Herbert Clayton: The Rise and Fall of a “Theatrical Man” in the 1910s
Outside the Red Mill Theatre, April 1912. Of the three men in the middle, the theatre owner/manager Herbert Clayton is on the left. The other two, one kneeling and the other standing, were theatre employees. The passersby seem quite curious about it all. This photo is from the collection of the Peterborough Museum and Archives (PMA), Balsillie Collection of Roy Studio Images, VR 7918-1 — but it also appeared in the Peterborough Evening Examiner, April 1, 1912, with the caption: “THE POPULAR HIGH-CLASS PICTURE PALACE, George St. Big Attractions All This Week. Don’t Fail to Hear D’ANGEO The Great Italian Singer. Special Big Show for Ladies every afternoon.”
“Local theatre-goers will no doubt see a big improvement to the Princess Theatre now under the capable management of Mr. H. Clayton, who now retains full control and management of the three local picture and vaudeville houses in this city.” – “The Princess Theatre Purchased by Moving Picture Magnate,” Peterborough Daily Evening Review, Oct. 21, 1913, p.1
Herbert Clayton: Hatching New Ideas, Building Audiences
In 1912 a young man named Herbert Clayton arrived in Peterborough to take up management of the new Red Mill Theatre. He quickly made his presence felt, and within a year or so, not satisfied with running just one motion picture house, he had also taken over both the long-running Royal Theatre and, soon after that, the Princess. In a brief period of time he helped to transform the local business of motion picture exhibition.
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Peterborough places of “amusement” as of 1910. Billboard, Jan. 29, 1910, p.29. Billboard was published in Cincinnati, New York, and Chicago. In 1912 the Crystal would be transformed into the Red Mill Theatre.
For most of the 1910s, downtown Peterborough was an entertainment hotbed. As of 1914 the city had four small theatres dedicated to motion pictures – with live music and vaudeville performances too. It also had a huge venue for live performances: the Grand Opera House, seating 1,500 – which screened the blockbuster silent pictures of the time such as The Last Days of Pompeii (Italy, 1913) and Birth of a Nation (U.S., 1915).
The main drag running north and south, George Street (still dirt in 1912, but not for much longer), was a bustling place day and evening. All sorts of persons wandered around, whether busy or with a little time on their hands – women and men and children, store and office employees, people shopping, looking for work – a few coins in their pockets, poking about to see what was happening. A spring 1915 news item referred to “the gay white way effect of Peterborough’s main street” — using a term once applied to New York’s Broadway and the bright illumination of its rows of theatres.
Evening Examiner, May 18, 1912, p.7. Not exactly Peterborough, but a representation. Based on the historical record, there would have been more women bustling about than are shown in this drawing. An Examiner editorial in support of women’s suffrage, April 10, 1912, noted with a sense of revelation that “women are, in these days of activity, compelled to associate with men in crowded street cars, and in the lobbies of theatres.”
The pedestrians had to watch out for cyclists, horse-drawn drays, streetcars, or the new-fangled autos – in 1914 there were two hundred automobiles in the city, about one for every hundred people. With the prevalence of horses, those strolling about also had to carefully watch where they stepped.
Walter Noyes, who worked in the downtown theatres from the 1900s to the 1960s, recalled that when he started out, “The Royal and the Tiz-It used to play the same vaudeville acts and the players with make-up still on went from one show to the other by carriage and horses.”
By 1915 the theatre scene revolved around four men who came, it seems, from quite different walks of life:
•business man and factory owner J.J. Turner Sr., who with his sons owned and managed the Grand Opera House at 284 George Street (immediately beside the Turner Building);
• tobacco merchant Mike Pappas (or Mehail Pappakeriazes), who built the Royal Theatre at 344–348 George in 1908 and at one time or another had his fingers in two others;
• local veterinarian Dr. Fred L. Robinson, who owned the Empire Theatre at 224 Charlotte, just east of Alymer;
• and Herbert Clayton, a relative newcomer who for a short while simultaneously ran three of Peterborough’s four motion picture theatres.
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Examiner, April 6, 1912, p.1. A most unusual ad. Says Clayton: “We lead, others follow.”
For some time after arriving in town in early 1912 at the age of twenty-six, Herbert Clayton appeared to be thriving — an exemplar of just how to build a business on the local scene. By May he had secured a ten-year lease to manage what had been called “the Crystal” — now renamed the Red Mill Theatre — at 408 George Street. As a newcomer he had quickly won the city’s confidence and earned its approval. At the time the Examiner declared that the new man was favourably “impressed with the progressiveness of the city and intends to remain here. He believes Peterborough to be one of the best towns he has ever been to.”
Clayton had just left the employ of theatre owners L.J. Applegath and Sons of Toronto, most recently having proved himself by managing that company’s motion picture theatre in Hamilton. The Daily Evening Review assured its readers that, “during his six years service with that company,” he “has never failed in this line of work.” He would surely fit quite nicely into this highly controlled city space. The theatre under his ownership would do “nothing to offend the most refined taste.”
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Herbert Clayton, born in Chequerbent, near Bolton, Greater Lancashire, in England on December 12, 1885, had immigrated to Canada while still a young man, making his way to Toronto. Family lore has it that early on he worked as a “strongman” in vaudeville – and, indeed, in 1907 he identified himself as a “gymnast.” In that regard, later on in the Great War he was assigned to the Canadian overseas force’s gymnastic unit as an instructor. The strongman/gymnast/vaudeville sphere could explain multiple tattoos later identified in his army record as “distinguishing marks”:
“Tattoo: left arm, Eleanor – woman & fan. Lt. forearm – snake on palm – lady – clasped hands. Breast – sister’s picture, clasped hands. Rt. Arm – Buffalo Bill. Rt. Forearm – Cross ‘In memory of my mother,’ two lilies etc.”
