DANCE COLLECTION DANSE

Finding Mrs. Colville
WWI Patriotic Performances
in St. John’s
BY AMY BOWRING
Newfoundland has been the
home of my maternal and
paternal ancestors for over 200
years. Its theatrical dance heritage
has been a fascination of mine,
and various research trips over the
years have revealed the early echoes
of theatrical dance in St. John’s in
the twentieth century, as well as
the later achievements of those
who followed. It is a dance story
that both reflects other patterns in
Canadian dance history and that
also etches its own distinct path.
July 1, 2016 is an important date
for the people of Newfoundland.
It marks the 100th anniversary of
the start of the Battle of the Somme.
There, on that first day of July in 1916,
at 9:15 a.m., 778 men of the Newfoundland
Regiment went over the
tops of their trenches near the French
village of Beaumont-Hamel to attack
the Germans. When the next roll
Mr. Leonard Reid, Miss Mary Doyle, Miss Bartlett, Miss Lois
Reid, Mrs. Helen Colville and Miss Flora Clift (sitting down)
in Mrs. Colville’s Triumph of Harlequin, 1915
call was taken, 68 men answered
their names – 386 were wounded;
324 were dead or missing and
presumed dead. It was a defining
moment for this small country. Even
after Confederation with Canada
in 1949, July 1 for Newfoundlanders
has never been so much Canada
Day as it is Memorial Day. Knowing
the significant military sacrifices
made by Newfoundland during the
Great War, and knowing the prominence
of patriotic performances
to raise funds for the war effort in
other parts of Canada, I became
curious to know what Newfoundlanders,
and specifically women
in St. John’s, were doing in terms
of performances for benevolent
purposes during World War I. And
that’s when I found Mrs. Colville …
In the Dance Collection Danse
archives, there are photocopies of a
handful of pages from a 1916 publication
called The
Distaff produced by
the Women’s Patriotic
Association of Newfoundland.
An article
about amateur theatricals
includes two
references to a Mrs.
Colville and includes
two photographs of
her productions: The
Triumph of Harlequin
and a pastoral play
held at Vigornia,
Cover page of the 1916 edition of The
Distaff published by the Women’s Patriotic
Association
which was the estate of St. John’s
bakery owner John Browning. With
the help of archivists and digital
sources at the Centre for Newfoundland
Studies at Memorial University,
Mrs. Colville’s contribution, and
that of others, began to unfold.
Born Helen Withers in the early
1890s, Mrs. Colville was the daughter
of John and Emma Withers;
Withers had become the King’s
Printer in St. John’s in 1890, replacing
his own father in this role. As a
member of the Church of England,
young Miss Withers would have
been educated at Bishop Spencer
College in Newfoundland’s
church-run school system. By the
late 1890s, Bishop Spencer College
had a reputation for offering
a wide variety of extra-curricular
activities including dramatics.
24 Dance Collection Danse