Programmes & Handbills

24th consecutive year, 1896-1897. According to the book on the Egyptian Hall by George Jenness, the Christmas programme started on 22 December 1896, and included ‘Chameleon’ for the first time. The earliest date for this programme is therefore 22 December 1896. This is consistent with the hand written date on page 1 of ‘Monday afternoon, 22 February 1897’. On this programme the person playing Chameleon is Miss A. Hansard. Programme Ref. no. N2068 has identical wording but for the fact that Chameleon is played by Miss Marion Melville.

23rd consecutive year, 1895-1896. According to the book on the Egyptian Hall by George Jenness, it was announced on 19 March 1896 that a series of Animated Photographs had just been added to the programme. The earliest date for this programme is therefore March 1896. This is consistent with the handwritten date of 30 April 1896 on page 1. The handwritten note in full is “April 30th 1896 H Ev. visited”. This is very likely the writing of Henry Evans Evanion. There are similar examples in The Evanion Collection held at The British Library in London, for example the item with the reference Evan.67 which is a Maskelyne and Cooke programme hand dated “Novr. 7th 1889 H Ev”. The printing on the Egyptian Hall programme illustrated here appears identical to that on programme Ref. no. N2064, although the colour of the paper is different.

23rd consecutive year, 1895-1896. According to the book on the Egyptian Hall by George Jenness, it was announced on 19 March 1896 that a series of Animated Photographs had just been added to the programme. The earliest date for this programme is therefore March 1896. This is consistent with the handwritten date of Saturday afternoon 28 March 1896 on page 1. The printing on this programme appears identical to that on programme Ref. no. N2065, although the colour of the paper is different.