Bees Knees (Copperfields, Jack's, Casino Club), Crompton Way, Bolton

 

The site of the Bees Knees, June 2024. Copyright Google. The hairdressing salon at the former front entrance is named after the former nightclub. A supermarket occupies much of the rear of the premises.

6 December 1934 – Crompton Cinema opens.

March 1959 – the cinema closes and is put up for sale.

9 June 1961 – Casino Club opened by Howcroft's Brewery (Bolton) Ltd.

February 1972 – Casino Club (Bolton) Ltd collapses into liquidation. The club is sold to Douglas Flood And Partners (later known as First House Leisure Group). It is reopened as Copperfield's.

16 January 1976 – Club's name changes to the Bees Knees.

January 1981 – Bees Knees closes and the premises are put up for sale.

Crompton Way, the road linking Blackburn Road and Bury Road, was built at a cost of £230,000 and was opened on 24 April 1928. The new road opened up residential and commercial opportunities along its length, so in December 1934 Crompton Way Cinema Ltd, a company that had offered shares to the Bolton public, opened the Crompton Cinema close to the new road's junction with Tonge Moor Road. The cinema had a capacity of 1200 people and had installed special equipment to be able to show the new 'talkie' pictures. Within months it had been sold to a Mr Hall of Blackpool and in 1938 it was sold again, this time to the Rialto company.

The arrival of television in Bolton in 1949 sounded the death knell for many local cinemas and the Crompton closed as a cinema in March 1959. It was up for sale for over 18 months, but in 1961 came reports that the former cinema could become a club.

At the end of May 1961 it was revealed that local brewery Howcroft's (Brewery) Bolton Ltd were spending £20,000 on turning the premises into a nightclub, the Casino. Just a few weeks earlier 19 people had been killed in a fire at the Top Storey nightclub on Crown Street in the centre of town. However, director Atherton Howcroft who, along with his brother Jack ran the brewery, was at pains to point out that the Casino would be “the opposite of the Top Storey,” which had been a small club in the attic of a warehouse. He promised “real family entertainment” although by that he meant there would be much to appeal to women as well as to men. Patrons would be greeted by a fountain at the front entrance; much of the £20,000 had been spent on lush decorations; the stalls of the old cinema had been flattened and chairs and tables had been set out, but there was a space in front for a dance floor.

Atherton Howcroft's father Thomas was a pub landlord at the Park in Farnworth in 1911 before moving to the Seven Stars in Little Lever. He bought the Rothwell Street Tavern, situated off Derby Street, in 1920 and was of sufficient means to pay cash for that pub while still keeping hold of the Seven Stars. The Seven Stars would eventually be Howcroft Brewery's only tied pub. Thomas Howcroft had tried to auction the Seven Stars in 1919 but he was then sued by the auctioneer for refusing to pay his bill. During the ensuing trial it emerged that Howcroft had paid for people to attend the auction and make fake bids in order to drive up the price. It didn't reach its reserve and was withdrawn. In 1923 he was wealthy enough to be one of the first people ever to fly to the FA Cup Final when he was one of seven passengers who travelled by a chartered aircraft from Chorlton aerodrome in Manchester to London for Bolton Wanderers' victory over West Ham United. In 1937 he bought the Model Brewery on Spa Road after the Bolton And District Clubs Brewery went out of business. In terms of scale it was a huge step up from the small brewery at the back of the Rothwell Street Tavern. But Thomas Howcroft had his eye on taking over the clubs business that the Model Brewery's previous occupants had concentrated on. He and his wife Alice moved to an off-licence on the premises and he lived there until he died in 1955.

As for Atherton Howcroft he was described many years later as “like Lord Sugar but worse.” In 1935, when he was due to appear in court on a charge of speeding, he failed to turn up to the hearing but instead sent a telegram informing the court of absence and which ended in a cheery “Regards to all!” He was fined anyway.

Any fears that the Bolton public over the safety of nightclubs were dispelled on 9 June 1961 when 1500 people turned up for the opening night of the Casino. One local dignitary remarked that this was “the answer to staying at home and watching TV”. Popular singer Rosemary Squires was the headline act along with six support acts.

The word 'Casino' evokes images of gambling and by 1961 restrictions on ways for punters to lose their money were already being loosened. Even before the club opened Atherton Howcroft had hinted that bingo would be a part of its offering and within two weeks of the opening night he was reporting that jackpots of £100 had been offered. The club imported a roulette wheel from France in March 1962 and even employed a croupier who had worked in Las Vegas.

