The days are getting colder. I dont have much impetus behind me to get outside and pretend to pull weeds. I'm not finding much on e-bay to inspire grand researches either .. so, I've turned back to the jolly old Cartesians to see if I can squeeze a few more answers out of the remaining mystery-folk ... even if it's just a birth-date, a death-date, a marriage or, most desirably, a real name behind a stage-name.
Well, much to my surprise, I've found a number!
So here are the first results.
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| Sam |
SAMUEL REED (b Massachussetts August 1855; d East Boothbay, Maine 11 April 1924) seems to have taken a few years to get into the professional theatre. I see him first in the Baltimore German theatre (ahha! is 'Reed' a pseudonym?) in 1884 in Bettelstudent with the contralto-ised Alice May, prima donna of G&S's original Sorcerer, and her new husband, and a young German soprano of several years leading lady experience, Marie Böckel. At some stage Herr Saml Reed and Fräulein Böckel were wed. And they remained married until Sam's death forty years later. Both of them would have sound careers, as vocalists, and then as character performers.
I popped into the Ws, and while I was there, I had a go at Josephine WOODWARD. I doubt that was her real name, but she came from Edinburgh. I see her there in 1878 singing in little concerts and acting in amdrams, before she joined the Carte companies (see David Stone's archive). David loses her after the Carte stint, but I don't. She played in Polly (1885) with a heap of other ex-Cartesians, fairy in Robinson Crusoe (always a part for A Vocalist),, with the touring troupe of Falka (1888), and then in a series of good supporting roles in and around Scotland (Mattie then Jean McAlpine in Rob Roy, Lady Margaret in The Lady of the Lake, Miss McKillop in Robert Burns, Tibbie Howieson in Holyrood, Mrs Cregan in The Colleen Bawn, Claire Ffoliott in The Shaughraun). She appeared as Margaret Hay in The Bonnie Briar Bush with Durward Lely at Manchester, and again when the production ventured for 3 weeks to London, and spent three or four years with William Mollison's company, appearing in everything from Shakespeare to death. I see her at Derby in 1912-13, as Ellen Dunlop in Bunty Pulls the Strings ... And that's it. It's hard tracking down someone when you don't know their real name!
Still W. Walter Olivant WILKINSON (b Manchester 1852; d NYC 18 May 1908). His participation in the Carte company seems too have been a rare venture. He professed thereafter to be an organist.
William Thompson WRIGHT (b Aldeburgh 1848; d West Ham 1911). After finishing his time with Carte, he worked as a travelling salesman.
Grace Pauline WOLLASTON (b Allahabad 27 July 1867 ; d 29 Spencer Rd, 2 March 1952). Born and married (Ernest Ouseley ELLIOT) in India. Returned to England, some time after 1899 (when she can still be seen prominently in concert in India) after which she made her foray into the theatre. I sight her little after her Carte stint, only that she stopped being Mrs Elliot after one short-lived child and he went back to India where the child died (in whichever order) ...
Pause for sherry, saucisson and sleep.
Harry [Henry] PEPPER (b Nottingham 10 October 1857; d Philadephia 29 December 1945). I am assuming this is the right Harry. There can't be many Harry son of Harrys who married a Susan ....
If so, he was a framework-maker in Nottingham, and didn't work in England before he got a job in 1882 at the Boston Museum playing Dunstable in Patience. He repeated the role at Tony Pastor's and with Lillian Russell and from there it was theatre and concerts ('not a better ballad singer in New York') all the way. Apparently the move was not definitive, because Susan gave birth back in England in 1888 (infant died), and Harry would latterly claim to have moved to the USA in 1888 ..
When his busy performing career was over, Harry apparently went back into fabrics. He is latterly listed as 'knitter in a hosiery mill'.
Pause for merlot, marketing and horse racing
Noone seems ever to have looked into 'Miss Twyman' of the original Princess Ida cast. Well, I have, and I can tell you that she was Lily TWYMAN born in Margate in 1868; died Canterbury 13 July 1920, one of the large family of a seagoing man and his second wife. She allegedly attended the RAM from a pre-teen age, practised as a vocalist for a few years both on the stage (Savoy, Tommy at the Avenue, Croydon in panto, An Adamless Eden at St George's Hall) and concert platform before in 1905 married Henry Fairbrass, a farm worker, and had a son ...
Next day. I have failed to find the real name of Arthur MARCEL, a man who seems to have lived much of his life in the 'bohemian', woman-less clubs of London. He was clearly a competent performer, touring between 1884-1888, much of the time, as leading man to Mrs Bernard Beere. Inn the musical theatre (he was the possessor of a fine baritone) he played, as well as his Gondoliers Luiz, in the musical comedy Iduna, and for a lengthy tour in Hayden Coffin's role in Dorothy. In 1891, he essayed the music-halls but the death of his father, that year, seems to have put an end to his career, if not his frequenting of the clubs.
I did rather better with "Mr W D Marks" who played the Pirate King in America. He was in fact, an Englishman, born Woolf David MARKS or Marx in 1846, to a Jewish East End cap-maker, Isaac MARKS and his wife, Phoebe. Woolf worked as a book-keeper after the family emigrated to America in about 1849, and began singing, it seems, around 1876, at New York's Caledonian Club. That same year, he made appearances with an English Opera Company built around one Gertrude Corbett, with a not wholly negligable cast (Alice Hosmer, Christian Fritsch, Eugene Clarke, Alcuin Blum). Blum, of course, was primo basso. Apart from his Pirates of Penzance engagement, I see he played Lt Montgomery in the 1880 production of Deseret, and sang in occasional concerts in Brooklyn (''Honour and Arms', Rigoletto quartet). Is he the same W D Marks (there were a few of them about!) who thereafter arranged and conducted music for Booth, Barrett, Irving and Margaret Mather? Well, by 1891 he was listed as an 'agent', then once more a bookkeeper. The theatre adventure had not lasted very many years. He married a lady named Leah, had a daughter christened Phoebe (1905-1966) and died in 1915. It's not much, but more than we had before!
Four years ago, I renounced finding out the 'who was' of 'Mr G J LACKNER'. Now I have assuredly, if accidentally, cracked him.
