Tag: city art gallery

It has now come to light that following the York Incident, Anthony Glass spent between 1933 and 1940 in Bootham Park Hospital, also in York. Whether this was a direct result of what happened at the City Art Gallery, or if his crumbling mental state finally required him to seek rehabilitation is not clear. Either way, the trail goes somewhat cold at this point.

Bootham Park Hospital was built  as York County Lunatic Asylum around 1777, and was one of the earliest psychiatric hospitals in the North of England.

In 1772 at a meeting at York Castle, the Archbishop of York called together gentlemen of the three ridings of Yorkshire, along with Dr Alexander Hunter and architect John Carr. His intention was to create a lunatic asylum to prevent the mentally ill from being placed in unsuitable institutions like prisons. Carr’s practice was at its peak and the grand building was completed by 1777.

With its applied Tuscan columns, pediment and fashionable Venetian windows, it was reported in the press as “an elegant and expensive affair”, but it didn’t please everyone. William Mason, a Precentor at the Minster, wrote that its extravagant design was a waste of public money and suggested it should instead be advertised as “a lunatic hotel”. It was later discovered that despite its grandiose exterior some patients were held in terrible squalor. Indeed the conditions at the asylum were the stimulus for the foundation of the The Retreat at York which became world renowned for its pioneering treatment of the mentally ill.

The abuses at the York Asylum later became the centre of a great controversy. A national investigation in 1813-14 led to questions in Parliament. Some of the asylum records were burned in a suspiciously timed fire and two different sets of financial accounts were discovered. The resulting scandal led to substantial reforms in the way the hospital was run.
– historyofyork.org.uk

If the information I’ve discovered is correct, Glass would have been around 50 years old when he emerged from Bootham Park, by which time the Second World War was underway. I think it’s quite unlikely he would have been drafted to the war effort with his history of mental instability – but with no career, no reputation, very little family and surely a dwindling or non-existent inheritance, what would Glass do next?

After spending some time at York public library, searching the microfiche archive for anything relevant, I came across this disturbing account.

A demonstration at the City Art Gallery, Exhibition Square, York took a tragic turn last night as a young inventor’s demonstration went badly wrong.

Anthony Glass, 43, of Holborn, London was undertaking the latest speaking engagement in what was planned to be a national tour when the malfunction occurred. Mr Glass has become quite infamous for his ‘talking box’ through which, he claims, sounds from the future can be heard.

Dr. David Peters from Huntington, York was an eyewitness to the events. “I attended with my wife as we have read accounts of Mr Glass’ life and works through specialist publications for many years. We were very much looking forward to hearing him speak as although his detractors are most vocal we were staunch supporters of some of his more outlandish theories.”

Dr. Peters continues; “We arrived at 7pm and were seated by ushers dressed in black, which we thought unnecessarily melodramatic. At 7.30pm or thereabouts Mr Glass took to the lectern and began to extol the virtues of his ‘Portable Machine’. In fact, beneath a thick cloth by his side lay the very machine itself and the sense of excitement in the room was palpable as we reached the climax of his most animated monologue.”

Other eyewitnesses to the event concur that Mr Glass seemed irritable and distracted through the course of his presentation, often mopping his brow with his handkerchief and pausing as if to gather his breath on frequent occasions.

When the machine itself was revealed, Dr. Peters recounts, an audible gasp was heard. “It was an otherwise normal looking device, approximately the size of a typewriter, with a series of fins along the top, and some gauges and bulbs along the front. A flexible hose led to the floor, one would assume to vent waste matter of some kind. With a flourish, Mr Glass announced he was about to start the machine and we should watch very closely as sounds and images from the future were to be played to us before our very eyes.”

“Mr Glass turned a series of handles and almost instantly a horrible wailing filled the room. People seemed unsettled by this, and indeed Mr Glass appeared taken aback. The noise grew louder and wisps of smoke appeared from the device’s fins – at this point people had stood up and wanted to leave, but the black-clad ushers firmly pushed them back into their seats. My wife started to cry and I was getting increasingly angry. Mr Glass was trying in vain to switch the machine off, but the wisps of smoke had become seemingly more solid and were conspiring to remove his hands from the handles of the machine, raising visible welts on his arms as they did so”.

“The cacophony and stench emitting from the machine at last became too much to bear, and the director of the City Art Gallery, a sturdy man by the name of Milton, released us all from this torment by taking a chair and smiting the machine repeatedly until it lay still and silent. Mr Glass had been reduced to a weeping, shaking shell of a man cowering in the corner of the raised stage area and was led backstage by some of the ushers. The doors were opened and everyone fled.”

Sadly, this is not the end of this strange tale – Christina Terry, a six-year-old attending with her family was found to be in a catatonic state under her chair and at the time of going to press cannot be roused.

Mr James Milton, director of the City Art Gallery, was not available for comment at this time.