Theatre hygiene : a scheme for the study of a somewhat neglected department of the public health / by Walter E. Roth.

  • Roth, Walter E. (Walter Edmund), 1861?-1933.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Theatre hygiene : a scheme for the study of a somewhat neglected department of the public health / by Walter E. Roth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    well as for the safety of the adjoining buildings in case of fire, to give room for the operations of the fire-brigade (C.S.T.),* and to allow of the construction of a system of external balconies, to which reference will be made below. The entire site should be covered with a layer of cement-concrete 18 inches in thick- ness (C.S.T.) so as to ensure dry foundations. External ualls to be of brick, or partly of brick and partly of stone, of a strength and thickness not less than that prescribed by the City Acts, and carried up to a height proportioned to the width of the street. ' Captain Shaw lays down the rule that the combined height of the buildings on both sides of the street should not be greater than double the width of the latter; for instance, buildings of 60 feet and 30 feet in height re- spectively might safely occupy opposite sides of a street 45 feet wide.' Unless separated by brick and fire-proof construction, no scene- dock, workshop, property-room, or store-room to be permitted within the building. In cases where the theatre forms a part only of a building, such theatre to be separated from the other parts of the building by proper party-walls or party-structures (M.B.W.).-f- This essential is of great import in Sydney, where the majority of the theatres are in direct connection with hotels. The roof, ceiling, stage and its supports, the galleries, flies, and stage machinery, etc., to be, as far as possible, constructed of fire-resisting materials : all wood, canvas, or other material used in construction or for properties to be coated with silicate of potash or other fire-resisting liquid or substance, and lightning-conductors provided to roof (C.S.T.) On making an inspection into the state of the Sydney theatres, it appears somewhat strange that in the large majority of cases the above essentials, the first principles, so to speak, of theatre construction, are conspicuous by their absence. This anomaly is explicable, perhaps, on one or more of the following grounds—ignorance and mammon, increased value of the land, * Commission of Sydney Theatres, etc. j- Metropolitan Board of Works (London) regulations.
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