and so on. By way of an example, above is a copy of a handwritten costing note held by us within the account file for the Producer, Composer, Lyricist JACK WALLER's 1938 Production of 'Bobby Get your Gun'. The Scenery for the Show, which went into London's Adelphi Theatre, cost Jack Waller £981/16/0 [£981.80p] (equivalent to about £240,000 to-day). Before it went into The Adelphi the Show had a 3-weeks' preliminary run at The Alhambra Theatre in Glasgow; and one of Jack Waller's requirements, and at a separate cost to Jack Waller of £4.18.0 [£4.90] (circa £1,200), was that 5 members of Loveday and Higson's Staff had to travel the 400 miles or so from the Scenery Works in Kennington to Glasgow to advise on, and help undertake, the Show's fit-up [and to buy drinks for the Theatre's Staff !!].

Almost anyone nowadays can take photographs and reproduce them by means such as downloading them from a digital camera into a computer from whence, via a connected printing facility, any number of reproductions can be printed off : But throughout much of the first half of the 20th century the taking and reproducing of photographs was somewhat of a difficult technical undertaking and thus often the province of Specialists. One of the ‘great’ Theatrical publications of the first half of the 20th century was The Play Pictorial, a monthly magazine which specialised in publishing photographs of many of the Shows which went into London’s ‘West End’. My Father and John Brunskill were very early subscribers and they relied upon The Play Pictorial [which incorporated ‘The Play’, ‘The Play Souvenir’, and ‘Plays and Players’ before itself being incorporated into the (British not American) ‘Theatre World’ publication] to provide them with a photographic record of many of the ‘West End’ Shows for which they built the Scenery. Our Library of Play Pictorials, which commences with Volume 1 Number 1, has thus played a major part in enabling us to reproduce, via the ‘PHOTO’ column on this website’s Database, photographs of some of the Scenery built by Brunskill and/or Loveday and/or Higson for Shows that were staged in London’s ‘West End’. [We apologise for the poor quality (compared with to-day’s standards) of some of the reproduced photographs.]        

We hope that you enjoy reading this website and that you find our Database of 'Brunskill and Loveday Shows', and the Theatres that the Shows went into, to be interesting and informative. Our Database is an ongoing undertaking and, in compiling it, we are endeavouring to be as accurate as possible; but doubtless the Database does contain errors, omissions, etc. These we have sought to keep to a minimum by checking our information against information within such as [1] JP Wearing's splendid 16-volume book The London Stage and [2] The Stage newspaper's superb Archive the invaluable assistance of which has enabled us to substantially widen the knowledge that we had of the Theatres that many of the Touring Shows went into. Also, we have been assisted by gratefully-received information given to me by the Brunskill Family, principally by the Architect John Burkett, Jack Brunskill's Nephew-in-law (who knew Jack well for many years). We are also grateful for the detailed firsthand knowledge imparted to me by the Properties Maker Jack Lovell (who knew my Father well for many years) and for information given to me by the, now no longer, Tableau Lodge [a Masonic Lodge founded in 1927 by John Brunskill and my Father along with other Theatricals involved in the Scenery side of the Profession (namely Albert E Wood, Master Carpenter at London's Royalty Theatre; Phillip Sheridan, Director of the Theatrical Lighting firm Strand Electric; William H Davies, Master Carpenter at London's Wyndham's Theatre; Francis L Lyndhurst, Scenic Artist; Lionel W Arter, specialist Supplier of timber for Theatrical Scenery; H Hunt, Master Electrician at London's Daly's Theatre; Reginald Holt, Property Master and Master Carpenter at London's Aldwych Theatre; Charles J Cheeseman, Scenery Contractor; F Maurice Wilson, Scenery Contractor; Arthur T Earnshaw, joint-Founder of Strand Electric; Wallace C Saunders, Master Electrician at London's Kingsway Theatre; FC Hinton, Box Office Manager at London's Lyric Theatre; Harry D Marsh, Senior Theatre Electrician; John FP Hill, Master Carpenter at London's Daly's Theatre; Robert Smith, Stage Manager at the London Palladium Theatre; A Stapley, Stage Manager at the London Hippodrome Theatre; James Frazer, Scenic Artist; and H Flack, Scenery Contractor)]. Above all, I personally am hugely indebted to my late Father for imparting to me a wealth of information about the origins of Brunskill and Loveday Limited and its personalities; about the many customers, friends, and other Theatricals with which it and its predecessor businesses were involved; and about the thousands of Shows for which, during the 20th century, he, John and Jack Brunskill, and Jack Higson built, or in conjunction with other Scenery Contractors built, the Scenery.

Enjoy ....and be entertained !!

Ted Loveday
Managing Director
Brunskill and Loveday Limited

PS  We regret that we are unable to assist people who ask us if we would/could let them know, for instance, whether or not their grandmother appeared in the Chorus Line in such-and-such a Show in Glasgow in the 1930s or whether their great grandfather ever owned or part-owned such-and-such a Music Hall in South London in about 1897 or what was the real name of someone who appeared under such-and-such a Stage name back in the 1920s. Sorry !!

The original of this Website ‘went public’ on 22 July 2009  

The Archive of 20th century Theatrical Scenery built by

BRUNSKILL & LOVEDAY LIMITED

Registered Office:  55-57 Bridge Street . Berwick-upon-Tweed TD15 1ES         e-mail: theatrical-scenery@tiscali.co.uk  [If writing to us, e-mail correspondence is preferred. Otherwise a suitably stamped addressed envelope must be enclosed if you wish us to reply.]

Member of APAC [the Association of Performing Arts Collections

(www.performingartscollections.org.uk)]

Member of APAC [the Association of Performing Arts Collections]

with access to well over 6,500 Programme Fronts as well as access to thousands of Cast Lists and other pages from all of the London Programmes and from hundreds of the Provincial and other Programmes and also access to some Photographs of Scenery on Stage.

John Brunskill on his way to work in the 1920s.

Discussing a Set for the 1953 Production of Dangerous Curves - The Producer, Director, and Actor Terence de Marney; The Designer Guy Sheppard; The Scenic Artist Phil Harker; and my Father Ted Loveday.

Jack Higson on a Works Outing in the 1930s.

The Writer of this Home Page demonstrating, in 2007, the Sightlines and technical construction of a Set that he had designed.

Jack Brunskill in his Drawing Office in the late 1940s.

An almost full-size replica of a London Transport ‘bus built to go, full of passengers, on the revolving Stage of London’s Coliseum Theatre for the Opening Scene (“London Town”) of the 1949 Royal Variety Show [Royal Command Performance]. (An actual ‘bus would have been just a wee bit too big to get into the Theatre and a bit too heavy for the Stage !!)

The Riverside Theatre in London’s Battersea Park. Designed by the Set Designer Guy Sheppard as part of the Labour Government’s Festival of Britain Exhibition and part-built by Brunskill and Loveday, it opened in May 1951, had 368 seats, was fully equipped, and had 19 sets of Lines. Intended that it be in existence for many years, 5 months later, in October 1951, the newly elected Conservative Government ordered the closure, demolition, and removal of Battersea’s Festival  of Britain site including the Riverside Theatre !!

Copyright © 5 January 2019 Brunskill and Loveday Ltd                                                                                    Websiite layout designed by Brunskill and Loveday Ltd

Ted Loveday
Managing Director
Brunskill and Loveday Limited