Lancaster University Jack Hylton Archive

The archive at Lancaster University is something truly remarkable. I know of nothing like it elsewhere, certainly in Britain. What we have is all of the remaining band music from the 20's and 30's, which alone numbers well over 2,000 sets of parts.

Along with this, is a massive collection of Hylton's personal papers, photos, and boxes upon boxes of theatre programmes, scripts, stills from shows, newspaper cuttings from around the world, and countless other things which I haven't managed to get to yet.

The archive at one time, as university legend would have it, was stored in a disused Gents toilet in the Geography department. However, the university library expanded a few years ago and the archive now has a permanent, though far from glamorous home. More of a problem was the twenty years it sat in a damp room at the Adelphi Theatre in London, but fortunately those days are behind us.

Things have changed, however, as the picture here shows! The archive was looked after first by Helen Clish, then Liz Fawcett both of whom worked tirelessly to make the archive and its contents more accessible. Since then the material has moved home again and is now looked after by Katie Waring. All these people have always been very forthcoming and accommodating towards queries from around the world.

Click on the picture above to access their information or visit https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/library/collections/special-collections-and-archives/