SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18130, 30 June 1922, Page 3

SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE

FAME AGAIN INCREASING. Presiding at the ancual meeting of the Trustees and Guardians of Shakespeare's Birthplace, at Strttford-on-Avon, Sir Sidney Lee said that the visitors to the birthplace during the p*st year numbered 52,727. a total which in snite of the commercial depression was oniy slightly below the record figure of the previous year, 57,419, and was nearly 30 per cent, above the average pm-war figures. Ther* was an increase of visitors to Anno Hathawsy's cottage. The growing beauty of the reconstructed Elizabethan knot garden at New Place, where the number of visitors had somewhat fallen off, was certain to add to its popularity in the near f utare. •This year they nad bought some valuable deeds bearing on the history of family and the families' of his neighbours, but in this regard they wore chiefly indebted to Lord Willougbby de Broke for presenting to them a unique collection of 288 early deeds and documents relating to Stratford-on-Avon. The trustees' statutory duties were both to amass original material for Shakespearian study and to keep alive. Shakespeare's memory by mamtaining in good order tho buildings and gardens with wliich he was identified in Stratford in his lifetime. At the same time the trustees viewed with infinite sympathy and satisfaction, the efforts which were now being, made to give Shakespeare a new opportunity as an acted dramatist. Shakespeare's fame, great as it already was was clearly at the moment on the upward grade. The recent birthday celebration w Stratford had achieved an exceptional success. A notable proof of Shakespeare's übiquitous appeal was the gift a few days ago of one hundred guineas to their funds by the King of Siam, a de--1 voted student of Sbakespeare { and a translator of several of the plays into Siamese