In Toronto Clayton may also have worked short periods as a carpenter and a “helper” at the Otis-Fensom Elevator Co. before finding his niche in 1907–8 with a job as an usher at the Crystal Palace theatre at 141 Yonge St. In any case he soon met up with Florence McNabb, who was employed at Eaton’s department store, not far from the Crystal Palace. (Perhaps Herbert showed her to a seat one day.)
A very well turned out and dog-loving Herbert and Florence Clayton, Peterborough, 1912. PMA, Balsillie Collection of Roy Studio Images, Bio 10868-2.
Born in Ontario in July 17, 1887, Florence had come to the big city from Stayner, a town just below Lake Simcoe (about 10 kilometres north of the village of Creemore). Her father, Archibald (“Archie”) McNabb, an agent for an agricultural manufacturing company, died in 1891, leaving her mother, Margaret (called “Maggie”), to take care of three children: Ellen (born 1886), Florence, and John Archibald (born 1891).
In 1906–7 Florence was employed as a “finisher” at the T. Eaton Co. – and at the same time her brother, John A. McNabb, was working right across the street doing display work and window trimming at the Robert Simpson department store.
Herbert and Florence were married in Toronto on Sept. 4, 1907. After that they lived at 105 William Street in the long-gone downtown area known as “The Ward,” and it was around that time that Herbert found his niche. By 1908, still only twenty-three years old, he had his job as usher at the Crystal Palace, opened in 1907 by the Applegaths. Perhaps he was with the Crystal Palace from its beginning.
L.J. Applegath and Sons, who started in the hat business, went into the new phenomenon of motion pictures in a big way, not just opening theatres but also introducing one of the early film exchanges – another new enterprise that took advantage of the growing number of theatres in the province, all of them crying out for more and more pictures.
Clayton must have impressed the owners because by 1909–10 he was manager of the Applegaths’ Crystal Palace Theatre in Hamilton. Florence filled in as treasurer of the theatre. The couple lived about 10 kilometres south of Hamilton in Caledonia Village, Haldimand District, attending the Anglican Church there. When the 1911 census taker came around, Clayton identified his occupation as “manager, moving pictures” — which was an extremely upstart identification for that time, with motion picture theatres in Ontario less than a half-decade old and still more disparaged than praised. Herbert and Florence were joined by an adopted son, John W., who was born April 10, 1911.
Examiner, Feb. 9, 1921, p.10.
By early 1912 the Clayton family had made the move to Peterborough — and Florence’s mother, Margaret, and brother, John A. McNabb, who had been living together in shared lodgings in downtown Toronto, moved there as well. So the move to Peterborough was a family affair.
In Peterborough John McNabb worked as a window trimmer with the Richard Hall & Son clothing and home furnishings store, moving quickly up to advertising manager. He went off to war in 1916 but returned to Canada a year later and got his discharge due to health issues. He returned to the Richard Hall store, but by 1921 he had started up his own dress shop, La Mode. A year later he established a larger store, J.A. McNabb Co., Ladies’ Wear. By 1923 he owned a chain of clothing stores in Peterborough, Belleville, Kingston, and Brockville. He became a prominent Peterborough business man (serving on both the city council and Board of Education) before leaving in the 1930s to live in London, Ont., and then Brantford.
For his brother-in-law Herbert Clayton, the move to Peterborough in 1912 was a logical step. Clayton would probably have learned a little about the city’s theatre scene in his work with the Applegaths. Peterborough’s Mike Pappas visited Toronto’s Crystal Palace Theatre and the Applegath exchange to seek out the latest films and vaudeville acts for his Peterborough concerns. It was at the Crystal Palace in 1910 that Pappas had spotted the musicians Agnes and Eveline Fenwick (the latter known as “Mrs. Foster”) and brought them to Peterborough, for life. Perhaps Herbert Clayton had recognized the possibilities of Peterborough as a place to set up on his own. He might well have been financially backed in the shift by the Applegaths; such things were most often not made public. He might also have received financial help from his mother-in-law, Margaret McNabb.
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Clayton in the doorway of the Red Mill Theatre, April 1912. This is a detail from a larger photo. Balsillie Collection of Roy Studio Images, PMA, VR 7918-2.
In his mid- to late twenties Clayton was a self-composed, forceful-looking, wiry man of about average height for the times, at five-foot-seven (and weighing around 135 pounds). Even if he kept his strongman arms and tattoos well covered, a glance at his face and steely blue eyes might have delivered a quick message: here was a man of substance, someone to be reckoned with. “I have the impression,” his grandson Kent Clayton told me, “that he was a bit of a wheeler-dealer.” As the Morning Times would point out, he was also a man who could lose his temper when things appeared to be going against him.
His first Peterborough theatre, the Red Mill, was a dynamic enterprise. Friendly and go-getting, Clayton quickly became a well-known figure in town – front and centre in his publicity efforts. Day after day he made the usual claims about “securing” the best and most expensive films and acts possible. “Manager Clayton,” said a typical pronouncement, “will show the public of this City the greatest feature in motion pictures to-morrow and Saturday.” Or: “Manager Clayton has secured for next week the late and great Italian War, in 4,000 feet, four reels. This will be the greatest attraction in the motion picture history. Don’t miss it.” This sort of puffery was all standard promotional fare of the time – and for years after. At the time it simply represented a certain sure-handedness on Clayton’s part — a knowledge of how to sell this relatively new form of amusement to the widest possible audience — and to take it beyond the original mostly working-class patronage.
Review, June 5, 1912, p.5. Coming soon — a new projector, now on display in the nearby optician’s window.
He was not afraid of making big (if dubious) claims, as he did in the case of the three-reeler western War on the Plains (1912, starring Francis Coppola): “It is being shown for the first time in Ontario in Peterborough.” Another time it was: “Never in the history of motion pictures has a better programme been secured for its patrons than the management of the Red Mill has booked for Friday and Saturday.” In the case of the forgettable film Through Dante’s Flames (U.S., 1914), he was showing “what is said to be the most wonderful portrayal of a train wreck in the record of filmdom.”
