C B Purdom

Welwyn Garden City pioneer and drama enthusiast

By Robert Gill

A sketch of C B Purdom
M Somer
C B Purdom in the 1960s
Antoinette de Pourtales

Welwyn Garden City

Charles Benjamin Purdom, born in Lambeth, London on 15th October 1883, was a Letchworth Garden City and Welwyn Garden City pioneer. With Ebenezer Howard and Frederic Osborn he was a founder member of the National Garden Cities Committee, formed immediately after the first World War. In 1919 he became Secretary of the Garden Cities and Town Planning Association and the editor of its monthly journal.

He was one of the founders of Welwyn Garden City alongside Ebenezer Howard and Frederick Osborne, becoming a member of the Board of Welwyn Garden City Ltd, and Finance Director and first Managing Director of Welwyn Stores Ltd.

In March 1928 C. B. Purdom resigned his positions in Welwyn Stores Ltd. A few weeks later he also resigned from the board of Welwyn Garden City Ltd.. He did this after a sustained campaign against him by officials of the company backed by some board members. C B Purdom was a highly dedicated and hard-working man, who was a staunch proponent of the garden cities idea, and who was devoted to the development of Welwyn Garden City. Without any inkling of what was about to happen, he was suddenly and ruthlessly rejected by those with whom he worked, and abandoned by people whom he regarded as his friends as well as colleagues. What happened was devastating for Purdom, as it surely would be for anybody finding himself in such a situation.

In the 1930s he was elected to Welwyn Garden City U.D.C. as an Independent member.

C B Purdom married Lilian Cutlar in 1912 and they produced four children, one of whom Edmund became a Hollywood actor in the 1950s.

C B Purdom spent most of his life living in Welwyn Garden City till his death in 1965.

Drama

C B Purdom was a remarkably gifted man with great executive ability and an immense capacity for detailed work. He also had a reputation for being outspoken, stubborn, tactless and difficult to get on with. He brought these diverse qualities in full measure to amateur drama, for which he had a great and abiding enthusiasm.

A perfectionist, he founded the Letchworth Dramatic Society in 1906 and under his guidance it achieved a considerable reputation. Purdom maintained that there was greater value in a performance by amateurs who loved drama for its own sake than one by professionals who performed for a living. He also held that amateurs could make a more worthwhile contribution to the theatre by concentrating on less popular and non-commercial works than by attempting to ape the professionals. For example, in 1912 his Letchworth society gave the first performance by English players of G. B. Shaw’s “The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet” when that play was still banned by the censor.

The first World War put an end to Purdom’s Letchworth Dramatic Society as it put an end to so much else.

Purdom edited the Swan edition of Shakespeare’s plays, and in addition to his writings about the New Town concept he wrote books on Producing Shakespeare and What Happens in Shakespeare. His Producing Plays is something of a standard work for amateurs, as is his Drama Festivals and their Adjudication. He had much influence on festival work through the Guild of Drama Adjudicators, of which he was a founder member and the first Secretary.

Amateur Drama in Welwyn Garden City

Welwyn Garden City owes a great debt of gratitude to C. B. Purdom, no account of the amateur theatre in WGC should fail to acknowledge his contribution.

Scarcely had the paint dried on the first newly-constructed houses of Welwyn Garden City when, in May 1921, Purdom gathered together a group of local residents and produced “The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet” in the Brickwall Barn. This was followed later in the year by the Welwyn Theatre Society’s “Candida” in the restaurant of the Cherry Tree. Between then and mid-1929 a total of 37 additional full length productions (one of them performed in the French language) were staged in WGC by local societies and another nine by visiting companies.

