We start off with two slightly macabre accounts, I will post some more light-hearted accounts of theatre productions in future, these just happen to be the ones that peaked my interest. There are various accounts on the internet of The Coronet being haunted by the ghost of a cashier who threw herself off the theatre balcony after caught stealing money...however perhaps Alfred Knight Clarke, the scene shifter is our ghost?
Saturday 12 January 1901
Cheltenham Chronicle
“JACK THE RIPPER” SCARE.
Either a madman or practical “joker” has been at work in the Notting Hill district, Kensington. On Wednesday Miss Winifred Hare, who is playing the part of Dick Whittington in the pantomime at the coronet Theatre Notting Hill received a letter threatening to kill her on Thursday or Friday, and all the leading actresses of London afterwards. The epistle, which was written in schoolboyish hand, was signed “Jack the Ripper,” and was embellished with crude sketches of daggers, skulls, and crossbones. The letter was immediately handed to the police, Miss Hare being not a little upset at the alarming threat. During the performances on Thursday and Friday a large number of detectives and other police officers were on duty in all parts of the theatre, especially in the vicinity of the stge. Nothing occurred, and the police regard the outrage as the work of a practical joke. The Coronet theatre is still, however, being watched, and the police are doing all in their power to trace the writer.
Saturday 24 January 1903
Derby Daily Telegraph
Fatal Death at a Theatre
Mr Walker Schroder held an inquest on Friday at Paddington
Coroner’s Court concerning the death of Alfred Knight Clarke, aged 33, a scene
shifter, who was employed at the Coronet Theatre Notting-hill-gate and lately
resided at 18, Uxbridge Street, Notting-hill-gate. On Saturday last night the
deceased was engaged in setting a side wing, a portion of the last scene on the
pantomime of “The Forty Thieves,” and was within two or three feet of an
opening through which a fountain basin was being raised by lines from the
“flies,” when he fell sideways through the hole on to the concrete floor of the
cellar beneath – a distance of 12 feet. Walter Turner, electrician at the
theatre, who observed the occurrence, said Clarke had performed he same duties
for many nights. Witnesses attributed the accident to sudden giddiness on the deceased’s
part. Other evidence showed that the deceased was removed to St. Mary’s
hospital, Paddington, where he died on Sunday evening from, as an autopsy
revealed, the effects of a fractured skull. The jury returned a verdict of
“Accidental death.”