LACKNER, G J [LACK, George Joseph] (b 60 Tottenham Court Rd, 14 February 1843).
Mr Lackner first appears on the musical scene in 1876 (25 October) at the Alexandra Palace, singing with Alice Sugden and Edith Bacon the music of Macbeth as an accompaniment to Mrs Stirling's reading. I see him on of the Crystal Palace afternoon concerts then in 1877 at Duncan Finlay's Scots concert, and at Drury Lane in a modest Benefit performance of Der Freischütz. He appeared again at Crystal Palace, Alexandra Palace ('Arm, arm, ye brave', 'Honour and Arms') and for Finlay, and in 1878 at Rivière's Proms ('Nazareth') and at a Venetian Fête on the lake at Alexandra Palace with no less than Charlotte Russell. Then, in 1879, he joined the Carte. He played Bobstay in Pinafore, the Notary in The Sorcerer and Samuel/the Sergeant in Pirates ... after which, August 1882, he disappears from the English press.
So, who was he? Well, the 1881 census of Preston shows Mrs Emeline Neild (married, vocalist) sharing digs with John Joseph LACK, vocalist, 38. In 1871 George J Lack is a crape dresser in the Tottenham Court Rd. In 1861 he is a shopman for a greengrocer, and tiens! Here is George Joseph LACK born at 60 Tottenham Court Rd, father Jackson Lack (carpenter), mother Elizabeth Mary, on 14 February 1843! Gotcha my lad! Alas, my success stops there. He seems not to have married and not to have died.
But at least we have half his data! oh the 'accidentally' bit. I was looking for Ms Neild or Nield ... who may have been Mrs Williams and certainly wasn't baptised Emelina ... and who wasn't around as either for long.
TRITTON, Charles [? LESTER, Charles] (b c 1853) isn't really a Cartesian, but he's in the David Stone index so I include him. What was his real name? Well, as an amateur actor, in 1874, he played as 'Charles Tritton Lester'. When he promptly transferred to the professional theatre he became 'Charles Tritton'. When he was sentenced to hard labour, it was as Charles Tritton. Merely a stage name, he told the court, which didn't reveal his off-stage name. He was 'very respectably connected', it was reported. Hewas documented as 'labourer'. So he can't have been the Charles Tritton, 14 year-old errand boy, caught stealing neckties in 1870.
He started in the professional theatre playing with Kate Santley in 1875 (Sans Vergogne in Les Pres St Gervais &c), played at the Globe, the Royalty, the Criterion -- where he covered Charles Wyndham -- and in the Crystal Palace plays. Described everywhere as 'manly' and 'gentlemanly'. He played Paris, Gratiano, Roderigo, Philario and the Bleeding Sergeant at Drury lane and visited NewYork with an English company, and returned to the Criterion where he met his fate. There are two versions about who conned whom, but the facts remained that he was 'lured' to a house in Brompton by two young women, and after a certain amount of 'drunkenness and debauchery' forged several cheques ... He pleaded guilty and got fifteen months. Mrs Rose Buhl née Cleghorn pleaded guity and got nine months. Mr Frank Gustave Buhl (bootmaker's assistant) sued for divorce and cited as co-respondent ... Charles. Far from it being an accidental meeting or a drunken escapade, the affair had seemingly been going on some time ..
What became of the pair after their release from prison I know not. But Charles, seemingly, acted no more.
[Laude] Charles THORBURN (b Lamb's Conduit 26 December 1870; d Kirkstall Rd Streatham 18 February 1946).
Gertrude THORNTON [TUBBS, Gertrude Darling] (b Barnes, 13 January 1875), daughter of Frank Thornton otherwise Tubbs (qv) and his wife Julia Maude, and her sister Maude Thornton (b Barnes 12 October 1873) both went into the theatre. Both girls stayed, unmarried, with their widowed father, into their thirties ... after that .. more work needed ... Ah! 1939 census Maude 'private means' and Gertrude D ALLAN (widow) together in Hailsham ... Maude died 12 March 1964. Gertrude died in Bexhill 3 September 1968. Well, Mr Allan must have been a whiz. She left over £85,000 ...
NELLIE VIBERT [WOODVINE, Ellen] (b Chelsea 1866) spent 20 years in the theatre, as an actress and a singer. I see her as early as 1883 playing in the Edinburgh panto alongside Emelie Petrelli and Eric Lewis, and she is still appearing occasionally in the earliest years of the 20th century. Unfortunately, I have had little success in tracking her down after her marriage to porter cum bass singer Jesse Smith. But he's still doing it in the 1900s as well. Presumably this in not the same Jesse Smith DOC who married Sarah Eleanor MAXEY ... or is it?
Then there are the two Miss Vivians. Neither is related to the other. Neither's real name was Vivian. They were born on opposite sides of the Manche. Both had reasonable careers of a good length. Both married. How do I know that? Weeeeeellll ... I must admit to a teensy bit of guesswork here. But only a teensy bit.
First comes Kate VIVIAN who seems to have flourished on the stage from 1873 to 1905. Unless there was more than one! I imagine she was pretty for she had 'thinking parts' in pantomime and burlesque at Covent Garden, the Holborn, the Globe, the St James and at the Opera Comique (in the 'unclad' Ixion) in 1873-4. I lose her for a couple of years, while she is becoming a mother, and she resurfaces, apparently with Carte, then in panto at the Standard, in a stepout at the Park .. she seems to have been eminently employable. And then she steps out of the chorus into the role of Josephine in HMS Pinafore with ther Bristol Amateurs (1881). But this is not just any amateur production. The cast included Faulkener Leigh, Cotsford Dick, Walter Clifford ... She followed up with the Aylesbury Amateurs, and then joined Lester Collingwood's Merrie Makers with Maggie Duggan and Lytton Grey playing the operetta Collars and Cuffs. In 1884 she joined the Walton/Hemming troupe (md: the young Sidney Jones) and somewhere along the line got with child again. Her husband was not pleased and divorced her.
