Gloucester Operatic and Dramatic Society

Membership cards, annual reports and accounts, programmes, newscuttings and photograph albums, and souvenir menus.

(Acc. 4655) Documents deposited by W. G. Bretherton, as executor of Miss B. M. Wright, deceased, of Gloucester, 16 June 1983

The Gloucester Amateur Operatic Society was founded in 1913 by "enthusiasts who had taken part in earlier productions of Gilbert and Sullivan Operas in Goddard's Rooms, Northgate Street...and in Underwood's Rooms, Southgate Street". Its first production, the 'Mikado', was staged at the Palace Theatre in 1914.

The dramatic section of the Society was set up in 1936. During the Second World War productions were halted, but the G.O.D.S. resumed its activities in 1945 and has continued to perform to date. Accommodation became an acute problem after the war because the Assembly Hall at Shire Hall could no longer be used. A temporary theatre was made available by Gloucester Wagon Company in 1949 while various plans to buy a hall in the city centre fell through. Negotiations were begun in 1958 to purchase the old Salvation Army Citadel in King's Barton Street which became the 'Olympus' theatre opened by Anna Neagle in 1963.

This comprehensive collection of programmes, photographs, news-cuttings and other records was compiled by Miss B. M. (Trixie) Wright, one of the founding members of the Society who died in 1983. Details relating to Miss Wright's family are contained in some of the newscuttings albums; they include obituaries for her father J. T. Wright, founder of the tailoring business of that name, who died in 1935 (in D4655/6) and for her mother, Alice, who died in 1946 (in D4655/7).