Situated on Shirley High Street between Howard’s Grove and Shirley Avenue, this cinema was opened on Boxing Day 1910. It was Shirley’s first regular cinema (the Forrester’s Hall in Park Street had shown occasional films prior to this) and was nicknamed ‘Jury’s’ after its original owner, Jury’s Imperial Pictures Ltd. In March 1914 Jury's sold it to Percy Bowyer, a local entrepreneur who owned three other cinemas in Southampton. The cinema, a corrugated iron structure with seating for 800 patrons, closed down in 1922 and was subsequently used as a furniture warehouse before being demolished to make way for the Gordon Building.


Further reading:
Dream Palaces: Going to the Pictures in Southampton, by Bill White, p53. (HS/r)
Southampton Cinemas, by John C. Shepherd. (HS/r)
The Big Show: British Cinema Culture in the Great War 1914-1918, by Michael Hammond, p16, 21, 25, 40. (HS/r)


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