The divorce proceedings informed us that 'Kate Vivian' was Mrs George Monkhouse Walker née Maria Pallant, born in Hornsea 13 June 1846 and the mother of three sons. The name of the co-respondent and father of her daughter was witheld. He was 'unknown'. Really? How many men had Maria connubed with? Elsewhere it was whispered that he was 'famous' and his name had to be a secret. The baby died, engineer's draughtsman Walker got his divorce and custody, and Kate went merrily back on the stage -- Butler Stanhope's Co, Fred Wright's tour, Mrs Dalmaine's, J F Preston's, the Cowper-Calvert company ... there's a Kate Vivian in the West Hartlepool stock co in 1895, one singing with Alice Barth in 1904, and playing Lady Coodle in a Messenger Boy tour ...
There is a 'Kate Vivian' therafter touring with James Sydney Montague Oldham-Oldham's company. Endlessly. Did our Kate remarry? Mr Oldham-Oldham's wife was Kate Josephine née Corbett. And our Kate? Don't know.
Secondly Ray VIVIAN. 'Ray' had a rather more substantial career with Carte, being a member of the company from 1896 to 1903. I have spotted her in 1893 playing with Rudolph Lewis iin the F J Harris burlesque company, and then with Harris's Morocco Bound troupe. In 1895 she appeared with Willie Edouin in a brief London season of his megahit The Babes. Following her Cartesian stint she toured as Nell Reddish in A Princess of Kensington, did the seaside circuit ('an old favourite in Ilfracombe') ... then a couple of stints as an Ugly Sister and in 1910 the part of Miss Western in the Tom Jones tour then ...
Coup d'arret. I thought I'd identified her. The only 'Ray' I could find was Jewish Russian American Ray Rockman (Mrs 'Braham'). I beavered away half an afternoon, and then found a mention that she was a 'protégée of Sarah Bernhardt'. Hmmm. Reverse and try again. If it's not 'Ray' I suppose it's Rachel. Oh, hang on what's this. 1911 census of Shrewsbury. Frank Lennard vocalist and actor born Alresford aged 44 and Ray Lennard 35 born Hull vocalist and actress ... mistranscribed .. Frank Lennard who was 'in the original cast of Utopia Ltd?' Where? How? Anyone got a chorus listing for 1893? Well, I scoured Alresford, and the only theatrical I found was 'Laura Linden' and her brother Arthur Wade Clinton. Is he the Mr F Leonard in the archive. 'Ray' in Hull? No better. I'm giving up, for now, on this one.
I need a successful one. Here's one. Not facilitated by a dose of misspellings again. He's listed as Louis van HESS and he was actually Louis van HES (b Aldgate 10 April 1880; d Jewish House of Rest, Balham 30 January 1962). It seems that his wee stint with the Carte was just that. He was a builder's clerk in real life. A bachelor till almost 70, he took a wife for his declining days ..
The name of J C PIDDOCK is linked forever with the production of the exhaustingly long-touring musical comedy The Lady Slavey. However, as the Archive tells us, he had his time as a Cartesian, so I shall pull back his lace curtains and reveal his identity and dates. He was born in Manchester 8 September 1862, the son of flautist William Henry Pidcock and his wife Mary Ann née Crone. And yes, his right name was John Charles PIDCOCK. He began life as a clerk, but by 1884 he was on the stage touring with the La Vie company. I see him in 1885 as King Mischief in the Newcastle pantomime. In 1886 he played Dufois in Erminie ... but in between times he apparently Carte-d. Later he played in several other musicals, notably for Erminie producer, Violet Melnotte (Lily of Leoville), and van Biene and/or Lingard, ranging from Dancairo in Carmen up-to-data, William in Blue-eyed Susan, Babette, Marquis d'Artemare in The Old Guard, Folbach in Falka, the Carabinier Captain in Les Brigands, Pippo in La Mascotte and multiple others to such as the 'operatic burlesque Randolph the Reckless and pantomime (Will Atkins alongside Rita Presano), until H Cecil Beryl and The Lady Slavey came along. Later, he spent time in Australia and New Zealand ..
He married Miss Fanny D'Arcy Miller Read (1861-1939), daughter of Newcastle musician John [D'Arcy] Read, by whom he had two children.
So his banner can now read J C PIDDOCK [PIDCOCK, John Charles] (b Manchester 8 September 1862; d Clapham Common 3 December 1919) ...
Oddly, I don't seem to have looked for the lass known as Mina ROWLEY. Well, Georgina Mina Julia Elizabeth ROWLEY was born in Gonda, Bengal, the daughter of a Captain in the Indian army, on 27 April 1861. As her parents were posted subsequenty to other venues, Mina and her siblings were sent to the charge of a governess at All Saint's Church, Binfield, Berks. How, from there, she became a child member of the Carte organisation I have not yet discovered. And how she managed to marry Mr Stanley Cumming Taylor Felgate 'gentleman' (actually, solicitor's clerk, company secretary) in 1885 ... Anyway, they had 7 children (5 survived), with multiple prenames, before Mina (who had added an inexplicable 'Catania' to her forenames) divorced him for adultery with one Constance Haynes. He died in Bolingbroke Hospital the following year (13 July 1914) aged 51. Georgie, oddly enough, executed his £669 10s 9d will ... perhaps the decree nisi hadn't gone through.
But wait a minute. Catania Felgate? In 1882, Blanche Gertrude Alma Catania Felgate ('a minor') married Charles Rowley Stanley King Morgan ( 1859-1926) sometime of the Carte chorus ... and Stanley witnessed the wedding! Ah. It's his little sister (1863-1941). Obviously a story in that family to marit so many forenames!
Well, our Georgie-Mina died in 1941, admitting to 76 years of age. She was 80. And still Mrs Felgate. At the 1939 census, she can be seen living in Doncaster with ... the Morgans, and Ronald R V Felgate ... extended family? Far away from Fairyland.