With the coming of the First World War he offered “1,000 feet of authentic War Pictures, depicting scenes that actually have happened and are happening at the present day on the battle field” – a statement that, at the time, was far from the truth. In the days before film critics, the newspapers would print more or less verbatim the copy sent in by the theatre managers. “Manager Clayton is to be congratulated . . .” said one item – with Clayton more or less congratulating himself.
Examiner, April 15, 1914, p.13. The ticket price for evenings had gone up from the original five cents to a dime.
Sometimes the promotional copy as issued by the paper resulted in a mixup of voice, as in this shift from third person to first:
“Owing to the large number that could not gain admittance at least night’s performance, Mr. Clayton will show this splendid feature at 7, 8:30 and 10 o’clock to-night. I have run some wonderful features, but this is the daddy of all detective pictures on the market to-day.”
Superlatives have always been the bread and butter of exhibition publicity, but Clayton was not above stretching the truth in other ways. “I have made a business of attracting the public to shows for 10 years,” he said in an ad in April 1912; ten years earlier, in 1902, he would have been fifteen years old.
Examiner, May 25, 1912, p.1. “Daylight” pictures.
Clayton was innovative, not afraid to take risks. To encourage the growth of audience he quickly introduced what were called “day-light” pictures – the films could be projected with the lights on, alleviating anxieties (it was thought) of women and others who might be concerned about the social composition of the film audience – while also allowing the theatre to be more open to the air in summertime. The films, he said, “will prove to be the clearest and brightest and steadiest in the city.”
Moving Picture World, April 13, 1912, p.102. The newspaper ad (below) puts it at 4,000 feet and four reels.
In April 1912, when he screened what he touted as “the beginning of a new departure in the moving picture business in this city,” for once the claim had a ring of truth. It was a 3,000-foot film (more than an hour long, unusual amidst the usual supply of short pictures): Nick Carter in Paris (perhaps a copy of a French film made 1909–10), with action taking place in the streets of Paris – and, supposedly, “a strong moral lesson.” It had just been screened for three weeks at a Yonge Street theatre in Toronto. Newspaper publicity (undoubtedly supplied by the manager himself) declared it to be “only a mark of the progress and thoughtfulness of Mr. Clayton.”
Review, April 25, 1912, p.5.
Nick Carter would be followed by something referred to as Dealers in White Women — a title I have not yet been able to track down. (It may have been based on a 1904 Broadway play, Dangers of Working Girls, or Dealers in White Women.) According to the Examiner (in copy undoubtedly supplied by Clayton) it was an exposé of the “white slave” traffic, a fairly popular subject of the first two decades of the century; in this case the work of art was supposedly given sanction by clergymen in England, the United States, and Canada.
At 27,000 feet, Dealers had another distinction: it was a serial attraction, to be presented in installments, just like the serial stories that newspaper readers were already so familiar with. “To get the good out of the whole story you must begin with the first pictures on Monday or Tuesday” and continue to follow the action from there. “This is something Peterborough people have never had the opportunity of seeing. It is a real drama in picture form, and having seen one section no one will miss the others.” The genre represented a strategy calculated to capture regular audiences – and was an early example of the serials that would dominate the theatres in the decade. In another twist, the theatre announced plans to open at 9 a.m. and run until 11:00 – and it would have a special matinee for “ladies” in the afternoon.
Examiner, May 20, 1914, p.8. Later, after Clayton took over the Royal, it was “strictly union.” With the ever-popular minstrel show.
Clayton made much of his support for workers and running “a strictly and absolutely union theatre.” He screened labour-friendly films and hired union “operators” (or projectionists). He complained when members of the Film Committee of the local branch of the International Typographical Union local brought in an educational picture, A Curable Disease, about tuberculosis, but chose his opposition – Mike Pappas’s Royal – for its screening. While congratulating the “printers of Peterborough” for managing to secure the film, he went on to “respectfully submit that some little disregard to union principles was displayed” by the members. “Why did not these splendid fighters for union principles choose a union picture house to display that film?” Clayton boasted that he employed “nothing but union musicians and operators” and paid “the union scale of wages.” To which the unionists offered a generous apology. They replied that, having received many “courtesies” from Clayton, they had indeed wanted to use his theatre for the picture – but the Royal had simply gone ahead and scheduled the film before all the details were settled. “On us, therefore,” the union members said, “the blame, if any.”
The Red Mill offered the usual array of vaudeville acts and music to accompany the silent films, with illustrated songs (at first) and singers and performers coming and going. It advertised music as “its special feature.” It had its regular band (usually a trio) to accompany the films. “The Red Mill Orchestra,” he boasted, “under the direction of Mrs. Foster, is of a high order of excellence, both from a classical and popular standpoint.”
In early April, for instance, the theatre served up the Italian tenor R.M. D’Angelo and brought in Miss Gertrude Ogden (“direct from New York City”), among many others. One of the regular “news items” supplied by the manager and faithfully published by the Examiner declared: “The Red Mill Picture Palace seems to grow more in popular favour each week, and the cream of Peterborough’s society and business folk are nightly represented in this delightful place [of] amusement.” Clayton, as stated in the Morning Times, “seems, to use an English expression, to ‘ave a haye like a beagle’ for good vaudeville attractions.”
Morning Times, May 8, 1912, p.5.
