[82580] Sheffield : Central Library - Albert Hall

Central Library, Surrey Street, Sheffield.

Albert Hall, Sheffield.

Grand Evening Concert, 27 February 1894.

Madame Patey's Farewell.

 

The Albert Hall stood in Barker’s Pool on the corner of Burgess Street. The site is, in 2019, occupied by John Lewis. It was built on the site of the former Quaglen’s Circus. Built to the designs of architects Flockton & Abbott, it opened as a concert hall on 15th December 1873.

 

During the night of 14th July 1937 a disastrous fire gutted the building and the burnt out remains were left standing for a few years. A new Gaumont cinema to the designs of architect WE Trent was planned, but never materialised. During the 1930s when the new City Hall was being built across the road, it was proposed to remove the Albert Hall’s organ and place it in the new City Hall, but this never happened and the organ was lost in the fire. After the Second World War the land was bought by Sheffield Corporation as the site for the new law courts but these were never built here and in 1963 Cole Brothers Department store (a subsidary of the John Lewis Partnership) was built on the Albert Hall site.

 

Janet Monach Patey (1842-1894) was a London-born contralto singer who achieved a considerable reputation as a concert performer and in oratorio. By 1870 she had succeeded Mme Sainton-Dolby as principal English contralto, a position she was to hold until her death in February 1894.

 

I note she died on 28 February 1894 which was the day following this concert. I assume she did not appear. Did the concert go ahead?

 

www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/shannon-madame-patey-n04263

Done