What about Henry FOUNTAIN (b 23 Circus Street, Spitalfields 7 June 1833; d Islington 2 February 1909)?. Henry seems to have been a very 'elder' Cartesian chorister. Born in Spitalfields, the son of a brushmaker Isaac Charles Fountain, and his wife Caroline, he became a schoolmaster in Wapping and Battersea. Not until the age of something like fifty, after the death of hif first wife (who had given him 8 children) did he take up professional singing and joined the Carte touring forces. His second wife, Annie Grisson, ran a school and survived him. In the 1901 census he can be seen on tour in Bury ... 'aged 67'. By 1911, Annie was a widow. Well, the family historians have chosen a Henry who died aged 75 in Islington in 1909. I don't know if they actually know, or if they are just copying one another.
On the other side of the ditch Fred[erick] H FREAR (b Brooklyn 22 August 1853; d Chicago 19 October 1930)
More complicated is Minnie FREEMAN. The Archive tells us she was born in Brighton in 1865. So she is the Minnie, daughter of builder Vincent Paine Freeman, who married the divorced Indian army Captain Edmund James Pearch Warden in 1892. Which looks like the reason for her vanishing from the stage. Mr Warden died aged 38 in 1898. Did Minnie return to the stage? Is she the Minnie Freeman who played serio and soubrette round the country with the ventriloquist known as 'Charles Le Warren' (eig Waugh) In 1939 she can be seen as Mrs Warden 'professional singer' in the Kent County Mental Asylum where she died some years later.
Lilias Maud ENGHOLM (b Edinburgh 30 December 1873; d Barnet 24 October 1961) several years a Cartesian chorister, was latterly a housekeeper in Wimbledon. She died unmarried. I see her in South Africa with the company in 1906.
Norah EVELYN[E] [WORMS, Norah Eveline] (b Leeds 1871; d 66 Foscote Rd, Hendon 7 July 1933) was the first daughter of Henry Worms and his Russian wife, Louise Danziger. Father was a commercial traveller cum advertising canvasser. Norah studied music with local Amy Brook, and began by singing in 1892-3 in the York Popular Concerts and Edgar Haddock's Manchester concerts. Her ballad singing was liked, by The Jewel Song' and 'Caro Nome' judged 'too ambitious'. However, she gained the ear of A S Sullivan (briefly she advertised as his pupil), who allegedly got her into the RAM and Edwin Holland's class, and in May 1894 she duly joined the Carte organisation. After her couple of seasons there, I see her only in a self-promoted concert at the Steinway Hall. Where to? Evidently Ceylon. For there, as the spouse of one Henry Davis, she gave birth to the first of her two daughters. I see them all in London. He has a fancy goods business, she is an hotel secretary, and the girls are 8 and 1. End of story.
Margaret Eliza EVANS (b London 16 December 1856) daughter of a Welsh gunmaker, known for the stage as Madge EVANS, married fellow D'Oyly Cartesian 'Allen Morris' [WILLIAMS, John Allen] 24 May 1883 when they were touring with Patience. She doesn't seem to be with him when he visited Australia in 1901. She just vanishes.
Robert Alfred DENNANT b East London 15 May 1868; d Surrey 1943) declared himself in the 1911 census, from his home (with wife and children) to be 'professional vocalist whenever engagement call'. Nothing else seemed to call ... but I see that in 1883 he was a clerk at Liverpool Victoria Legal Friendly Society.
William Henry MARTELL [MARTER, William Henry] seems to be 'Harry Martell' (b St Pancras 1854; d 9 Randall Well Street, Bradford 12 March 1922) was an actor and vocalist between 1881 (Don Juan jr, Member for Slocum, Dick &c) before removing to Bradford to work in advertising. If this is he, his stay with the Carte must have been brief. And 'Martell' was still working in 1897. But advertising from .. Bradford. He was seen on the northern halls up till 1905. His daughter [Mabel] Daisy (1886-1950) apparently had a career on the halls as 'serio-comic and expert dancer' from 1895. In 1900 she is on the bill at ... Bradford. Daisy retired from the stage before her 1911 marriage to Fred Briggs Threapleton. There is a lot of semi-guesswork in this. I very well have taken a wrong turning ... I mean, who is the daughter that 'Mrs Harry Martell' is supposed to have had in Scotland 14 January 1883? More work needed. Another day.
Pauline MONTEGRIFFO (b New York 1858; d Parnell Avenue, NYC 4 December 1943) was born in New York to Italian immigrant parents. I see her first on stage, in 1882, in The Merry War at Haverly's Theatre, before her discreet engagement in Gilbert & Sullivan. She surfaces again in 1886 as contralto with the Kellogg concert party, a Max Strakosh party with Kate Bensberg, and as the Queen in Zozo, before in 1888 she sent out a party of her own with Ida Corani, Adelaide Praeger and Signor Mariano Maina. Signor Maina (basso) was Mr Pauline. They toured with the Ovide Music concert party, but soon turned to teaching. Her biographical notes said that she had trained with Barilli (so she may have appeared with Patti), and in Milan ('five years with Lamperti') and made an operatic debut in Catania ... so maybe she did. I just wonder how a saw sharpener in Ohio affords all that. Because there was more to come. Pauline's younger brother Agostino (b NYC 21 September 1861; d Los Angeles 8 July 1948) has an altogether more consequent career as a vocalist, performing as a lead tenor in America, Britain and Europe.
Alice DAVIES (b Tunbridge Wells 1861) was the daughter of William H Davies, the well-off owner of a hosiery emporium, and his wife Jane. At twenty-two, she made her stage debut with the Carl Rosa Company in Dublin, singing Siebel in Faust, then replacing Marion Burton as the Gipsy Queen in The Bohemian Girl. She also appeared in Carmen during the season. In 1885 she joined the Savoy company to play Constance in The Sorcerer. Some time around now, her father died, and Alice apparently limited herself thereafter largely to the occasional local concert, and to a wide teaching practice in the southern counties -- Chelmsford, Ipswich, Newark, Norwich, Nottingham from her home in Clifton Villas, High Road, Gunnersbury ...
I surmise she was the Alice Davies who studied at the London Academy, with Randegger and Garcia and won a silver medal. And the Alice Davies who ran a home for delicate children, with sister Florence May Davies, at Ormonde House, Margate around 1901. After a decade away from teaching, I see her proffering her services in Banbury in 1910, still ticketed 'of the Carl Rosa and Savoy'.
