Randall Williams (showman)


Randall Kay Williams was a Victorian showman noted for popularising moving pictures on British fairgrounds. The first known reference to Williams exhibiting films in his show was at Rotherham Statute Fair on 2 November 1896.
Williams toured Britain for 25 years, first with a ghost illusion show, and then with a bioscope. He reached the height of his career in the summer of 1897 when he exhibited at the Victorian Era Exhibition in Earl's Court, London. His show that year was designed specifically to pay homage to Queen Victoria's sixty year reign with a programme that included an "original Pepper's Ghost" performance, ‘animated photographs’ of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Procession, and a Tableau vivant presentation representing the Queen surrounded by the flags of all nations.
Williams was also an outspoken advocate for the travelling show community and a founding member of the United Kingdom Van Dwellers’ Protection Association, the fairground trade organization known today as the Showmen's Guild of Great Britain.

Early life

Randall Williams was born in Liverpool on 17 July 1846. His father, Thomas, came from an extended family of travelling showmen with roots in Warrington. The Williams family toured with amusements from the mid 1840s until the early 1900s. Their various interests included mechanical exhibitions, waxworks exhibits, photography booths, ghost shows, and cinematograph exhibitions.

Ghost illusion show

Williams' primary interest was the ghost illusion show he started in 1871. A ghost illusion show was a type of stage show that combined theatrical presentations with the optical technique known as Pepper's Ghost. Ghost illusions were popular in British theatres throughout the 1860s but did not appear in fairground shows until the early 1870s.
The travelling show’s adaptation of Pepper’s Ghost was typically a short stage play, consisting of three acts and a comic song - all done in about twenty minutes. The final act usually ended with a ‘transformation scene' depicting the final passage from this life to the next, and during which, at least one ghostly entity made its appearance. The ‘ghost,’ a life-like, three dimensional and free moving apparition was the reflection of a living being who was brightly lit up by limelight, and positioned off stage, out of sight of the audience’s view.
Putting on the ‘ghost’ was a rather costly undertaking for travelling show proprietors. The essential requirements were a source of lighting, a large mirror, and a large sheet of plate glass upon which to reflect the images. The glass had to be erected so that it sat at a forty-five degree angle at the front of the stage and, it had to be housed in a box specially built for transport. The final component was a platform-type stage built high enough to accommodate the actors who worked directly below and to the front of the stage, as well as the limelight worker, whose job it was to illuminate the actors whose images were reflected onto and through the glass. An enclosure or partition was erected around the front of the stage to prevent the audience from seeing all the activity that was going on below the surface.
The programs for Williams' show varied, but audiences were usually treated to at least one melodrama and a comical farce or two. His show at the New Year’s fair in Bolton, Lancashire in 1873 advertised a program of “a specially written adaptation of the late Chas. Dickens’s Christmas story of the Haunted Man;” “Gounod’s famous Opera of Faust and Marguerite;” “the tableaux illustrative of the heart-stirring poem of Little Jim, the Collier’s Child;” “the thrilling legend of Adrian, the Avenger;” “The Goblin’s Haunt, introducing the Gorgeous Transformation Scene;” “the Seraph or Living Head;” and other “Entertainment of Prestidigitation.”
Williams' show was part ghost illusion theatre and part variety show. The artists he employed included actors, song and dance teams, magicians, ballet dancers, mummers and comedians like the Great Little Titch. He also hired international acts such as The Brothers LaFayette and Professor Howard. By the early 1880s, Williams' show had many of the same trappings as a theatrical touring company. The show’s crew in Manchester at the time of the 1881 census consisted of a number of actors, actresses, comedians, musicians and comic singers, as well as a set decorator and a dramatic author.
Williams' phantasmagoria was popular with fair-going audiences. A reporter who attended the show at Glasgow Fair in July 1880 wrote that, "Not the least amusing show on the ground is Randall Williams' "Hobgoblinscope," in which ghosts, phantoms, and goblins appear and disappear, and sing and dance in such a way as to puzzle the auditors to distinguish between illusion, and bodily impersonation."
Ghost illusions were the mainstay of Williams' show for a quarter of a century with the 'ghosts' making their final appearance at Nottingham Goose Fair in October 1897. The show travelled under various names over the years including The Great Hobgoblinscope ; The Great Ghost Show ; and Randall Williams Grand Electroscope and Mammoth Phantoscopical Exhibition.

Ghost show presentations

Travelling showmen played an important role in introducing the new medium of moving pictures to the British public in the late 1890s. In fact, the speed at which the cinema took off in Britain was due, in large part, to the combined network of exhibitors and performance venues that was already in place.
Randall Williams was one of the first showmen to exhibit films on the fairgrounds. The first known reference to a cinematograph exhibition in his show was at Rotherham Statute Fair on 2 November 1896. The following month, he was the first showman to exhibit films at the World’s Fair, an indoor fair held each year over the Christmas holiday period at the Royal Agricultural Hall in London. Williams' next stop after the World’s Fair was the Valentine's Fair at King's Lynn, Norfolk in February 1897, where it was reported that the "Randall Williams’ Cinematographe Pavilion did immense business."

Haydon and Urry, Ltd.

