Case Five

Case 5: William Webb and The Miller and His Men

William Webb was apprenticed at age fifteen to etcher and engraver Archibald Park, who also published toy theatre plays and portraits. Webb and Park were the only two toy theatre publishers who did their own drawing, engraving, printing, and abridgement of the playbooks. The mounted scenes in this case were all created using Webb’s sheets.

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36. Medium-size model stage with proscenium by Benjamin Pollock, c.1935.

This Pollock model theatre includes oil lamp footlights with wicks. Mounted characters placed in metal stands were manipulated using metal rods, and the curtains pulled using a string.

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37. Two mounted scenes from The Miller and His Men. No place, no date.

These scenes were enlarged and elaborated by Dr. Hughes, who built the large theatre in case four. Layers were cut and mounted and attached to a wooden base for placing on the stage ready to perform, avoiding long delays between scenes. Complex movements of the backgrounds and characters are controlled with carefully labelled beads, pulleys, and cranks. The water scene has fourteen different elements to be coordinated!

Toy theatre technology developed with that of the real theatre, and these scenes are all wired for electric lighting effects.

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