I feel she was not the Alice who sang in Newcastle with a female impersonator, nor the Alice Davies who contemporaneously performed a nigger duo with brother Dick on the halls ..
However, she may possibly be the Alice Davies or Davis who played Little Buttercup is an amateur production in Stratford in 1894. Or maybe even the Alice Davies or Davis who took part in An Artist's Model and A Country Girl in 1903. And even the Alice Davies in Patience with West Ham amateurs. Or not.
Some days later.
Had a man-sized massage this morning. Afterwards, wobbled gently up the hill to home (forgot my stick!), drank a litre of water, ate a large plate of local bacon and eggs, and thought that's IT for today ... sedentary occupations (sung to the tune of 'Perpetual anticipation') for the rest of the day. Nothing joyful on ebay, so back to David Stone's G&S Archive to find another victim ... I mean, subject.
Anita ['Annie'] SUTHERLAND (b Valparaiso, Chile 1 June 1872; d Ealing 1954) was the daughter of George Sutherland, local businessman, and his wife Mary Annie née Harper. I don't know exactly when Annie came to England, but I see her 'contralto vocalist' performing at the Hull Art Exhibition ('the Chilean contralto') in 1897, and then in a number of concerts at the Queen's Hall, including an Elijah in which Ada Crossley was the principal contralto, and later several Lobgesangs. She appeared with Valentine Smith's Opera Co as Azucena, in a concert version of Irene, and in 1900 was engaged for T H Friend's Carl Rosa troupe. I see her singing Siebel, and later Erda in Siegfried. In 1900 she married the young baritone, Thomas Haigh Jackson, after which I see her little. But the Archive says that at this stage, while Jackson carried on as principal baritone with Friend, she joined the Carte tours. As chorus and cover? Probably because Haigh had decided to turn into a tenor and was off the scene for three years. On his return he toured as Camille in The Merry Widow and Prince Carlo in A Quaker Girl, and Annie produced twin daughters. In 1914 he was cast by the Rosa as Tannhäuser and Radames ... and the little family crossed to Canada in the war. On their return, they settled in Ealing. Annie ventured a recital at the Aeolian Hall in 1920. Haigh seems to have sung intermittently on the radio, and penned an amateur dramatic manual ... and I see him visiting Canada again in 1931. Did he die there? Widowed Annie and the twins can be seen in 1939 in Ealing, where Annie died in 1954 ... as 'Mrs Haigh-Jackson'.
Kathleen SINICO [CAMPBELL, Kathleen Isabella Annie] (b 86 Rouge Bouillon, Jersey 11 September 1881) may have made but little mark as a singer, but she was one of the best-musically-bred lasses ever to be a Cartesian chorine. Her mother was the splendid operatic soprano known as Sinico (born Clarice MARINI) and her father was the fine Scots baritone who called himself 'Signor Enrico Campobello'. He lied so (in)consistently about his background and name that he has been a lifetime's work for Betsy Miller and I ... he features in our Victorian Vocalists and here ... https://kurtofgerolstein.blogspot.com/2018/12/wanted-dead-or-alive-large-reward.html ... At Kathleen's birth he called himself Enrico Campobello, and the baby's sponsors were Lady Arthur Hill and Major Wallace Carpenter and the Marchioness D'Oyly .. pardi. Kathleen had a modest career as a chorine, notably for several years in the touring companies of The Dairymaids, and then disappears from my ken. But I shall keep a weather eye.
Ethel Elizabeth Stuart BARKER (b Newington 1879; d Auckland, NZ 24 October 1952), daughter of a Derbyshire lawyer, studied at the London College of Music and gave several concerts on home turf (1895, 23 January 1896 'a mezzo soprano of pleasing quality') which resulted in an appearance at the Boosey Ballad Concerts at St James's Hall (1897). She took a small part in the revival of La Périchole with Florence St John (1897) and spent most of 1898 as resident vocalist at the Sheen House Club in East Sheen. In 1899 she moved firmly into the theatre with supporting roles in The Lucky Star, A Greek Slave, Haddon Hall and, after appearing as Fairy in the Fulham pantomime, in The Rose of Persia and The Emerald Isle, before being taken to wife by Adair Douglas Blythe, a military man from Masterton, NZ. They had several children, and ulimately returned to New Zealand where they lie today in Purewa Cemetery ...
Frank STANVILLE ... [? GLANVILLE, Frank Josephus Richard] (b Devonport 8 June 1862; d Carshalton 17 October 1913. Yes, question mark. The identification may be wrong. Trust not in Victorian and Edwardian record-takers. 'Stanville' was, in any case, a pseudonym. And this is my punt. His stage career seems to have been intermittent, between 1885 and 1897 and mostly iin flops. He played at the Imperial, on tour with Mabel Hayes and in The Silver King on a couple of occasions but his short stint with the Carte seems to have been his main achievement. If this is he, he became a fishmonger with 12 children ...
Yes. I can make mistakes. And I did, in my earlier blog! Well, you really don't expect there to be two ladies named Bertha Hochheimer, do you. But the Archive got her muddled too! Not unreasonably, for she went first by her natal name, then (in the Carte company) by her first married name, after which she married again .. Hochheimer, Smith and Ford.
So, Bertha Matilda HOCHHEIMER (b Brighton 6 November 1865) was the daughter of Henry Hochheimer, manager of the German spa. In 1888 she married Horace Guy SMITH 'journalist and author' from Madras, who died, aged 34, in 1900. The following year she married fellow Cartesian Frederick Walter FORD. Which name she worked under when has to be sorted out .. "in 1888 she toured in the second lead roles of Inez in Pepita and the Queen in Les Manteaux noirs, and in 1889-90 as Marguerite in Delia. She returned to play more Pepita and Falka with Horace Lingard's fine touring company in 1893. She must have joined Carte soon after, for the archive records that she played with Company E in Utopia (Ltd), The Grand Duke and The Rose of Persia. And then, as Mrs Ford? Well, by 1911 she was running a theatrical boarding house in Much Haddam. Husband is away, but she has a 5 year-old son, [Charles] Allen (b Mandalay Rd Clapham 2 August 1905) and among the guests two little Le Maistres, actor John Gordon, theatre manager Walter Sullivan, actress Eliza Gordon ... In 1939 she in a widow landlady in Southsea. It appears that she lived to 86, and died in Dartford in 1952.