Nor was C. B. Purdom inactive in drama festivals. The first one-act drama festival organised by the British Drama League (BDL) was held in 1926 and attracted seven entrants. The adjudicator was W. A. Darlington (the Daily Telegraph’s theatre critic) and he travelled to the parts of the country where those seven competitors performed. The winners were the Huddersfield Thespians, whose production of “St Simeon Stylites” was subsequently taken to America to compete unsuccessfully in a Little Theatre Tournament in New York. It was perhaps characteristic of C. B. Purdom that he lost no time in making known his disagreement with the adjudicator’s decision. He felt that the Theatre Society’s entry (“The Banns of Marriage”, produced by him) was more worthy of the first place – and in the light of the adjudicator’s comments it is difficult not to feel some sympathy with his point of view. The adjudicator had said in the Daily Telegraph that the WGC Society’s production was on a commercial level and would succeed anywhere, while the Huddersfield entry was a more representative amateur effort. Purdom considered this to be a reflection on Huddersfield’s standard of performance.

But C B Purdom can be said to have had the last laugh when, towards the end of 1926, the BDL’s National Festival of Community Drama was established. This time 107 societies took part and early in 1927 Purdom’s production of “Mr. Sampson”, again with the Welwyn Theatre Society, was unanimously placed first by the three judges who included W. A. Darlington. The other two were Sybil Thorndike and John Drinkwater. The Theatre Society then took the play to America, where it also came first in the New York Little Theatre Tournament, winning the Belasco Cup.

Other Drama Activities

C B Purdom became well-known as drama critic, particularly whilst editor and drama critic of Everyman (1929-32) and New Britain (1933-34).

In March 1938 Purdom was, for two years, appointed general secretary of the actors’ union Equity. The job of general secretary involved mostly discussions with theatre managers regarding pay and conditions of Equity members. In his autobiography, he paints a bleak picture of the times. There was very high unemployment amongst actors; theatre managers were frequently ruthless in their handling of actors; and some of the leaders of Equity were contemptuous of or indifferent towards the plight of the rank and file within their organisation.

In 1947 saw the founding of the Guild of Drama Adjudicators (GODA), C B Purdom being the first secretary.

In 2015 a film was made about C B Purdom at the 50th anniversary of his death in 1965. Follow the link to C B Purdom.

With thanks to:

The Welwyn Drama Festival 1929-1987 by Harold J. Stull

A History of Welwyn Garden City by Roger Filler

Welwyn Garden City: A Town Designed for Healthy Living by Maurice de Soissons

Alan Cash’s web site:   http://cashewnut.me.uk/WGCbooks/Purdom-biographical-details.php

This page was added on 01/11/2011.

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  • I remember when Mr Purdom lived in Barleycroft Road. When I was about 11 I had a crush on his son Edmund, who was on TV in a swashbuckling series called “Sword of Freedom” and in the film “The Student Prince” in which he mimed the songs to a recording of Mario Lanza (who was deemed too plump to appear in person). I must have dragged my poor father to see it about three times (I was considered too young to go on my own) and in the end I typed out the entire script as I knew it off by heart. The recording made from this film was the first LP record I ever bought. We didn’t have a record player, so I had to go round to our daily help’s house to listen to it. Many is the time I wandered rather slowly down Barleycroft en route to The Stores, hoping that Edmund would miraculously appear. He never did, alas.

    By Jenny Lee (18/11/2020)
  • I have fond memories of Mrs Purdom serving behind the cheese counter in the Stores (now John Lewis) during the war and proudly talking to my mother about her son.

    By june (11/09/2018)
  • My Mum was friends with Mrs Purdom
    One day I was in Town with my Mother outside the Railway Station when Mrs Purdom and Edmund (who was a Big Hollywood star by this time) engaged us in conversation !!!

    By Jeremy Blake (17/08/2018)
  • We lived at the top end of Handside Lane and a frequent visitor was Mrs Purdom who I think had a flat in Woodside House in Bridge Road where Edmund her son the actor used to visit her

    By Rob Marriott (23/01/2018)
  • My Grandmother was said to have been a nanny to Edmund Purdom in the late 1920’s but I don’t know if this is true.

    By Deborah Oughtibridge (22/03/2017)
  • A link to a film has been added to this page. The film was made in 2015 on the 50th anniversary of CB’s death in 1965. Follow the link to uTube.

    By Robert Gill (01/10/2016)
  • The name Purdom lives on in Welwyn Garden City, as Purdom Road is named after Edmund Purdom.

    By Jennifer McCann (03/11/2011)