Clayton may even have proved a little too successful at drawing audiences. In the following months the audiences were so large that overcrowding became an issue. The Morning Times – one of the city’s three dailies at the time – went on a bit of a crusade against what the editor considered to be chaotic and dangerous conditions at the theatre. It was a time filled with serious concerns about the highly inflammable film being used, and the all too real possibilities of fires breaking out and crowds not being able to get out safely. In May word went around that the Morning Times was going to publish a critical item about unmanageable crowds at the Red Mill. Witnesses had seen the lobby packed to bursting and people jamming the aisles while the films were playing (forbidden by law). Hearing of this, Clayton showed up at the paper’s offices “in a wrathy mood.” The morning’s headline: “He Loses His Temper.”
In late February of the following year Police Chief Thompson laid a charge against Clayton for allowing the passageways and approaches to the picture show to become blocked (although, the police noted, the aisles of the theatre were clear). The manager was fined $50 for the offence. Another time he offered an apology to “parents of the hundreds of children to whom he had to refuse admission on New Year’s Day, because they were not accompanied by an adult.” (The provincial law prevented proprietors from permitting children to enter unless accompanied by parents or some other adult.) At least once he had to pay a hefty fine for admitting unaccompanied children.
Examiner, April 23, 1914, p.11. All managed by Herbert Clayton.
Clayton had clearly made his presence known, and by the summer of 1912 he was also managing the Princess, just across the road. In October 1913 he bought rights to the theatre outright. Under Clayton the Princess took a slightly different tack, appealing to potential male patrons: “Will you appreciate the efforts of your wife on that dinner, to-day. Then show it by taking her to the Princess Theatre.” People who came to the Princess would “see a cleaner and more affordable hour. You’ll be treated right! Only a nickel but worth a quarter.”
Clayton was doing so well that he also reached an agreement with Pappas to assume control of the Royal. In announcing his takeover of that theatre in January 1913, the Examiner noted that Clayton “intends to make considerable improvements” – one of which involved plans to include a gallery that would seat 500 people (which never seems to have come about). He was the first off the mark to bring in Thomas Edison’s Kinetophone attraction – rudimentary talking pictures – exhibiting the pictures a full seven months before they made a big splash at the Grand Opera House.
Review, Oct. 15, 1914, p.8. The sweep of amusements in the city, autumn 1914, with considerable competition, including a big motion picture of the Trojan War (from Italy) at the Grand Opera House (more expensive, at fifteen cents). Each in its own way claims to be the best place to go; and with the lineup on the bottom right, Royal, Princess, and Red Mill, all controlled by Clayton. At the Red Mill, a “special invitation to all the working class.”
Clayton’s little empire on the main street now included all three motion picture theatres. In January 1914 the Examiner reported that he was showing 65 reels of film a week at his three theatres, with the Red Mill screening British pictures; the Princess devoting itself to the releases of the Mutual Film Corporation (distributors of the Keystone Kops films and, for a while, Charlie Chaplin), with its independent films; and the Royal showing “the cream of the licensed films.” Big audiences continued to turn out. One evening in February, a paper reported: George street, for many feet north of the Royal Theatre, was crowded with people waiting to enter that popular place of entertainment.”
Clayton and Pappas were business partners of a sort, though eventually they would have a falling out. Together in late 1913 or early 1914 they made an attempt to open up yet another theatre, this time in Lindsay. They applied to the Lindsay town council for a license to establish what would be the town’s third motion picture house. The council proved reluctant to accept the request because of the competition that would be created for the first two theatres, with some worry, too, about the money going “out of town.” While the plans for Lindsay did not work out, a report indicated that Clayton had bought a theatre in Hamilton, and he may have owned or managed one in Brantford as well. At one point rumours spread about Pappas and Clayton setting up yet another theatre on George St. capable of seating 500 people, but that did not happen.
Mrs. Florence Clayton, 1912. Balsillie Collection of Roy Studio Images, PMA, Bio 10868-3.
Florence Clayton was closely involved in her husband’s financial affairs, both in Hamilton and Peterborough. There is a story about her catching a lucky break in August 1913, when one of the big disasters in Peterborough history occurred: the collapse of the large J.C. Turnbull department store. Florence had planned to attend a bargain sale at Turnbull’s that very day, Aug. 28, but after being very busy the day before, she slept in. At nine o’clock that morning she telephoned a friend and cancelled a plan to go to the store — “Thus, in all probability,” said a newspaper report, saving her life. Sixty people were in the building, and five people died. “Lucky Me Overslept,” Morning Times, Aug. 29, 1913, p.8.
Herbert and Florence’s adopted son, John, at about three years old. Courtesy Kent Clayton.
This photo of toddler John as an angelic Cupid was apparently taken for a contest in search of a baby “Hollywood star.” John won the contest locally, but his grandmother would not let him go.
Little John was a performer, too. At a benefit wartime concert given for B Company, 56th Battalion, Kingston, amongst several Peterborough people who appeared was the “little three-year-old son of Sergt. Clayton,” singing three songs. “To-Day’s Military News Continued,” Examiner, Nov. 26, 1915, p.12.
About three months later John appeared in Peterborough’s Grand Opera House at a concert in support of the 93rd Battalion: “Little Jack Clayton, son of Sergt. Herb. Clayton of the 59th, brought down the house in his singing of ‘Good Luck to the Boys of the Allies,’ ‘We’ll Never Let the Old Flag Fall’ and ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning.’” The opera house was packed, and the gallery had to be opened to accommodate the people who arrived late. “New Instruments Were Presented,” Examiner, Feb. 19, 1916, p.7.
Examiner, March 30, 1912, p.1. Clayton makes his appeal to a wider audience with the Italian operatic singer D’Angelo plus his local singer, Mr. Donaldson, along with his “big special show for ladies and children every afternoon.”