Fred can be seen touring still in 1917 after a solid career: La Grande-Duchesse (1899), Marchmont in The School Girl, Colonel MacSherry in Madame Sherry, Sir Peter Loftus in The Cingalee, Sheik Jawan in Kismet, A Chinese Honeyoon, Alexander Stoop Verrall in Eliza Comes to Stay (1917). After that, I lose him.
Joseph C FAY (transatlantics don't have middle names, just initials) (b Canada 6 November 1852; d Yonkers 30 March 1936) had a very fine career in the American musical theatre, topped off in the 1910s by a number of film appearances. I see him first in Jeannie Winston's Boccaccio company in 1885, followed by a series of appearances in Savoy pieces: Ruddigore, The Mikado in Harlem, as Sir Richard in The Yeomen of the Guard for John Stetson, and then with the Duff troupe in HMS Pinafore, The Mikado (Pish Tush) and The Pirates of Penzance. He also played for Duff in Paola, A Trip to Africa and the troupe also performed a double bill of Cavalleria Rusticana and Trial by Jury. On many of these engagements he was accompanied by his wife, German American soprano vocalist Minnie de Reu (b Ohio 21 July 1860; d Wareham Mass 20 June 1935) who remained on the stage after the birth of their son Willie.
Joseph played at the Casino Theatre in the 1890s, then played in a long series of musical comedies: Sir Titus in The Circus Girl, The Telephone Girl, Tamarind in A Runaway Girl, Probitt in The Toreador. I see him in 1908 in Raymond Hitchcock's The Yankee Tourist, and in 1912 in The Red Rose ... before he moved into motion pictures, notably Three Weeks (Mahovich), for several years.
Rita OTWAY [OTWAY, Marguerite Sybil] (b London 14 January 1887; d Fairfield, Conn 25 October 1972) Married actor Wilfrid Seagram Richardson (London 1884- NY 30 May 1938)
[Ada] Berry AUSTIN (b Islington 1875) seems to be the lady who appears in the archive. In 1901 she working as a cashier. In 1903 she married Edward John FISH, and apparently retired from the stage.
Richard William ANDEAN (b Bristol 29 December 1873; d Dunster 6 July 1943) and his sister Adrienne [Beatrice] ANDEAN (b Stapleton 11 December 1879; d Mansfield Linton 23 January 1967) were two of the children of commercial traveller R W Andean (d 1931) and his wife, Mary. I think Mr Andean sr may have been a little more than a traveller: he also ran the Wine Vaults on St Michael's Hill.
Richard was singing with the East Bristol Choral Society in 1891 while working as an accountant, then as a journalist ion the Bristol Evening News. In 1902 I spot him singing 'The Little Street Arab' (Rose of Persia) in a journo's concert, and playing the Lord Chancellor with the Bristol amateurs. After his essay into professionalism as a performer, he turned back to the amateur world, staging productions around the west country.
Jeremiah CAMMEYER [aka Jerome CAMMEYER] (b New York c1865; d Perth Amboy, NJ after 1940). Jerry Cammeyer was born in New York, the son of Augustus Cammeyer, clerk, and Charlotte née Collins, daughter of a harness maker. His father died when he was 11 years old, and his mother subsequently married the actor, George GASTON [COOLEY, George Luman]. Which may be how and why Jerry got on to the stage as a child actor/singer. After his juvenile days (see Archive) he continued for a decade as an intermittent performer (Hattie Harvey Co, Little Lord Faunleroy, Rio de Janeiro, Side-Tracked, People's Theater, The Real Widow Brown, The Burglar) before removing to Perth Amboy, NJ, where he was latterly employed at the local YMCA. Stepfather George had an altogether more well-stuffed career. He appeared on the stage as Sir Joseph Porter alongside Wallace McCreery and Eva Mills, and as Bunthorne to the Patience of Emma Howson, and was still active in the musical theatre in 1918 when he took a small part in Sometime. Charlotte having died in 1909, he finally resided in the Actor's Fund Home in New Jersey where he died 14 January 1937 at the age of 93.
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| George Gaston |
Some of the players in the Archive seem to have had very short careers. Edward CLODE (b Llangollen c 1856) played his whole career it seems in the year of 1903 -- Boniface in La Toledad, concert in Bath, The Mikado ... really? Likewise the lass who chose to be Ethel ?Louisa CHAMPNEYS or CHAMPNESS and said to be born in England in 1856. Played in America in The Little Duke etc and then disappears. William CHAMBERS (b Nottingham c 1854) is seen in digs with Henry Negus, DOC in 1881. Well, there are a few WCs but they are employed in humble positions. Which one was he? Then there is Miss Challice. Is this the May CHALLICE who performs in 1878 in The Vicar of Wakefield and between 1883-5 with Frank Benson's company? Oh well, we plough onwards!
Bessie MACKENZIE (b Old Aberdeen 1884) has been much more forthcoming. Daughter of solicitor James John Mackenzie (b Meldrum 7 December 1863; d Banchory 8 July 1931) and his first wife, Annie Shields née Strachan (b 1899) she was a teenager when she joined the Carte companies. At the end of her time as a Cartesian, she played Mlle Herpin in The Little Michus, and sang in concerts in the Aberdeen area, and spent some time touring a vocal scena Christine of Sketra in which she portrayed a Scots fishergirl. For several years she was billed as 'the the fishergirl'. In 1910 she returned to Scotland and appeared thereafter in concert ('the Scotch soprano' 'late of D'Oyly Carte') and later, on radio, but her main activity was, through the 1920s, directing and conducting amateur and juvenile performances of the Savoy repertoire -- several a year -- in Laurencekirk and Stonehaven. She removed from Laurencekirk to Aboyne in 1927 and, after 1931, I lose track of her ...
[Frederick] Strafford MOSS (b Kensington 1 November 1868; d Camberwell 1941) was the son of William Burrowes Moss, a clerk in the GPO money order office for 33 years, and his wife Roshanna. His long career is largely enumerated in the Archive. Moss married (1) Martha Frances Fellows and after her precipitate death, (2) widow Jane Minnie Shale. An article was devoted to him in the Sphere of 19 March 1938.
