Kurt of Gerolstein: TRIUMPH! My best bit of theatrical teckery yet!

All is quiet on the Yambanese foreshore. The sun is white, the sky and sea couldn't be bluer. Only the occasional birdsong, a passing car or the screech of an irrepressible power tool breaks the blissful silence. Wendy and Jen have headed up the coast for some sight-seeing before heading back to New Zealand, so although I am back on kitchen duty, I have spent the whole rest of the last few days sitting in my 'office' playing my favourite game: 'outing' nineteenth-century theatricals.

I happed on the songwriter and comic known as "F V St Clair" while looking for another Cartesian. They were sharing digs in 1881. Of course, as I habitually do, I got sidetracked and, when I discovered this well-known music-hall man was related, by ways undiscovered, to the family of a really lovely variety act, the 'Wychwoods', with whom I had worked in 1968 at the Victoria Palace ... that was me trapped. Thanks to Ian Howell's splendid web-page Variety, Summer Shows, Panto and a Bit of Everything, I encountered the present day generation of the family and got some vital bits of information to speed me on my quest to disrobe this chap. Come on, nobody from Ripponden, Yorks is called 'Frank Verity St Clair'. I've been speeding for two days. And, yep, I finally hit the target.

Mr F V St Clair, I can now reveal to readers and the family, was born in Ripponden 23 November 1858 as John Weig(he)l WRAY. The Weighel was the maiden name of his mother, Rachel, who had married (3 December 1857) Frank Robert Wray (b 6 December 1833). The 1861 census shows John, aged 2, living with his aunt, Sarah Hannah née Wray, and her husband, Benjamin Verity. Rachel had died soon after the birth of her child.

Frank quickly got himself another wife, Jane Whiteley, promptly fathered a Sarah (31 October 1865) who was baptised along with little John, and later maybe a Thomas Arthur ... but John, seemingly, stayed with the Veritys through his childhood, although I see father is there, as well, in 1871. Had he and missus no2 split up? She bore a Thomas Arthur the next year (20 September 1872). And then married a gentleman named Haddock. Bigamy? She took Sarah with her, when she waltzed off.

Father Frank eventually ended up, alone, as a jobbing garden in Stanley Street, Ulverstone, where he died in 1916. I wonder what he thought of his son's fame and wealth and gong (OBE).

I'm not sure when John, who had donned the moniker of St Clair, and swapped his birth name for his father's, made his first appearances as a 'topical vocalist', but by 1880 he was doing the rounds of the northern houses most successfully. And he would remain a feature act til the end of his days. And a prolific writer of topical songs. To read elsewhere.

Part 2. The wife. I don't think anyone had delved into 'F V St Clair' before, but his wife's family? Yes. Normally. Because it holds rather more folk of interest than the Wrays or the Veritys.

In a little memoir, Mark Raffles (yes, THAT Mark Raffles) revealed that he was descended from Samson Fox of Harrogate, JP, 12 servants ... the same family which is the background of (give or take a touch of illegitimacy) the acting family Fox of the 20th century. Now, I'm prepared to believe that all those Foxes were somehow related, but sorting them out is a little problematic. Especially as every generation had its William!

Start with Samson, of the Leeds Forge Company. Son of Jonas Fox (and Sarah Pearson), son of Samson. Samson II apparently had two brothers: William (b 1841) and James (b 1845). William joined him in his firm, married Maria Blakeborough, 3 children, and died in Harrogate in 1891. And James ...? That's the sticky bit. Apparently James Fox was a boatbuilder. Is he related to the one of that name operating from Limehouse Hole in 1843? Anyway this James's son, William (grr) was of that trade, and it is him in whom we are interested. He fathered the ladies who link the family to St Clair and to my Wychwoods. Not Samson's son, but Samson's nephew.

Of course, just to be awkward Samson did have a son named William. He died as a child. But he called a later child Arthur William ('Willie'). It is this Willie Fox who married the actress Hilda Hanbury-Alcock and deserted her after their fourth child. And one of those four was Robin Fox .. and take it from there. So, here the Fox branches part ...

So, back to the boatbuilder, William son of James. Married Martha Wild. Children:

Elizabeth 1863

Mary Ann 10 June 1865

James 15 August 1867

Amelia 15 November 1869

William Henry 9 August 1872; d 24 June 1942

Frank 1 November 1874; d 25 February 1953

Harry said to be 9 March 1875. ?died 1894

Martha 2 September 1878 (Mrs Theodore Walker)

The oft-repeated story tells us that no1 sister, Elizabeth, married an Irish music hall artist, Tom TRAYNOR, and they had one daughter, Amelia, before Tom's untimely death aged 34, in 1891.

Elizabeth and Tom Traynor

In the meanwhile, Traynor and FVStC had shared a bill at Manchester, and Traynor introduced John/Frank to his wife's younger sister. Polly, a machine hand. Pollie? Bloody nicknames. Took me hours to discover that 'Polly' was Mary Ann. Martha was far too young, and Amelia ...??? But this put the cap on it

Elizabeth remarried Thomas HESFORD in 1891, had two more children, gave birth to Charlie in 1891 (24 December)" 'Uncle Charlie' of the Post Office to the next generation, Arthur in 1904, and seems to have died in 1929. Charlie died in Rhyl 25 August 1969. Arthur and family emigrated to Australia.

The person who leads us to the present day, to my old friend 'Mark Raffles' and my new friend Tim Raffles-Taylor, is little Amelia TRAYNOR (b 27 May 1888). Amelia, who had been playing piano in the family pub since childhood, married an Albert TAYLOR, foreman bricklayer/furnaceman in 1914 ... from which marriage was born Albert TAYLOR jr (22 June 1922; d 18 September 2022) ... later to be a Wychwood and a celebrated magician. Which is another story ...