Clayton, like purposeful managers everywhere, took care to fashion ties with the community. During the early months of the Great War he contributed theatre proceeds to war causes. A committee of the Trades and Labour Council got a day’s take — the sum of $5 (representing a lot of nickels and dimes) — which was in turn handed over to the Daughters of the Empire “for patriotic purposes.” He put his gymnast background to use working as physical director (or trainer) for the city’s main hockey club. He “is a demonstrator of physical culture,” said the Review, “and has had considerable experience along this line.” He “donated” a couple of his vaudeville performers to take part in the program of a 57th Regiment “smoker.” Working with the W. Lech and Sons store he arranged a “Hat Contest” for his theatre, with the store providing the prize for a “lucky winner” at one of his shows. He also arranged to give “a purse of silver” to the best amateur performer in his city.
Examiner, Dec. 11, 1914, p.13. Clayton’s Royal, Red Mill, and Princess.
But something went wrong. He might have badly overextended himself, with his fingers in too many pies. In addition to paying for renovations he had to cover expenses, licences, and property taxes on three theatre properties. He spent $2,500 alone on a lavish “musical instrument” (some kind of organ) for the Royal, and purchased two of the finest projectors available. “The Royal,” noted the Review, “will be one of the few strictly modern theatres in Canada.” More than once announcements indicated that he would be expanding the Royal to a size of something like 1,000 seats, but those plans seem always to have fallen through.
A fire at the Princess just before Christmas of 1914 proved a turning point. Clayton, as manager, was the last man in the theatre that evening and had tended as usual to the furnace and emptied the ashes in the cellar before leaving. Flames broke out shortly after he had left, around 11:15 p.m.
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The fire at the Princess occurred following a year in which Clayton had overseen renovations to the theatre, providing “all new seats” and “lots of room to be comfortable” – in other words, he had been putting a fair bit of money into the space. Although the fire was quickly brought under control and did not cause severe damage, the theatre remained closed through the Christmas season and January and most of February – representing a hefty loss of income in a peak period.
In February Clayton took out a building permit (for $300) to make alterations, including “the closing of the Arcade and the putting in of a glass front.” Clayton was turning the location into a new theatre and held a naming contest over a few weeks. When it reopened, now known as The Tiz-It, it was even more “handsomely fitted.” A month or two later Clayton (now with a co-owner, a “Mr. Lee” of Toronto), went to the expense of putting in a new ventilation system. But Clayton was clearly in trouble financially.
“With the Movies,” Review, April 23, 1915, p.8. The things a manager has to do.
The crunch came in March, when Mike Pappas took Clayton to court for violating the lease of the Royal. Clayton had fallen behind on his rent and owed Pappas the extraordinary sum of $2,485 (in today’s currency, almost $54,000) – as well as $465 (a little over $10,000 today) to a local lawyer who had loaned him money to help secure the lease.
On March 8 Pappas took back control of the Royal.
Clayton carried on with his other two theatres – and, again, oversaw extensive renovations and repairs to both the Red Mill and Tiz-It. In March 1915 he issued the standard promise of “a big programme” at the Red Mill, “for the admission of 5¢ to all at all times.” At the Tiz-It, he said, he would “show first run features, comedies and war specials. If you have not visited the new theatre, do so to-night.” On Wednesday, April 14, according to Clayton, an expensive ($200,000) photo play (The Secret Seven) “broke all records at the matinee and evening performances,” with a large number of potential patrons having to be turned away. By April Clayton and his partner, Mr. Lee, had spent even more money installing a new ventilating system, “the first system of [its] type to be installed in any local theatre.”
Review, May 4, 1915, p.8.
Examiner, May 5, 1915, p.7. With Peterborough’s church organist and choir director (and opera conductor) Richard J. Devey supplying the music at the Red Mill, Mrs. Eveline Foster and her orchestra at the Tiz-It — and Mary Pickford on screen.
Review, May 11, 1915, p.8. “Pictures of the Peterborough Boys Who fell fighting . . .”
Review, May 11, 1915, p.8. In press copy that Clayton supplied, the Review promotes the “pictures of the Peterborough boys” — “only the mothers of Canadians know what it costs Canada.” Ironically, a couple of months later Clayton himself would heed the call to war.
Clayton continued to put himself forward in the promotional copy he supplied to the papers.
For example: “Owing to the large number that could not gain admittance at last night’s performance, Mr. Clayton will show this splendid feature [at] 7, 8:30, and 10 o’clock today. . . . This is the daddy of all detective pictures on the market to-day.”
At the Red Mill he brought in a new serial film, The Master Key (1914), working out a deal with the Examiner to print installments of the story, each Friday and Saturday. “Those who have read the first instalment of the story [in the newspaper] will of course find the pictures particularly attractive.” In June he was making arrangements to bring in films from the Canadian Universal Films Co., a subsidiary of Universal Pictures Corp of Hollywood, for both the Red Mill and Tiz-It.
Review, May 13, 1915, p.8.
Review, May 13, 1915, p.8. The Universal City film studio officially opened on March 15, 1915.
You could get an awful lot for five or ten cents at either the Red Mill or the Tiz-It — or why not go to both? The Red Mill offered unnamed (Universal) pictures amidst plenty of “big-time” vaudeville. The Tiz-It had the 11th episode of the serial The Trey O’ Hearts (from Universal, 1914, with four more episodes to come), but also film of the momentous opening of the Universal City studio in Hollywood, a big feature comedy-drama, and more, including Mrs. Foster’s Orchestra. An ad for Trey O’Hearts promised: “This picture creates situations that will bring you to the edge of your seat. You will enjoy every second of this beautiful photo play serial.” The film is considered to be lost.
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Yet things must not have gone all that well, for in the summer of 1915 Herbert Clayton quietly abandoned his theatres. He must have relinquished whatever leases he had, and new managers/owners took over.
It seems, too, that patriotism was also calling. By August the country was entering its second year of what eventually became known as the First World War; and on Aug. 18 Clayton left his home at 751 Water Street (north of what is now Parkhill) and made his way to the Armouries to enlist. He filled out all the required forms, passed a physical examination (Aug. 21), and prepared to join the 59th Battalion. He identified his trade or occupation as “theatrical man,” age twenty-nine. At some point, seemingly before he left, he managed to have some photos taken by the Roy Studio in Peterborough.