Beatrice MEREDITH (b Herefordshire) first comes on my radar in 1900, in Leominster and Ross. In 1901 she is headlining a concert with local vicar's daughter, Miss Hampden (violin). She sang in concerts in Burmingham, Newcastle, Bristol, with the Meister Glee Singers, and in 1906 joined the Carte. In 1909 she left the company and went on tour in The Dollar Princess, appeared in Hereford 'a local lady' as the Princess in Aladdin, the left for South Africa as leading lady of the Wheeler-Edwardes Gaiety Company. I see her featured in A Quaker Girl, The Chocolate Soldier ... My last sighting of her is again in South Africa in 1919 ...
Ethel [May] NEWCOMBE (b Runcorn 15 October 1875; d 25 January 1956) was the daughter of a shipping man and a mother who had ambitions as a lyricist and songwriter. She attended the RAM and was awarded the Llewellyn Thomas medal, but her career was to be short. After her stint at the Savoy, she married Ernest Brooke Brooks (1899). They produced a son, George Newcombe Brooks, and Ethel taught music.
A few dates and things to fill gaps in the Archive ..
George Francis REYNOLDS (b Stratford, Essex 24 May 1876; d Wansford 30 December 1952). Married Evaline Louisa Hamlin, 2 children.
Rowena Edith RONALD (b Armidale, NSW 7 November 1903; d Herefordshire 10 February 1996). Three husbands (consecutively).
John Fursey ROW (b Topsham, Devon 7 April 1880; d Launceston 24 July 1969) Married Mabel Gertrude Pooley, 1905.
[Johanna] Helen[a] KUSCHER (b Bradford 1873; d Halifax 1938) one of five daughters of Dresden-born Ernst Rudolf Kuscher, a Bradford tin-plate worker and his wife Auguste, her time in the theatre seems to have been brief. She began her working life as a worsted reeler, and after her marriage to hairdresser and tobacconist Arthur Bowyer, she helped out in the business. In between she took part in Leeds concerts (1896) while her younnger sister, Hedwig Kuscher, sang with John Ridding's company at Crewe as Leila in Satanella (1900) and at the Manchester Tivoli (1903).
Bernard FISHER (b Chorlton on Medlock 3 March 1873; d El Segundo, Los Angeles 27 September 1948) and his sister Carrie described themselves as 'music hall vocalists' in the 1901 census. They had both been for some years members of the Carte companies. He was, in spite of family legend, baptised plain 'Bernard'. And married, in 1903, Florence Annie ('Flora') Adcock. In between times he had been playing a lion in panto in Derby. The couple later moved to Canada, by which time Bernard was a 'grocer', then America ....
William Henry ARCHER (b 16 December 1857; d Walworth September 1893). Son of clerk John Archer and his wife Agnes Lowis, spent some time on the stage before converting in the 1880s to be a 'journalist and author'. He married an Elizabeth from Bridgwater, but died aged 35.
Ethel Ritchie ARMIT (b Broughty Ferry 20 April 1881; d Edinburgh 19 March 1960). Daughter of Thomas Napier Armit, wife of George William Jupp.
Margaret CHATWIN (d Edgbaston 1878; d St Geoge's Hospital, London 20 October 1937). Daughter of engineering toolmaker Alfred Chatwin, and his wife Mary Rebecca Elizabeth). Died unmarried.
Beatrice Hannah BOARER (b Belvedere, Essex 10 October 1887; d Ealing 5 October 1954) daughter of Kentish farmer Abner [Springett] Boarer and his wife Ann. Details in the archive.
Addendum:
I've encountered the lady known as Jessie Browning many times over the years, so when I landed on her entry in the Archive -- with a splendid photo -- I thought, surely I have 'done' her? So I searched my computer. She was there in a whole heap of other folk's biographical notes, but not one of her own. Careless of me, I thought. Must remedy that. And I started ..
And now I know why I hadn't blogged her. I have gathered more than two pages of performing credits for the lady, and not a single bit of confirmed personal data. In 1906/7 there's a Miss Jessie Browning living at 60 Southwold Mansions, Widley Rd, Paddington ... is it she? Could be. But there are a lot of Jessie Brownings about ... is it a pseudonym?
Well, lets start with the career. 1890-3 she is a pupil at the Guildhall School of Music. She is a contralto and gets roles such as Lazarillo, Gipsy Queen, Azucena, Siebel of alongside that other mystery, soprano Eugenia Morgan. She seems to have spent a short time in her student years with the Rousbey company, but more often giving her 'Stride la vampa' in various modest places. I spot her giving 'The Holy City', 'The Minstrel Boy', 'Entreat me not to leave thee', 'There is a Green Hill', The Sleeping Queen et al in the home counties, and then in 1892 she joins Broughton Black's English Opera Singers group, singing bits of Erminie, Falka, The Vicar of Bray, The Sorcerer et al) alongside Cissie Saumarez, T Willis Page and Black.
She moved back to opera with the company run by 'Ilma Norina' (Bianca in The Fair Geraldine &c), was the contralto for W H Burgon's group, F S Gilbert's group, and repeatedly with Black, before in 1896 she joined Fanny Moody in her concert company. She would return frequently to the Moody-Manners team in years to come. In between times, she sang at venues from Aston Grounds to Hastings and Southend Pier Pavilion, a Messiah at Northampton, a Walpurgisnacht in the suburbs, and in 1899 she went on the comic opera stage playing in The Red Spider (director: Richard Temple).
In 1899 she joined the Carl Rosa company, as principal contralto (Lazarillo, Mrs Cregan, Mamma Lucia, Siebel, Mercedes, Ortrud, San Lin). And one night, when Carmen was billed, the leading lady was off, Jessie went on, and found herself permanently promoted to the role.
When her time with the Rosa was up, she went back to the likes of Burgon, until she was hired by the Carte organisation. Her seasons with the company was succeeded by several with Moody-Manners, the usul sprinkling of opera and seaside concerts, and as late as 1915 I see her singing at Reading with Elsie Spain.
