Under the Gallery, hidden in a labyrinth of corridors, lie the gallery archives. Behind its locked doors there are all manner of long forgotten stories and tales, of which this is only one…
It’s the tale of a crime that echoes down through the decades. There is a folder in the archives; its contents are mostly dry, boring insurance documents dealing with the transport of, and damage to, artworks. The exception is one file that describes an incident at Platt Hall; an incident that, in today’s Corona virus-stricken world of 2020, could possibly provoke anger, disbelief and moral outrage among certain quarters on social media; a crime that, even then, was serious enough to warrant the threat of prosecution under the Criminal Justice Act of 1914.
What kind of wrongdoing could possibly elicit such a heavy-handed response from the Gallery, bringing the full force of the law down on the culprits?
Platt Hall (c) Manchester Art Galleries
Our story starts on Saturday, 20th February, 1937, around 4.30pm in the afternoon. Platt Hall was a Branch gallery with its own permanent collection, and open to the public.
East Pavilion, Platt Hall c. 1930s (c) Manchester Art Galleries
Those were the days when you could get clipped round the ear by a Police Constable and nobody would have called it police brutality. The likelihood was that you’d get another clip from your father for being daft enough to get caught in the first place.
The heading of the file itself reveals little, but certainly piques the curiosity. The file is simply titled…
Dunn dunn duuunn!…
(c) Manchester Art Galleries
Inside is a typed letter from the Deputy Curator to the Town Clerk:
(c) Manchester Art Galleries
See? Indigo ink. And stamped. Twice! That’s how serious it was. And yes, the names and addresses of three youths were attached along with the report, but we’ve withheld their personal details and drawn a veil over their identities.
Let’s simply call them Schoolboys A, B and C.
The enclosed report very officiously recounts a minor affair at the gallery, with all the seriousness of a major incident. Although to be fair, there’s quite a bit of that going on in the gallery archives...
(c) Manchester Art Galleries
The scene of the crime; in the east wing of the hall, to the right of the main staircase…
Ground Floor plan of Platt Hall, showing the location of the Gents’ toilets (c) Manchester City Galleries
The report goes on…
Lawks! Caught by the Gallery Foreman!
Detail - Mysteries of Human Growth (Three Chapters in Public School Life) (1888) by George Louis Palmella Busson de Maurier © Manchester City Art Galleries
And their crime?
(c) Manchester Art Galleries
Crikey, the cheek of it! Of course, in today’s climate, a waste of such limited resources would likely draw harsh condemnation, so it is perhaps satisfying to some that the Gallery took the matter very seriously indeed.
(c) Reddit user RK-Today
Flushed with success, the report continues:
(c) Manchester Art Galleries
Crumbs! Was this it for our toilet trio? Up before the beak? Were our school boy scoundrels about to be sent down? Surely not? After all, they had been a-cistern the police with their enquiries. Although, then again, wasting all that toilet paper -
The case was passed to the Town Clerk who, on the 8th March, issued stern letters to the boys’ parents informing them of their sons’ misbehaviour.
(c) Manchester Art Galleries
Enclosed with the letter to the parents, was one addressed to the boys concerning this unfortunate stain on their character, giving them one chance to wipe it clean.
(c) Manchester Art Galleries
Needless to say, their socially embarrassed parents urged the boys to comply and they each sent in hastily written letters of abject apology, by return of post, seeking to reassure the Town Clerk that they truly regretted their actions and that there would be no re-occurrence of their misconduct.
You’d think that was the end of the matter, but you’d be wrong. The Town Clerk had one last card to play. In reply to the boys’ earnest apologies he wrote:
(c) Manchester Art Galleries
Was the lads’ (toilet) brush with the law enough to stop their reputations from going down the pan and spiraling into a life of crime? We can only hope.
Jack Warner as Dixon of Dock Green (c) BBC
If only the little tinkers had thought to apply for an Arts Council grant before they went into the toilets, they might have got away with it, but eighty three years later, the boys’ names are still on file. The message is clear; no ifs, no butts - don’t mess with MAG.
And don’t have nightmares. This kind of crime is extremely rare and under the current circumstances no-one would dream of wasting such a scare commodity as toilet paper…
…would they?