Marlborough Hall

The Marlborough Hall is on the ground floor of the former Regent Street Polytechnic (now part of the University of Westminster). The Polytechnic started life as a ‘gallery of sciences’ in either 1834 or 1838, as an early example of its kind. By 1839 The Royal Polytechnic Institution, as it had become, had a Great Hall housing a filled canal with an iron diving bell, model boats and scientific wheels. After an accident when the gallery staircase collapsed and a child was killed, there were so many injury claims that the Institution began to lose money. In 1882 it was bought by the founder of the Polytechnic in its modern form, Quintin Hogg. Although the building expanded, the basic structure (not the internal appearance) of the Great Hall, or Marlborough Hall remains basically unchanged. The Marlborough Hall was the site of the first demonstration in Britain of motion pictures, presented on 20th February 1896 by Felicien Trewey, a French music hall entertainer, engaged by the Lumiere brothers.

The Hall had galleries on three sides and a balcony at the Regent Street end. A section of this Victorian gallery survives at the back of the stage (from 1937 it held an organ chamber). In 1910, the front of the building was reconstructed by George A Mitchell with a façade by Frank Verity. In 1927, the Marlborough Hall was redecorated, the circle extended and the proscenium created. It became a full-time cinema, except during the latter part of the war when it had live use. In 1974 it closed as a cinema to become a live theatre called the Regent, which lasted until 1979. It reverted to cinema use until the following year, when it was subdivided for use as lecture rooms.