There is no record of the supplier of the projector used by Williams in the latter months of 1896, but by early February 1897, he was using one supplied by Haydon and Urry, Ltd., a London firm that produced cinematographs and films during the late 1890s. The company's involvement in the cinema trade was short-lived, but they are noted for supplying many of the first fairground film exhibitors.
Williams was the first showmen to use Haydon and Urry's projector and his use of their machine came about as a result of three contributing factors: - need, availability, and timing. In early 1897, Haydon and Urry were in the process of developing their own film projector. The company had recently moved their offices and showroom to 353 Upper Street, Islington locating them just across the street from the Royal Agricultural Hall where Williams was exhibiting. Williams was already acquainted with one of the firm’s employees, James Monte, having met him a year earlier at a showman’s annual supper committee meeting. By early February 1897, Haydon and Urry’s projector was ready for market and according to accounts from that time, Williams was in need of a new one. He had opened at the World’s Fair with an exhibition of films, but the projector he was using had been condemned as a fire risk by London County officials. Getting a showman as well known as Randall Williams on board with their new projector was a major coup for Haydon and Urry. The firm applied for a patent for their cinematograph on 10 February 1897 - just as Williams' time at the World’s Fair was coming to an end - and just five days prior to his show opening at King’s Lynn at the start of the fairground season. The projector used by Williams at King's Lynn would have been the firm’s earliest model and, it was likely the same model he used throughout the summer, leading Haydon and Urry to claim in their advertising that their machine had been used “with unqualified success at Victorian Era Exhibition all Last Season.”
Williams was Haydon and Urry’s best known exhibitor, but their Eragraph projector was popular with numerous other early film show proprietors including Harry Scard ; Albert and George Biddall; Alfred Reynold ; John Cooper; George Aspland; Charles Thurston; George Lewis; James Crighton; James Norman; George Williams; Walter Lear ; M. de Montel; Signor Ernest Polverini; Hamilton Brothers ; John Sylvester ; and Mr. C. A. James.

Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee procession

Williams' main draw in 1897 were films supplied by Haydon and Urry of Queen Victoria's Jubilee Procession on 22 June 1897. The company opened its own film production studio in April 1897 and the Jubilee films were produced by James and Richard Monte, two brothers employed by the firm. The films were exhibited at the London Pavilion the same night they were filmed and are believed to have been the first footage of the procession to be seen by the public. A second copy of the films was dispatched by train to Liverpool where they were exhibited by the owners of Reynolds Waxworks and Variety Exhibition on Lime Street within 24 hours of the procession having taken place.
Other films produced for Haydon & Urry by the Monte brothers included scenes of Henley Regatta, Lady Overboard, Turn out of Fire Brigade, The Bride's First Night, Twelve Months After, and the funeral procession of actor William Terriss.

Films exhibited in Williams' Show

Williams was one of the travelling show community’s more outspoken advocates. He organized several protests over the years against the railway companies over the rates they were charging travelling amusement caterers. He was also one of a small group of showmen who met at the Black Lion Hotel in Salford in late 1890 to organize a protest against the Moveable Dwellings Bill. The proposed bill had been initiated by child welfare reformer, :s:en:Smith, George |George Smith, and was described as “providing for the regulation of vans, vehicles and tents used as dwellings.” It’s real intent, however, was to enact legislation aimed at regulating and controlling the gypsy population and forcing itinerant parents to send their children to school. There were some commendable aspects to the bill, but the showmen believed that if the bill passed, it would restrict their ability to travel and pose a serious threat to their livelihoods.
The showmen’s dispute with George Smith over the bill lasted another three years. Smith’s final attempt to regulate the itinerant population was a revised bill in 1894 for the “improvement of moveable dwellings,” but little became of it and Smith died less than a year later. The showmen’s opposition to the bill, however, left a lasting legacy. It helped shape a new alliance between the men and women who made a living with traveling amusements and led to them forming the United Kingdom Van Dwellers’ Protection Association at a meeting in Lord George Sanger's Amphitheatre in London on 12 February 1891. The new van dwellers association was the start of a new trade organization and it helped define those in the travelling amusement trade as a distinct group, socially and economically separate from other groups of travellers.
The Van Dweller’s Protection Association was renamed the Showmen’s Guild in 1900 and is known today as the Showmen's Guild of Great Britain. Williams was deeply involved in the Van Dweller’s Protection Association, both as a committee member and as one of the Vice Presidents for the Manchester Section.

Death and legacy

Williams' last show was at Freeman Street Market in Great Grimsby, Lincolnshire, where he died of typhoid fever on 14 November 1898. He was buried at Weaste Cemetery in Salford on 18 November with the funeral service being conducted by the Reverend Thomas Horne. Williams was survived by his long-term partner, Annie Radford Williams, daughters, Caroline and Annie, and sons, Randall, Thomas, Eddie Albert, and George. He was predeceased by his first wife, Mary Ann Hough, who died in 1884.
Following his death, Williams' main bioscope was taken over by his daughter Carrie and new husband, Dick Monte. They continued to travel the show as the Randall Williams Cinematograph Show until 1913 when it was destroyed by fire at Thirsk, Yorkshire. Williams' No. 2 show was taken over by his daughter and son-in-law, Annie and Reuben Williams. They travelled with their bioscope until 1906.