Dennison sisters Murder in the Museum

[kilvi00]

Hi all, hope someone here can help me. I work in a museum in the UK and we have a John Dennison penny slot machine called Murder in the Museum from 1934. One of our curators is wanting to have a local drama group recreate the story live action to show alongside this machine for an exhibition. The problem is, we don't know the plot of the story. We have researched as best we can and have a lot of info regarding the machine itself, just not the plot. Does anyone have any ideas?
Any help is greatly appreciated.

[wembleylion]

The Murder in the Museum working model appears to come from the 1934 film of the same name staring Henry B Walthall and Phillis Barington.

The basic plot is that:
When a man is murdered at a sinister sideshow that has been under investigation by the city council, a young girl and a newspaper reporter endeavor to find the killer.

The film is on YouTube:


Hope this helps. John

[kilvi00]

This is amazing info John. Thank you so much.

[pennymachines]

kilvi00.
It would be great to see a or even better, a video of the model!
Please let us know when and where the exhibition takes place.

[pennymachines]

Moonriver informs me that the Leeds Abbey House Museum working model that he and Slotalot have finished restoring, is now on display, together with a number of his own machines which are on loan to the museum. Their Dennison French Execution is next in line for completion.

The Yorkshire Evening Post published the following about it, on Friday 9th September:
Murder in miniature as slot machine is fixed at Leeds museum

[badpenny]

He's a lad isn't he? Our very own Slotalot, gawd knows what this hobby is going to do come the day he wins the lottery and buggers off to live in The Caymen Isles.
His finger's in everything ...... not my cup of tea!

Long may he guzzle cherry cake.

BP

[pennymachines]

Please disambiguate BP. Don't you like working models or is slotalot's finger everywhere but in your Rosy Lea?

[slotalot]

All my fingers are doing just fine but can't seem to find my thumb
Glad to see the Dennison doing what it was made to do..

[badpenny]

Never mind your thumb "Big S" ..... it's your ring finger that worries me.

finger.jpg (11.98 KiB) Viewed 5259 times

[slotalot]

Thought I might as well post this photo on here, for some reason this is the only photo I can find from when I worked on this machine
Shows you a little of mech before any work was done on it.

[moonriver]

The Murder Dennison has an interesting cam with a notch, separate from the rest of the cams, that makes a loud 'click' from a piece of spring steel just as the Inspector 'fires' his pistol and there were the remains of a hole where a bulb socket had been at the back behind the display case and a leaf switch off this cam that simultaneously flashed a bulb. We reinstated all this with period fittings, cloth wiring and wire clips. We had to work up to an original clear large 100 watt filament bulb to get a bright enough flash effect, although the contact is so brief the bulb actually only glows for a second, but the result is good and reflects from behind the display case well.

The lady at the front who lifts her watch out of her handbag to look at the time was problematic too as it's a complex movement given that she turns too. The 'murderer' in the sarcophagus had lost his gun (so was just pointing) and we couldn't have an unarmed man being shot by the police, so I had to make the gun. Getting him to raise his gun and then get shot and slump back so his head drops just before the door closes was difficult. Along with this the snap from the pistol has to exactly match the flash.

All the cams were out of synch and the motor long gone so it was a challenge. Stuart re strung it and repaired the back of the case, repaired the loose brass pulleys and sourced a replacement motor. I also made the shield and mount on the top of the right side display case, which was completely missing. This model is the only one that is missing from the sisters' diary, so no photos to go from. We think it was taken out and lost by museum staff over the years.

After Stuart had finished his part I had a big problem with the motor heating up after several plays to the point it was too hot to touch, so after much investigation with a capacitor company (we couldn't risk a potential fire at the museum), I got the motor overhauled, backed up with a service invoice from the motor repair company for my own peace of mind. The original motor was on a rheostat but, due to the complex and fragile nature of the model and longer run time, we opted for a continuous motor that didn't speed up over the day and with frequent plays.

[13rebel]

Wow! Well done chaps.

[pennymachines]

Here's another piece from the Yorkshire Evening Post with some details about John Dennison and his three daughters Florence, Alice and Eveline: Leeds nostalgia: Abbey House’s penny slot machines

Leeds nostalgia: Abbey House's penny slot machines
One of Abbey House Museum's star objects, the penny slot machine 'Murder in the Museum' has recently been restored to full working order.

The comically macabre automaton is subtitled ‘Who Killed the Man in the Chair?’ and the suspects in this 1930s murder mystery include a woman with a large handbag, a man lurking behind a display cabinet and a man hiding inside the Egyptian sarcophagus.

The machine was made in 1934 at the height of the Golden Age of crime fiction and was the work of two Leeds sisters, Alice and Eveline Dennison.

He displayed his first working his first working models, demonstrations of a drilling machine and a hand lathe, at the 1875 Yorkshire Exhibition, which were well received by the public. He soon began building both mechanical fortune teller machines and working model dioramas for installation at exhibitions, fairs and bazaars.

By 1884 John had a small exhibition (possibly already in Blackpool). His machines had melodramatic subjects, such as the Dying Child, Drunkard’s Delirium, Haunted Miser and of course the French Execution (now owned by Leeds Museums).

