Grosvenor Hall: Ecclesiastical Vagabonds

The Mission operated out of Hermon Hall until January 1890 when Mr Ginnett needed the building back again, meaning that they had to decamp once more, leading Crawford Johnson to describe them, in thoroughly un-PC terms, as “ecclesiastical gypsies" (I used a less controversial synonym for the title).

Their primary Sunday venues for the Mission were St. George’s Hall in High Street and the Ulster Hall, with repeated returns to Hermon Hall, from time to time until it was knocked down to prepare for the building of the Opera House.

The weekday activities of the Mission were even more scattered... in lecture rooms and halls in north, south and east Belfast... Some of these were Bible studies and classic Methodist Class meetings, but increasingly more of them were working to address social needs of the people around, including food programmes rudimentary alcohol support groups, men’s and women’s groups, and work with (in another un-PC phrase) “street Arabs” – children running wild on the street, not attending school and having poor support at home...

St. Georges Hall was on the upper floors to the rear of St George’s Building, one of the few remaining Victorian buildings in High Street, one of the oldest streets in the city. Despite its name I don’t think it had anything directly to do with St George’s Parish Church further up the High Street... It was a commercial venture, with a range of ventures occupying the retail units on the ground floor. Indeed throughout its history it has had a pub operating on the Joy’s entry side of the building, beside the entrance used by the Mission.

From the beginning, even during these "homeless years" Johnson also ran social events including various Saturday night “Happy Evenings for the People” and was criticised for offering such unspiritual gatherings. They had Scottish nights and Gaelic nights (way ahead of East Belfast’s current Turas programme) and all kinds of concerts... This tradition was carried over into the time when they finally had a home of their own on the Grosvenor Road... the Second Grosvenor Hall in particular became a regular venue for significant performers... Not just avowedly Christian performers like Larry Norman, Cliff Richard and John Martyn, but many others, with the hall being used as a commercial concert venue competing with the Ulster Hall for the best acts...

We have a signed programme in the BCM archive of Paul Robeson who performed there before his passport was taken off him during the McCarthy era... and a second time when it was returned in the late 1950s... but there were also performances by the Everly Brothers, who played there two years in a row in the mid 80s... Also Leo Sayer, Johnny Cash and Ralph McTell, who gave the boys from the BB a free pass to get into his concert... and a particular favourite of mine Harry Chapin played a couple of times including in February 1981 a few months before his death... A statue of Rory Gallagher outside the Ulster Hall marks the fact that in January 1975 Rory Gallagher recorded his live album, called unimaginatively “Live in Belfast” in that venue over two nights... But the year after in January 1976 he also played two nights in the Grosvenor Hall...

And of course, as well as the concerts there were the famous film services on Saturday nights... which started off largely showing the deliberately moral offerings by the Rank Organisation, but also others which required editing by the Junior Ministers stationed at the Hall. The late Bob Bagnall once told me that their Thursday morning task was to view the film for the Saturday night and edit out any drinking, smoking or hanky panky... and then splice those sections back in on the Monday morning... a skill that I don’t think any of them had been trained in at Edgehill College...

It's interesting to note that after the Mission stopped using it when the first Grosvenor Hall was built, St. George’s Hall was for a short period as Belfast’s first and only cinema, starting on 17th August 1908 with “Bluebeard” which probably wouldn’t have gotten past the censorship of the Mission’s Movie Services...

I also discovered recently that there were also in the 1960s what were called “Evenings of Exercise and Entertainment”, which were dances by another name... because under Methodist rules dancing on Methodist church property was not allowed until conference passed new legislation permitting it at the turn of the millennium... Makes me wonder whether those Junior ministers also had to edit out all references to dancing in those Saturday night films?

I didn't include the following piece in the walk on Sunday ( I only finished it today) but it is prompted by some of what some might see as less spiritual activities of the Hall and Mission down through the years:

Happy evenings for the people

who had endured hard days

and might experience sleepless nights,

while others sneered on the sidelines.

How happy are the poor, in pocket and in spirit

for they are welcome to enjoy

the kingdom of Heaven come to earth

for at least a short few hours.

How happy are those who weep

for they can share in a night of dancing
and laughing or should I say

an evening of Exercise and Entertainment?

How happy are you who are hungry now,
for you will eat your fill

at breakfasts, lunches and teas

morning, noon and night.

How happy are you who seek

to make peace in a divided city

for you are the spitting image
of your heavenly Father God.

How happy are those who are criticised

for doing these unholy things;

those who have been slandered
in the same way as their Master.

But how miserable you must be
to be rich, yet not to share your blessings.
How miserable must be to have all you need,
but be always hungry for more!

How miserable you must be to laugh
at others' misfortune without a hint of compassion.
How miserable you must be to find fault
in everything that isn’t sufficiently spiritual.

How happy are the miserable.

And how miserable the self-righteous.

David A. Campton November 2025