Herbert Clayton, 1915. Balsillie Collection of Roy Studio Images, PMA, Bio 15412-1.
Clayton with son, John and Florence, 1915. Balsillie Collection of Roy Studio Images, PMA, Bio 15412-3.
Clayton with his son, John, 1915. Courtesy of Kent Clayton. This photo is also in the Balsillie Collection of Roy Studio Images, PMA, Bio 15412-2.
Library and Archives Canada (LAC), Personnel Records of the First World War, RG 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 1779-52, Item no. 104739.
After a lengthy period of training in Canada, he sailed with his contingent from Halifax for Liverpool, arriving on April 11, 1916. The passage was on the S.S. Olympic, a large ocean liner serving as a troopship (for a time it was the largest liner in the world and one of the ships that famously responded to the Titanic’s distress call in 1912).
More months of training in England followed. Clayton got a quick promotion to sergeant and in July 1916 “proceeded to the Physical Training Course” and was shifted to the 39th Battalion. In December he was transferred to the Canadian Army Corps headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force as a physical and bayonet training instructor; his background in physical training and exercise had been recognized.
A postcard sent home, May 5, 1916, showing the camp that he was staying at in Shorncliffe, the largest of the bases located on the Kent coast and just 20 miles from France. “Kisses for the babe and you all . . .” He writes that things are going well and he is having “a fine time.” Courtesy of Kent Clayton.
By January 1917 he was “in the field” in France. Around that time the Canadian army “loaned” him to the 2nd Imperial Army Training School.
Clayton, in the middle, with his troop somewhere overseas. Courtesy of Kent Clayton.
In March Florence Clayton received word of her husband’s promotion to the Imperial forces as Staff Sergeant-Major and that he was “at present in the trenches” in France. Whether he did make it to the actual trenches or not is not clear; but he was, as it turned out, placed in charge of the 101st Infantry Brigade bayonet fighters and physical training class.
On April 11, 1917, two days after the beginning of the notorious Battle of Vimy Ridge, Clayton was attached to the 141 Brigade at Steenvoorde in northern France, not far from the Belgian border – specifically in the Army Gymnastics Staff (Canadian Branch) as a “Physical and Bayonet Fighting Instructor.” He was billeted in the small town of Poperinghe (today spelled Poperinge), the centre of a large concentration of troops; as many as 250,000 troops were stationed in the area in 1917.
Grande Place, Poperinghe, Belgium, postcards.
On April 20 Clayton died in the 5th London Field Ambulance hospital, Poperinghe, at the age of thirty-one.
The military kept rigorous records of casualties. In most cases the standard “Circumstances of Death Register” had a brief note: “Killed in Action.” In a few cases the record had explanations such as “died (influenza)” or “died of wounds (accidental)” or “previously reported wounded and missing, now for official purposes presumed to have died.” In the case of Herbert Clayton, the document, dated April 20, 1917, had a more unusual note: “ ‘Died’ (Self-Inflicted Wound Throat) at No. 5 London Field Ambulance.”
LAC, Personnel Records of the First World War.
LAC, Personnel Records of the First World War.
A Court of Inquiry was convened the very day after his death, and the testimony of six witnesses provides a glimpse of his final days and hours. Clayton was billeted in a room above a café – an “estaminet,” witnesses called it. He shared a room with a fellow sergeant, S.H. Bridle, who testified that Clayton had looked “run down” upon his arrival in the town. Asked if he had been “working hard,” Clayton said he had been drinking hard, “gin & Benedictines.” But, his roommate said, he seemed “rational” enough. More than one witness said they had never seen him drunk. He appeared quite capable of looking after himself.
The first sign of trouble occurred about a week after Clayton arrived in Poperinghe. He was in the habit of going to the estaminet every day at lunch time and again in the evening for dinner. On the evening of the 18th he turned up there as usual sometime after 6 p.m., leaving about 8 p.m. with Regimental Sergeant Major H. Chesny to have supper with him. They parted around 9:00 “on perfectly good terms with everyone.”
After that he went to pass time in the sergeant’s mess room of the 20th Battalion – and he thought he overheard people talking about him. He later told Sergeant Bridle that someone in the division was “spreading the tale” that he was a German spy. His roommate “managed to quieten him,” but on the following day Clayton remained worried about the talk “& kept referring to it!”
He was also sleeping poorly – disturbed because he thought people were walking in and out of the bedroom. He confided in his superior officers about his worries, and seemed “perfectly rational” to them. Capt. J. Betts told him “to try to forget all about it, as he thought there was nothing in it.” Clayton said he didn’t feel well enough to carry out his work and was told to report sick.
Testimony of second witness, Capt. L.A. Clemens. LAC, Personnel Records of the First World War.
When he told Regimental Sergeant Major M. Chesney about his fears, the Sergeant told him “that to my knowledge the matter of a German spy had never been mentioned & no such accusation had been made against him.” To which Clayton had replied, “I must have been crazy.” According to Chesney, at the end of their conversation Clayton apologized, “saying he was sorry if he had put us to any inconvenience.” Chesny said that when he saw Clayton again on the evening of the 19th, “his behaviour was quite normal.”
On the morning of the 20th Clayton went to the dispensary, asking for “a tonic.” He said he did not feel ill enough to report in sick. Private Tagger of the Field Ambulance Detachment gave him “six tablets of Easton’s Syrup with written directions to take one three times a day.” In his testimony Tagger added his opinion: “The deceased did not look ill, when he came to the dispensary. There was nothing peculiar about him; he was perfectly sober.” It was the first time he had ever seen him.
Clayton told friends that he was feeling overly tired. He was sure people were going in and out of his room at night. He said he didn’t feel well enough to carry out his work. He was worried because he hadn’t received a letter from his wife in four months. But still, Clayton took part in a bayonet fighting demonstration on the afternoon of the 20th, and again his behaviour seemed “quite normal.”
