I've neglected my old Cartesians for quite a while. But something led me this week to refer to Mr Gray and I saw that the G&S Archive had but a three-line comment on his creation of the role of Guron in Princess Ida, and his performances as Willis in Iolanthe. The fourth line simply says 'little is know of his career before or after the D'Oyly Carte other than he ran a children's opera company in the late 1880s'.
A challenge?
Frederick Warwick Gray was born in Portsmouth 23 February 1841, the son of Lt Herbert Blackford Gray RN, coastguard, and his wife Emma Louisa née Stow. The family can be seen guarding the coast at Newtown, Calbourne in the 1841 census: Fred is 3 months old.
Herbert died 31 January 1849 and Emma was left with three children to bring up. In 1851, she can be seen in Shalfleet Village in the Isle of Wight with her younger children and her unmarried sister. She is an annuitant, so maybe Herbert died in the course of duty. Fred is gone. Where? To school in Greenwich. And then to join the navy. I see he was made a lieutenant in 1859: 'gentleman cadet Frederick W Gray to be 2nd lieutenant and seconded to Portsmouth'.
Now we come to the muddly bit. Fred married. The records say clearly that it was in 1871 to Harriet née Moss. The family historians say it was to Henrietta Newman in 1873. And Clara Butt (yes, the Clara Butt) related to a journalist, in later years, that her mother's sister married him. Her mother was Clara Hook from Shoreham. Her elder sister was Dorinda or Derenda or Belinda Hook (b 1844) and she was married in 1868. Her younger sister was Jane Ann (b 1847), and she wed a William Green. And seems to have died in her twenties. Well, I can't find Fred in the 1861 census. Maybe he was afloat. Ah, yes. On board the Princess Royal, 91 guns, off to the front!
But, by 1866, he, 'formerly a lieutenant in the Royal Marines', is a bankrupt banker's clerk in Birkenhead. Next, by 1871 he is in Islington, putting his education to use as a tutor. With a wife named Hetty. From Shoreham. In 1881 he's in Horfield, Gloucs, still with Hetty from Shoreham, now described as a 'manufacturer'. But what is this? A niece? Paulina Martha Gray? The mystery thickens. Paulina was not a common name, but Mrs Hook was a Paulina .. and there, in 1871, is baby Paulina Martha Green (oh, d 1882) with grandfather Joseph Hook! Whose baby? So Miss Butt is not wholly inventing! There is a connection between the families. So who is 'Hetty'? Is she Derenda, having shed her original name? Oh I see there was also a Mary and -- yes, a Harriet ... and what's this 'granddaughter Louisa Stone' .. Louisa Ann Eade Stone .. Sorry, I can't resist digging deeper ... Michael E Stone, coastguard, wife Jane, Elizabeth, Emily, Louisa Stone and Margaret Hook, daughters ... Mary Ann Hook aged 4 ... OK William J Hook (son of Joseph) married Margaret Stone, daughters Mary Ann, Paulina (gotcha!) ... oh! and gotcha again!!!!!!! Harriet Hook married Robert Moss 1857. Fred was her second husband .... and Harriet was indeed Clara's mother's sister!!
Back to Fred.
So, there is Fred at 40 years of age, manufacturing in Gloucestershire .. but now he has already started performing. There he is at the Penny Street Lecture Hall, Portsmouth, in 1878 in an amateur charity concert. And again in 1879 ('Friar of Orders Grey', 'The Tar's Farewell') and 1880 ... Mr F Warwick Gray master of Warwick House, Chester, Southsea ... not exactly a structured career!
And, finally, in 1883, the road to professionalism:
And, after a few like concerts, came the engagement with Carte, Iolanthe, Princess Ida ...
At Xmas 1884 he was the Demon King in the Sanger's Amphitheatre pantomime (Louie Freear was 'Little Boy Blue') and, in 1885, he formed his Children's opera company, to perform La Fille de Madame Angot. They opened 13 April at Hastings, featuring 'Miss Marie Montrose' and 'Miss Alice Clairette' and Master F Kingsland. Little Louie Freear apparently scored a hit as Trénitz.
The venture proved a success and the company stretched its field of operation from the south of England, round the country. Les Cloches de Corneville was added to the repertoire, then Dolly Varden, My Sweetheart, Billee Taylor et al, and 'Mrs Warwick Gray' was added to the managerial line. Masters John Leicester Windust (died aged 16), Victor Gouriet and Willie Garvey, the Misses Ethel Hunt, Florence Shortland, Minnie Leverentz and Carrie Kavanagh joined Master Kingsland on the bill, and Fred was known to take to the boards to give a few ballads, and the Sentry's Song, mendaciously described as 'his original role'.
By 1890 they were advertising 'over 1000 performances', had performed before royalty ... but then called it a day. Instead, Fred launched an adult company playing a piece entitled Black Diamonds, or Lights and Shadows of Pit Life. It, too, proved to have several seasons of life in it.
He and Hetty settled in Havant, where Fred advertised his servies as a manager for other folks' companies (he was for a time business manager with the Moore and Burgess Minstrels), penned the odd ditty, and gave his bass ballads at local amateur concerts ('The Boys of the Old Brigade').
Apparently he didn't do so well nowadays. In 1901 he and Hetty are living at Cosey Nook, Warblington. Hetty (I presume it is she) is now Madame Henriette Gray and gives Kingston, Surrey as her birthplace. However, when she takes Fred to court for money, under the Married Women's Act, in 1904, she is Mrs Harriet Gray again! All seems to have settled, but, in 1909, she has another go. Is it a scam? I don't know. But the Havant house was sold up and, in the 1911 census, Fred is alone in Southport, still 'married' ... a marital split at age 70? In 1921 he is a widower, working for a firm of carriers, in lodgings in Essex.
I don't know where Hetty went, but I see that Fred died in Burnham-on-Crouch in March 1926. Ah! died Harriet Gray of the Snuggery, Denvilles, Havant 4 May 1911 ...
So, now at least we have the 'top and tail' of Mr Warwick Gray. And even sorted out the Clara Butt thing ...
Alway pays to come back to these articles for a re-dig a year or three later.
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