[7] In 1905 the seven-storey hotel and theatre were purchased for £30,000[8] by Ebenezer Vickery, a devout Methodist, who immediately surrendered its licence and cleared the bars, demonstrating his sense of justice by fully compensating the licensee,[9] and donated it to the church for their City Mission.
Pitt Street must have seemed a daunting prospect to the missionaries, beset with betting shops and two-up schools, hotels and theatres, brothels and dance halls,[10] yet Rev.
The building was officially handed over on Friday 17 April 1908, under conditions of peppercorn rent to 1915, when the freehold would be transferred by Vickery's trustees, three sons and a grandson.
[21][22] As moving pictures became a common form of entertainment, subjects were explored in drama and comedies which were anathema to Methodist teachings — drinking, dancing, committing adultery and having fun on Sunday — with no redeeming disgrace and punishment.
Jacob Garrard MHR was prominent in calls to divest themselves of this embarrassment, no matter the financial penalty (as Union Theatres Ltd would have to be compensated for their recent upgrades) and loss of income.
[25] The Lyceum doubled as a cinema before the Methodists' takeover: Marius Sestier gave demonstrations of the Lumières' Cinematographe at the theatre from September 1896 and a year later the MacMahon brothers showed the drama "At Duty's Call" in conjunction with some patriotic shorts, celebrating Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.
[29] When Ebenezer Vickery purchased the building, he allowed the lease of Lyceum as a cinema to continue, as did the Methodist Church, despite misgivings over the content of some films, such as the Burns-Johnson fight of 26 December (Boxing Day) 1908.
Spencer's Pictures captured the action, and their film was taken to be showed interstate by Allan Hamilton, under the aegis of the boxing entrepreneur H. D. McIntosh.
[33] On 8 June 1918 the theatre reopened as Hoyt's Lyceum, showing the Fox Film production Les Miserables, starring William Farnum.