Regimental Sergeant Major Chesney reported.
I next saw him on the evening of the 20th inst. He came into the Estaminet about 6:40 p.m. and left about 7:45 p.m. He told me had just been granted two days leave by the M.O. We discussed how he should spend the time. He complained of feeling tired and told me that the night before his bedroom door kept opening & closing. He also made use of the expression “I don’t think I can be sane” or words to that effect. I suggested to him that he should spend the two days in bed. He agreed and I arranged to go and see him today (21st). In my opinion the deceased was suffering from overwork & needed a rest. I don’t think he was an excessive drinker. He had never mentioned to me that he had any private worries.
Around 8:15 on the evening of the 20th a corporal on duty on Rue Poperinghe was passing the estaminet and saw a man coming out, “with his throat bleeding.”
The man fell to the ground, “struggling & bleeding profusely.” The corporal and another officer got him onto a stretcher and managed to get him to the Field Ambulance. The man, later identified as Herbert Clayton, died at about 8:45. When the corporal went back to Clayton’s room he found “a razor lying on the floor in a pool of blood.”
LAC, Personnel Records of the First World War.
The court of inquiry came to “the opinion that he died from a wound which was self-inflicted during a fit of temporary insanity, probably induced through overstrain due to the nature of his work.” (He was not alone; according to official records, 1,683 men of the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the war were determined to be insane.) A “Nature of Casualty” form dated May 26 suggested, “Information to be withheld from widow owing to serious condition of health.”
The vagueness of the official statement – “overstrain due to the nature of his work” – leaves a wide opening for perhaps fruitless but necessary conjecture. Clayton had been in France close to, if not on, the front line of battle, for three and a half months. Poperinghe was the centre of a huge concentration of troops. An early battlefield guide describes it as “a [wartime] centre for recreation, for shopping and for rest.” It also provided a safe area for field hospitals. But the war was close by – the din of battle could be heard on the streets of town – and ever present. The ancient town was under a constant barrage from German artillery guns. A barber shop had a sign reading, “We do not shave while the enemy is shelling.” A motion picture about Ypres documented a bombing raid over the local “bath-house where the men are enjoying a hot bath in the tin tubs.” Soldiers who were attempting in the midst of all this to take their rest and recreation would have had their stories of the horrors of the battlefield. The town was a place where the British locked up men condemned to execution (often for desertion, sometimes for murder), bringing them out to the town-hall courtyard at dawn and tying them up to posts to meet their fate.
“1917 on Film: Canadian Troops Train for the First World War,” YouTube.
If a surviving film from the period is to be believed, bayonet instruction involved the men confronting a series of large, stuffed burlap bags hanging from a crossbar, with the teacher showing the youngsters how to run up and properly plunge their long sharp knives into the swinging sacks. The instruction might have seemed somewhat academic; although the military considered the lessons an important part of training, soldiers seldom had to use bayonets in the fighting. The leading cause of casualties was artillery fire, distantly followed by bullet fire. Clayton would most likely not have been rejoicing in his job. And perhaps he had carried an already strained and beleaguered mind with him from Peterborough to Europe. Perhaps he wished to forget something he’d seen but could not get it out of his mind. Perhaps he wished to forget something he’d done (maybe something even back in Peterborough) but could not get it out of his mind. Perhaps he was stressed out by the unsavory task of having to teach other men how to run their bayonets through other human beings.
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Clayton grave marker, Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France. www.veterans.gc.ca/ eng/remembrance /memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial/detail/585252.
According to the “Circumstances of Death Register,” Clayton was buried at the Steenvoorde French Military Cemetery; other sources indicate that that his grave site in the end became the Cararet-Rouge British Cemetery, in Pas de Calais, just north of Arras.
The Examiner listed on an almost daily basis the painful news of the deaths of “local boys” lost in the war, and a notice of Clayton’s death appeared in the paper on May 15: “Two More Peterboro Boys Make Supreme Sacrifice . . . Pte. E. Vosburgh and Sgt. Clayton Reported Dead.”
The article indicated that Clayton, a “well-known Peterborough soldier,” was “killed in action.” He was “officially reported” as dying in hospital in London on April 30, “presumably from wounds” (although he had actually died in a field ambulance hospital in Poperinghe). The news appeared, according to the account, during a time when his wife was confined at home with illness.
The story gave a brief account of his past life in Peterborough: that he had come from Hamilton, opened the Red Mill Theatre and later took over the management of the Royal Theatre “and afterwards secured the Tiz-It, the three picture houses being under his control for a short time.”
Sergt. Clayton was a very efficient instructor in physical training and bayonet fighting . . . and his ability in this respect was recognized by his being used as an instructor here and afterwards in England and at the base in France.
He was survived by his wife and adopted son. “He was widely known in the city and the news of his death will be a shock to many.”
Florence had written to his commanding officer, Major J. Betts, to obtain information about her husband’s death, but it seems she might never have found out just how he died. In a return letter, received in July, Major Betts expressed sympathy on the loss of her husband but regretted that he was “unable to obtain any particulars . . . excepting that he and two other N.C.O.’s were wounded by a stray shell, and all three died from wounds.” Betts would surely have known what had happened but was apparently not in a position to disclose it; the details of the death remained a military secret.
To help ease her mind, Betts commented on Clayton’s “excellent” work:
He was a very keen and hard working instructor and highly spoken of by all with whom he came in contact. . . . I never wish for a more capable and conscientious man. He helped to prepare the gallant troops who stormed Messines and Whycheate . . .
Betts also included a letter from C.H. Harington, Second Army, praising Clayton and his staff for their work in ensuring the recent success of the army.
Examiner, April 15, 1929, p.12, upon the death of Florence Clayton.