John Dennison first exhibited in the old Aquarium in Blackpool in 1891 and he became a fixture in Blackpool Tower when it opened in 1894. It was a family business, including John’s brother William and his son George from his first marriage.

The three daughters from John Dennison’s second marriage, Florence, Alice and Eveline, started by helping their father with his models but soon began to develop ideas of their own. John Dennison valued their contribution and seems to have fiercely discouraged them from marrying out of the family business!

Alice Dennison (1890-1966) initially worked as a governess and then as a dress maker, and was the inspiration behind the costumes for the models. She also turned her hand to the machinery side of the business and was behind the decision to move from clockwork to electricity.

Eveline Dennison (1896-1970) had been an art student who won a scholarship and she was the artistic one, intricately creating the models out of wood and clay. Their elder sister Florence seems to have been more in charge of the business of running the Blackpool enterprise.

The Dennisons left Blackpool Tower in 1944 and sold the machines to the Tower Company, from where they have been dispersed around the world.

Quoted in the Blackpool Gazette in 1963 the Dennison sisters stated:

“The most popular models we created were always those with a morbid flavour – “Supper with Death”, “Midnight in the Haunted Churchyard”, “Murder in the Museum”.

Anyone who imagines that children prefer fairy stories are way off beam. During the 20 years we held the business we learned a lot about human nature”.

You can try out ‘Murder in the Museum’ at Abbey House Museum, now lovingly restored by Robert Hind-Smith. An accompanying film which fleshes a live-action version of the story has been produced in collaboration with Target Productions and features local amateur acting talent. It can be viewed in the gallery at Abbey House museum, and also on the Leeds Museums You Tube channel."

[slotalot]

I have just found this newspaper article from 1930 about Evelyn and Alice Dennison. Hope you can read it and find it interesting.

[coppinpr]

Very very interesting. Thanks for sharing it on the forum.

[pennymachines]

Fascinating and important cutting Slotalot.

Remastered for easier reading:

WORKING MODELS
Made by Leeds
Sisters.
A DELICATE
TASK.
(By a " Mercury " Special Correspondent.)

Two Leeds girls— sisters—of an inventive turn of mind are carrying on a remark-able profession. They are the Misses Evelyn and Alice Dennison, daughters of John Dennison, inventor and maker of the original automatic machines and working models that are now a feature of every sea-side resort. John Dennison died about six years ago, but his daughters have carried on the business, making with their own hands the models and the machinery to work them. A fitter and finisher with a Leeds engineering firm. Mr. Dennison first made models as a hobby, which later grew into a business so successful at the time of his death that Evelyn and Alice decided they could not let it slip. They came to their new sphere entirely untrained. Evelyn spent three years at Leeds College of Art, where she won two scholarships with the object of becoming a book illustrator on the lines of Edmund Dulac. Alice was a nursery governess, and previously a dressmaker. Both gave up their original ideas of a career, and from their father's work, picked up all they know about the models, Evelyn learning all about decorating the " scene-deck, " and Alice the machinery.

WORKED BY ELECTRICITY.

Altogether they now have 90 working models and about 50 automatic machines in action, mainly at the Tower and the Olympia at Black-pool. A " Mercury " reporter found the sisters at work in the " shop " on the 91st model, in which they are embodying some ideas stored in Evelyn's bulky sketch book. This will be the first model to be worked by electricity, the girls hitherto having followed their father's practice of using clockwork machinery. Evelyn told how they started by redressing an old fashioned model at a seaside resort, and, then plunged deeper into the business, encountering many severe difficulties in the pro-cess. They found that dressing a model was not so simple, for the model had to move in its clothes. Sometimes Alice, the dresser and dressmaker, had to try several times before she hit on the right way. They found the models and scenes were not varied enough, since they were limited to one or two movements. They, there-fore, studied out different ones, while employing the original movement of the figures. Wood, clay, pill boxes, cotton reels, raffia, coloured paper, bits of silk and cotton are the rough materials from which the girls build up miniature men, women and human accessories, decorative and useful.

OFFER FROM AMERICA.

In the carving of hands, feet, and faces, with Alice as model, Evelyn has to use a penknife, or an " orange stick " from a manicure set, or even a pin the smallest instruments she can find, so delicate is the work. The results are astonishing. A " monk's bench " in the latest model, standing about three inches high, bears exquisitely carved figures; there are tiny rugs, stairways, mantelpieces, and trees built from separate leaves, with paper roses attached. Evelyn makes them all, striving to make her models look less like models and more like miniatures—mites done to scale. The completion of an entire model takes about six months, sometimes four, although, Alice said, it depended largely on the number of movements the figures went through. It is remarkable that in their travels on the Continent they never came across any working models such as their own, and they have gathered there are none in America either. Recently they had an offer from an American firm to supply America with their machines.

[john t peterson]

It's hard to believe that any siblings today would agree to undertake such a tremendous challenge, particularly if they were not involved in the business prior to passing of their father. Things are much different today. Maybe they would do a series of Tic Tok videos of the working models?

J Peterson
Clock ticking, USA