Powis Pinder

Powis Pinder (6 September 1872 His first known theatrical appearance was in an 1893 tour as the Vicomte de Champletreaux in Mam'zelle Nitouche opposite Violet Melnotte and her husband Frank Wyatt, and his début in London was at the Savoy Theatre from December 1894 to March 1895 when he created the small role of Escatero in The Chieftain with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company before continuing in the role for a short tour of the London suburbs. From March to November 1896 he appeared with a D'Oyly Carte touring company as the Herald in The Grand Duke and in the larger role of Mr. Goldbury in Utopia, Limited. Soon afterwards, he toured as Archie FitzRaymond in A Village Venus.

Pinder rejoined a D'Oyly Carte touring company from April 1897 to December 1898 in Gilbert and Sullivan repertory as Counsel for the Plaintiff in Trial by Jury, Colonel Calverley in Patience, Strephon and Mountararat in Iolanthe, Arac in Princess Ida, the title role in The Mikado, First Yeoman and the Lieutenant of the Tower in The Yeomen of the Guard, Antonio, Luiz and Giuseppe in The Gondoliers, Captain Corcoran in Utopia, Limited and Count Cosmo in His Majesty. Their children were Elizabeth Ruth Pinder (1908–1983) and Arthur Powis Pinder (1910–1984).

Savoy Theatre and peak years Pinder was called to the main D'Oyly Carte company at the Savoy Theatre in June 1899, where he would remain continuously until 1903. He first played Bob Beckett in the revival of H.M.S. Pinafore and substituted as Dick Deadeye in September 1899 during the absence of Richard Temple. Pinder created the small role of the Soldier of the Guard in the original production of The Rose of Persia (1899–1900) before being relegated to the chorus and acting as understudy in revivals of The Pirates of Penzance (1900) and Patience (1900–1901), singing the Pirate King in August 1900 while playing the Captain in the Pirates companion piece The Outpost (1900). In January 1903 he created another small part, the sailor Bill Blake in A Princess of Kensington, continuing with the role on tour in May 1903. and was in the Seymour Hicks musical The Talk of the Town at the Lyric (1905); he appeared in the chorus of a benefit matinee performance of Trial by Jury for Ellen Terry at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1906. in the pantomime Little Boy Bluebeard at the Royal Court Theatre (1910–11), and in a musical version of Alice in Wonderland at the Comedy Theatre (1913–14). In 1915 He performed in the one-act comedy Jerry and the Sunbeam at the Town Hall in Shanklin on the Isle of Wight in a benefit for the St John Ambulance Association. In 1916 he was touring in the comic opera The Idol of Kano.

Later life

Pinder seems to have decided to stay in Shanklin with his family, as from 1918 he staged burlesque evenings at the Town Hall and the Shanklin Pier Theatre, arranging free tickets for military personnel wounded in World War I who were being treated in local military hospitals. In October 1919 Pinder became a Freemason when he joined the local Chine Lodge. In 1919 the wooden stage and tented pavilion used by Pinder was destroyed in a fire, and so he acquired a seaplane hangar from Bembridge, Named the Sunshine Theatre, it operated from 1921 to 1939, and here Pinder's company annually performed Sunshine Concert Parties which in the early to mid-1930s included Webster Booth and Arthur Askey among the cast.

In 1939 he was living with his wife and daughter Elizabeth, a theatrical dress designer, at Bay Tree Cottage at Shanklin, where he and his wife were still managing the theatre. His son Arthur had been helping his parents manage the Sunshine Theatre, but when he left to join the Army on the outbreak of World War II the theatre closed and was requisitioned as storage for Operation Pluto (Pipe Line Under The Ocean).