Ad from January 1966

The club attracted big names: jazzman Johnny Dankworth played in 1962, top pop group Brian Poole and The Tremeloes were there in 1965, Lonnie Donegan and Tom Jones both appeared in 1966. Soul singer Geno Washington recorded a live album at the club. But getting quality acts was a difficult task made worse by the fact that there just weren't enough of them around: “It's not just the top stars who are in short supply – there aren't enough quality acts to meet demands of club circuits like ours,” Atherton Howcroft told trade newspaper The Stage in March 1964. His club was putting on acts five or six nights a week.

In July 1965 there was an incident late one night that resulted in police and fire fighters being called to the club. A dance organised by Bolton Cricket Club was taking place, but a notice written in crayon posted on the front door stated there would be no admittance to anyone after 10.45pm regardless of whether they had a ticket. About 150 people milled about outside the club, but tensions were heightened when firefighters turned up to deal with what turned out to be a fake 999 call. Around 20 police arrived to disperse both the disappointed ticket-holders and the Castle Hill Residents Association which was demonstrating against the club's application to open late on a Wednesday night. Reverend John William Evans of Tonge Moor Congregational Church, who lived eight yards from the club, denied that anyone from his group had made the 999 call.

By 1967 the Bolton Casino was one of five such clubs owned by the Howcroft brothers, but a decision was made on health grounds to sell the clubs at Westhoughton, Burnley and Blackpool. Only the Bolton and Wigan Casinos were retained. “Both Mr Jack and Mr Atherton have had rather severe heart problems and they have decided to rid of some of their more distant properties which are obviously more difficult to keep under surveillance,” the brothers' secretary told the Bolton Evening News (11 January 1967) in that deferential tone you often find in family-run firms. But perhaps the cracks were beginning to appear in the business. Howcroft's closed the Model Brewery on Spa Road in May 1969 after the company merged with B. Cunningham and Co of Warrington. Like Howcroft's, Cunningham's brewed mainly for the club trade. “Our amalgamation will consolidate our strength,” a spokesman for Cunningham's said. But the merged business had collapsed by the end of the year and was wound up in 1970.

Atherton Howcroft died on 18 November 1971 at his home on Belmont Road. He was 62. The following year, in February 1972, Casino Club (Bolton), the limited company set up to run the Casino went into voluntary liquidation along with its associated company Casino Club (Wigan) Ltd. Both clubs were advertised as going concerns and the Bolton club continued to trade even changing its name to Jack's, after Jack Howcroft, Atherton's brother. It was bought by Douglas Flood And Partners and re-opened as Copperfield's on 8 March 1972. The Lancashire correspondent of The Stage expressed some surprise given the club's proximity to Blighty's in Farnworth, also owned by Dougie Flood. The lease on the Wigan Casino club was bought by its manager, Gerry Marshall. From 1973 to 1981 it became noted for its all-night Northern Soul sessions.

Ad from March 1972

Like the Casino, Copperfields operated as a cabaret club with acts appearing alongside the club's resident band the Graham Warner Sound. A refurbishment took place during the summer of 1972 and the club reopened in September of that year. But the entertainment was very middle-of-the-road and was squarely aimed at people over the age of 30. Syd Lawrence and his Orchestra appeared early on as did Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen and local favourites the Reg Coates Experience.

But the entertainment market was changing and in January 1976 there was another change of name, this time to the Bees Knees, as well as a change of format. Instead of having nightly cabaret artists and a resident band the Bees Knees became a disco with cabaret turns appearing only occasionally.

May 1977

That same year two neighbouring semi-detached houses near the club on Crompton Way, both less than 50 years old, were bought by First House, as Douglas Flood And Partners were now known. The houses were demolished to make way for a car park for the club but there was a battle between First House and the council after it emerged that planning permission was required before the conversion could take place. It was only resolved six months later despite complaints from local residents. First House withdrew an application to stay open until 1am on Thursday and Friday nights as a goodwill gesture to the local community.

The Bees Knees closed at the beginning of 1981. Douglas Flood said: “We have closed down in order to gives ourselves a chance to formulate our plans.” Interested parties includes a chain of DIY stores and a supermarket group. Mr Flood suggested that if the premises didn't sell he might combine the existing disco with a squash court and other leisure facilities. It took over a year for the sale to go through and the former club opened as a Kwik Save supermarket in 1983.