Florence remained in the city for the rest of her life, although, quite oddly, it seems she had considered moving elsewhere after Herbert went into the army. In December 1915 she had advertised an auction sale of her “household effects, and furnishings,” stating that she was leaving the city. “Everything is new and up-to-date, and includes one piano, and walnut furnishings, and all necessary household effects of a well furnished home.” Given that this ad appeared several times, it seems she was quite bound on starting over; which raises questions about what had happened between her and Herbert. It seems quite possible that things had not gone well between them. For some reason, though, she changed her mind and remained in the city. She and her son soon moved over to her mother and brother’s home at 694 George Street.
Florence worked as a “sales lady” at the family clothing store, McNabb’s Ladies’ Wear, owned and managed by her brother, until her own death, at age forty-two, in 1929. She had been a faithful member of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, teaching a primary class there for many years, and a member of Order of the Eastern Star.
War Memorial panel, Confederation Square, Peterborough.
The memory of Herbert Clayton, the once-prominent self-described “theatrical man” about town — the man once identified in a headline as a “moving picture magnate” — faded. A 1926 Examiner review of a film called Ypres (1925), a mixture of wartime newsreel footage and re-enactments, mentions Poperinghe and tells about the sign in the barber shop that says “We do not shave while the enemy are shelling,” but it appears that no one knew that a “Peterborough boy” met his fate there. A 1929 retrospective Examiner article on Peterborough’s “amusement” history noted almost in passing, “The late Jack Clayton had a great deal to do with the old Red Mill and the Princess . . .” – not quite taking care to get either his name or the extent of his business correct. His name remains in Peterborough’s Confederation Square, etched on the war memorial’s list of Peterborough soldiers killed in the First World War. The family gravestone in Little Lake Cemetery simply reads “Died at Vimy Ridge France.”
The Clayton family grave, Little Lake Cemetery, Peterborough, Find a Grave website. Unfortunately, the “Find a Grave” photographer captured his own legs in the photo.
We simply don’t know if Herbert Clayton had severe problems contemplating the misery and suffering he saw; if he had carried problems, financial and/or domestic, overseas with him from his life in Peterborough; or if he suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness. As we do know, quite a while before his death his wife was considering moving out of the house they shared and selling off all the furniture. In the eyes of most he became, most simply, one of the approximately 61,000 Canadian wartime casualties. The easy thing was to say, as on his Peterborough tombstone – there for the ages – that he died at Vimy Ridge, despite official evidence to the contrary.
What we do know is that as a unique, local “theatrical man,” Herbert Clayton’s contribution to the establishment — and strengthening — of the motion picture exhibition business in Peterborough came about at just the right time.
Evening Review, March 16, 1915, p.8. Clayton puts his mark on the downtown landscape.
In the early years of the second decade of the twentieth century, film exhibition was undergoing a transformation from the fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants, short-lived nickelodeon period to a more stable, expanding enterprise that would become a permanent fixture of local culture, shaping the atmosphere of the downtown streets and the viewing practices of audiences. Early on, going to the short, silent motion pictures had been a largely working-class pastime, appealing with its low cost; but now, like fellow exhibitors Pappas, Robinson, and the Turners, Clayton persuaded patrons from the emerging middle class to develop the movie-going habit – exhibiting an air of pretension, for instance, in bringing the Italian “operatic star” D’Angelo to the Red Mill. He dreamed up new schemes to keep the people coming.
Like other good managers, keeping his “ear to the ground,” he caught on to the mood of his audiences. In a period of intense competition for the amusement coin, Clayton helped to (in the words of cinema historian Lary May) “raise movies above their disreputable origins.” While still making sure to appeal to the possible working class patrons, he worked at ensuring an expansion of the audience. He put his emphasis on the Red Mill as a “high class popular picture palace.” His theatre, as the Examiner put it, ended up attracting “the cream of Peterborough’s society and business folk.” He made efforts on a daily basis: reaching out, for instance, not only to unionists but to other sectors of the community, promoting “ladies afternoons,” offering proceeds to local war funds, presenting the finest music – or even volunteering to serve as physical director of the hockey club.
He was one of those few who, as film historian George Potamianos put it, “positioned the new theatre as a legitimate community business worthy of patronage.” He offered not just moving pictures but a sense of community that provided local residents with a sense of pride. In doing so he became, for a short time, Peterborough’s prime “theatre man,” displacing the others engaged in the same business.
Examiner, March 10, 1915, p.12.
As Clayton himself put it in a post encouraging suggestions for the operation of the Tiz-It, “This theatre is a public institution, and for that reason we wish the public to have our theatre programme presented to suit everybody. . . . Tell us frankly what you would do.”
For a time Clayton demonstrated those attributes articulated by one of his contemporaries, writer Epes Winthrop Sargent, in a book on theatre advertising published in 1915:
If the Exhibitor himself has the right sort of personality, it pays to impress this not only on the house people but on the patrons. This applies more forcefully, of course, to the small town house or the neighborhood theatre, for here good will counts for more than it does at the large enterprise in the business district of a city, but most picture theatres are built up on personality alone. They are intimate and friendly.
Despite the financial setbacks (with the fire at the Princess and the cost of subsequent renovations taking the biggest toll) – and the mysterious and tragic end of his life as a soldier in wartime Europe – Herbert Clayton remains a unique local “theatrical man,” a talented innovator who contributed mightily to the establishment of the movie exhibition business and culture in downtown Peterborough.
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Many thanks to Kent Clayton, Herbert’s grandson, who provided both family information and images. Also to Catherine Dibben, who helped in the early stages of the research; to John Wadland, who read and commented on an early draft of my writing about Clayton and has been encouraging to the end; to the steady helpers at the Trent Valley Archives and Peterborough Museum and Archives; and, as always, to Ferne Cristall, my constant support and most thorough reader.