Cartesians ... a little more unveiling

 

Since the publication of my recent book, with the tonnes of research on the folk of Gilbert and Sullivan's players that it involved, I've had a break from the singers of the so-called 'Savoy Operas'. But then these two photographs surfaced, and I can't resist a challenge ..

Victoria Reynolds

Let's start with 'Miss Lindsay'. David Stone's G&S Who's Who tells us:

"We don't know the first name of Miss Lindsay as it never appeared in the D'Oyly Carte program. She was in the chorus at the Savoy for the first production of Princess Ida (January-October 1884), and was one of the unnamed bridesmaids in the subsequent revival of Trial by Jury later that year. She was also in the chorus for the first production of The Mikado (March 1885-January 1887), appearing in the small part of Amanda in the curtain raiser The Carp for three days in September 1886. For Ruddigore (January-November 1887), she would finally get a small named part of her own: Ruth. She also shared the part of Amanda with Rose Hervey when The Carp was revived and added to the Ruddigore bill (from February 1887 forward), and filled in as Zorah in Ruddigore on at least two occasions: in March and November 1887. There is no record of her serving with the Company after Ruddigore."

Absolutely correct. Except, as from this week, we DO know the first name of 'Miss Lindsay', because she signed the back of the photo ...

Clementine! Well, that should be easy ... if it's her real name. Oh dear, maybe it isn't. She doesn't appear in the British birth or marriage records. Ah! There she is, in 1881, an eighteen year-old music student from ... Scotland.

So, she is Miss Clementine Low Lindsay, born Milton, Glasgow, 8 November 1862 daughter of James Lindsay and his wife Mary Murray ... I wonder if this is she as a teenager ... perhaps not .. but family?

Anyway, back to Brompton, where she is boarding with a couple of other young lady music students. Over the next couple of years I spot the odd 'Miss Lindsay' in minor roles, in minor houses in the Midlands: whether they are she, who knows? And then comes the D'Oyly Carte engagement as related above.

'There is no record of her playing with Carte after 1887'. Indeed there isn't. For Clementine moved on to other things. In 1888-9 she went on tour with Yorke Stephens's company in Rutland Barrington's version of Mr Barnes of New York. She had a childish comedy role, as Maud Chartris, in which she scored a personal success.

And she, allegedly, married fellow actor Clarence Blakiston of the Compton Comedy Company and Rutland Barrington's troupe. Anyway, they had a short-lived daughter, named Marie for Blakiston's mother, in mid-1889, and Clementine advertised as Mrs Blakiston henceforth.

The following year she joined the Compton Comedy Company, and spent the next four years plus playing soubrette roles (including Maria in School for Scandal) round the country, as well as in Compton's London seasons. I see her touring with Alma Murray, playing Nellie Jedbury in Jedbury jr on the road ...

She seems to have retired in 1897, while Blakiston soldiered on for more than thirty years longer in theatre, films and radio. Clementine died at their longtime home at 79 St George's Square at the age of 73, on 13 February 1936. Clarence survived her, dying 23 March 1943.

So there we are. One more piece of the puzzle filled in ..

LINDSAY, Miss [LINDSAY, Clementine Low] (b Glasgow 8 November 1862; d 79 St George's Square 13 February 1936)

I didn't do quite as well with Miss Reynolds. And her name, I do know, was legitimately Victoria [Elizabeth] REYNOLDS. 

Victoria was the second child of actress Mrs Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Reynolds (b England c 1839), and was born, around 1861, somewhere in Ontario. Mr Reynolds, whoever he may have been, is alleged to have come from Maine. Victoria's elder brother Peter was also born, some years earlier (December 1856?), in Canada (place unspecified) but told the American authorities that he immigrated in 1863. So I guess the whole family did. Maybe father had died or departed, for, in 1870, Elizabeth and the two children are alone in Manhattan. Perhaps he was actor, too. Both the children would become such.

My first sighting of Victoria is aged nine, playing the part of Thisbe in a Cinderella spectacle at the New York Circus. Mamma is the Fairy Godmother.  The following year, she is playing a 'plantation sketch' After the War at the Globe before moving on to Tony Pastor's to play is drama (Paul in The Octoroon 'a very clever little girl') and give 'pleasing songs and dances' for some two years straight. At thirteen she stopped being a kiddie act, and moved into the realms of the 'serio-comic', notably in the variety houses of Chicago, and from there in her later teens into the supporting ranks of the Surprise Party of E E Rice, with its repertoire of highly popular American burlesques and extravaganzas and equally popular artists

However, in 1881 she was reported as leaving the company to get married. Well, she didn't. Marry that is. She was soon back playing, first Saphir, then Ella in the James Barton/Marie Jansen/Lithgow James production of Patience.

1882, it was All at Sea with Kate Castleton starred, Olivette and more Patience in New York in the company headed by Dolly Dolaro and then Lillian Russell at the Bijou, before taking part in the premiere of Teddy Solomon's Virginia.  Teddy and his paramour, Lillian, must have liked little Victoria, for when they left New York for London, Victoria seems to have gone too. But she was allegedly booked to the Willie Edouin troupe ... all a bit complex!

She played in London with Edouin and Jimmie Powers in Binks, the downy photographer (Avenue Theatre), at Alexander Henderson's Liverpool's Prince of Wales in pantomime, and then in his production of Nell Gwynne at the Avenue Theatre as no 4 lady behind Florence St John, Giulia Warwick and Agnes Stone, but she didn't stay. In 1886 she was back in America, doing the rounds in the farce comedy A Tin Soldier. I see her thereafter touring as the Princess Sabina in Zitka with Gus Levick, as Hester Barton in Drifting Apart .. In 1888, I see her playing with J H Ryley and wife in Willie Gill's My Preserver ..

Then she announced another marriage and vanished 'out West'. Could this be it?  Victoria E for Elizabeth ..

Mrs what? Brennir? Brenner? Of Missouri? Surely not Albert Brennir, the comic opera tenor/comedian? Ah no its a Mr Allen D Brooner, and the bride was from Missouri. Wrong Vicky.

More work to be done on this one. 

Logfire, whisky and kittens. Enough's enough for today. But we've added something, at least, to the G&S archive.