So, that's the career of one good artist and good contralto.
Addendum to the addendum:
And here come the facts of Jessie! I posted this on the wonderful Family Treasures site ... and yay! several members went to work in areas to which I don't have access, and results! David Wilson came up with a report, in the St Pancras Gazette of 1904, of the death of her foster sister, [Edith] Pauline, wife of actor George Barrett. Foster mother was Mrs Brown .. ah ... I should have guessed ..
And then the censi popped into place... father pensioned-off infantryman-turned musician, David Brown. Wife Susan, seemingly née Rofe (d Albert Street, 5 March 1910 'aged 73'). Daughter Jessie christened St Saviour Southwark 16 August 1868. So, she's 'Brown'. One thing solved. But what happened to her ..
Well, Leigh Ireland came up even with an answer to that. She emigrated. And was still alive in 1951 ...
So, thanks to my 'elves', even if I don't have precise birth and death dates, I've 'got the picture'.
I wonder why she went down Argentina way ...
And while I wondered, the amazing Leigh Ireland found the probable answer. She went with her husband. Yes, husband. Jessie was married in 1908 to Mr Joseph Constance Jones. Independent gentleman. He seems to have had links with Canada, rather than Argentina, and unless there were two gents of this unlikely name, he died 24 May 1942. But I take nothing for granted round here!
Frank [Egleton] ROB[E]Y (b Bow 13 March 1876; d Norfolk December 1910) son of Joseph, a grocer, and Eleanor. Began his working life as an assistant to his father, before taking to the stage. Married [Minnie] Rose HILL (b Beckenham, Kent 13 December 1880; d North Hollywood 1970), a fellow Cartesian, after their trip with the company to South Africa (1903) and fathered Rosalie Beatrice (Mrs Miller) and Maurice Edmund Robey before his death at the age of 34. Rose remarried Scots farmer John ('Jack') C Crichton, and the couple moved to California where he died in 1960 and she in 1970.
Hello! what's this ....
Frank WILSON has been a little more tricky to track down. It is a difficult name to bear in the musical theatre. He related, in later life, that he began his time working in the silk trade, then studied at the Paris Conservatoire for four years before becoming a super and a member of the claque at the Paris Opéra. The Conservatoire records don't show him, but ... who knows. Anyway, he came back to England, became a member of the Carte ('my voice was too light for opera'), appeared briefly in musical comedy in The Catch of the Season .. anyway the story can be found in the Australian paper Table Talk of 17 August 1905. Because, in 1904, he emigrated to Australia where he appeared in comic opera for many years, as well as in concert, and by the 1930s, on radio. He paid regular visits to Britain (246 Campden Rd, South Croydon) but finally settled in 7 Watling Street, Mount Eden, teaching singing. He died there 1 November 1944, 'aged 74' and is buried in Purewa Cemetery. 'Retired professional singer'. His death notice was inserted by 'his esteemed friend' George Warren.
Bartholemew McCARTHY ('Bartle') was a tenor from Dublin, and a sometimes member of the Cathedral Choir. He appeared in local concerts from as early as 1872 ('Nora the Pride of Kildare') until the early 1890s.
Theodore Ernest MAY (b Chelsea 18 November 1864; d Hampstead 1949) son of Theodore May, commercial traveller and his wife Rebecca. Began life as an apprentice in the printing trade before moving into the theatre. He worked as a singer, actor and stage manager (Morell & Mouillot's Greek Slave co) into the 20th century.
Morgan [David] WILLIAMS (b Aberaman, Glamorgan 10 November 1876; d Los Angeles 14 December 1940). Son of grocer/postmaster Theophilus Williams and his wife Hannah née Evans. Began life as a telegraph clerk. After his Carte trip, he played in The School Girl and The Duchess of Danzig on the road. In 1906, he married Mabel Sprinks, fathered a daughter, and the next year emigrated to America. Williams continued to work as a vocalist and actor in Canada and America through to the 1930s, and died of a spinal injury in California aged 64.
Clarice VANCOURT [WILLIAMS, Clarice Maud) (b Bangalore 16 August 1885; d Wimbledon 27 June 1920) has been much written about. And a great deal of it falsely. Why? Because she married a man who became a Lord ... and her past needed covering up. The family historians have done an hilariously inept job, chopping eight years off her age, giving her birthplace as Staffordshire, inventing a mythical first marriage for her, changing her father's name (he was Captain John Williams of the Indian army) ...
'Vancourt' was not a man, Not a husband. He was a stage name, taken from a recent Marie Corelli novel. And that name served Miss Clarice for the time of her job with the Carte company, and for her 1918 marriage to the man who would become the 1st Baron Dowding. For that occasion, she swore that she was a widow. Well, she had to. She had a seven year-old daughter (5 March 1911, registered as Williams) to justify.
Her stage career appears to have been slight. Her married life (including the birth of the 2nd Baron) sadly brief. And her little fibs the bane of ancestry.com and a hundred family historians.
Kate SASS [SASSE, Harriett Emma Kate] (b Chelsea 9 May 1856; d Lewisham 29 October 1939). Daughter of Frederick Richard Sasse and his wife Mary Ann, and member of a musical family, Kate worked as a pianist, vocalist and music teacher through her life. Between 1885 and the early 1890s, she sang supporting roles in opera (Martha, Buda, Marchioness &c) with Sydney Leslie's company and Arthur Rousbey's company on the road, and when Richard Temple produced Rigoletto to feature himself, Kate was in the cast. After her Carte experience, ashe seems to have favoured the piano.
Patience [Amelia] SEYMOUR [HERBERT, Patience] (b Camden Town 7 July 1883; d Pancras 1938) was the daughter of William Herbert, vocalist, stage name Seymour. Mr W[illiam] H[erbert] SEYMOUR (1851-1902) was a long time performer and stage manager with the Carte company, vide the naming of his daughter. His wife was Amelia née Dolman. Patience's stage career is covered in the archive. She married the vocalist known as Alec FRASER [Andrew Elder SMITH] (1884-1956), brother to Carte leading soprano 'Agnes Fraser', and bore two sons.
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