Cartesians are getting tough to decipher, but I am still pulling the odd one out of the hat, in spite of a foule of failures. The Geraldine St Maur basket for Lost Cartesians is bulging somewhat. But I press on ... win or lose, or simply add some factual details where they have been lacking ...
So, here we go ... World of G&S scholarship, my latest contribution!
And to those who say 'it really doesn't matter, matter, matter, matter' ... why not get it RIGHT ... and, anyway, I'm having fun!
Frank MANNING (b Islington 1861; d London 24 March 1899)
Working out the what and when of 'Frank Manning' has been laborious. He came from a theatrical family and his name, like that of his father, may have been assumed. His father 'John Manning' was an actor at the Grecian Theatre. His mother was Mary. And he had one elder brother named Ambrose. Yes, Ambrose Manning (1858-1940) who was to become a fine and durable character actor on the British stage.
They can all be seen together in the 1861 census. Papa, mamma, Ambrose 2 and Frank 1 month. 'Thomas Ambrose Manning' born Holborn 1858. But there is no Frank or Francis registered in early 1861. Just a couple of plain Johns. At his death, he was said to be married with two little boys ...
And just one brother. Ambrose.
But at the funeral are the actor W J Manning (d Clapham, June 1928 aged 67), of the Gaiety and Daly's &c, and his wife. Who is supposed to be Louise Blanche née Gomersal. And her parents. So where does he fit in? If he does. Because his real name was said to be William James BILLHAM. But his son's name was ... William Ambrose G Billham (b 1888). Until he changed it to Manning! 'Ambrose' again! William and Louise Billham can be seen down Sussex way in the 1891 census.
And at the funeral, too, are the Misses Cissie and Kate Manning ... oyyyy!
And in the 1881 census, there is our Ambrose (22) sharing digs with William (20). But it's Frank who is supposed to be 20!
Yes, this is what I go through to bring you three lines of definitive results.
The definitive result is that 'Frank' got pneumonia during the run of The Lucky Star, which led to a heart attack, and his death at the age of 38. As Francis John Manning. Yeah.
Mrs Grahame COLES ought to have been more straightforward. If the name was for real. Her fair career of over a decade is crystal clear. And it all starts off in the Portsmouth area in 1889, when she is Mrs already. And one clue: 'pupil of Randegger'. Of course, there were hundreds nay thousands of those. Genuine and barely, but mostly simply students at the schools he attended.
Well, it is a guess, but I plump for Miss Florence Coles from Bideford, 'student at the LRAM aged 19' in the 1881 census. Daughter of William, schoolmaster, from Upottery. This Florence seems to have married a William Harman in 1883 ... so the Grahame may just be decoration.
Anyhow, the lady concerned rose through a couple of years of local concerts, and some minor London concerts, to be cast as Ulrica in Ivanhoe for Carte, and going on to tour as the Widow Merton in Vicar of Bray. She was later seen with the English Opera Singers (qv), W H Burgon's group, at Queen's Hall, on the odd Pier Pavilion and at the People's Palace (Stabat Mater), before disappearing from sight after 1900.
So, Florence Coles (b Bideford 1861) by William out of Mary Elizabeth apparently née Pym? Mrs Harman. Died April 1937 ..? Maybe. So, what's with the Grahame?
My delvings hav'n't all been failures.
Lillian [Eliza] COOMBER (b Portsea 17 December 1874; d Peacehaven 6 April 1952) had the grace to keep her birth name. All the way to her death.
Daughter of Thomas G Coomber, 'fleet engineer of the Royal Navy' and his wife, Eliza. Studied at the RAM from where she went quickly to the Queen's Hall, then to singing Micaela at Covent Garden (1897). I see her at the Crystal Palace proms, at Hull, at Sheffield in Elgar's King Olaf before she was hired for George Musgrove's Australia-based opera company. She sang Marguerite, Micaela, Maritana, Senta, Arline, Filina, Venus in Tannhäuser et al To Australia, but the local press cheered loudest for the local Mme Slapoffski. Back in England, she sang with the Moody Manners troupe and with the Carl Rosa (1903-4, Il Trovatore, Don Giovanni, Nozze di Figaro) after which it was said that would visit South Africa. Her little term with the D'Oyly Carte seems to have been her last prominent engagement. She retired to the Lewes area, where she lived out her days.
Rosa COOKE (b Lambeth 19 March 1844; d Bronx 21 October 1916) daughter of musician John Parker Cooke and his wife Jane Caroline née Usher, spent most of her life and her career in America after the family emigrated in her young days. I see her in 1868, 'a charming little actress', singing 'Lo, here the gentle lark' as Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream with Castle and Campbell. She had a long and wide career as a singer and actress, which I'm sure has been detailed somewhere, and which apparently included a try at opera in Italy, and she was still up and at it forty years on. For a surprising number of years of her later life she was an inmate of the Bronx Hospital for Incurables, but when she died it was of angina pectoris.
But what to say of the substantial Flora Macdonald and Norah Maguire (aka Norah Phyllis) of Bayswater? Stage names? Invisible.
But I have largely nailed another Cartesian leading lady: the original Josephine in America, Miss Eva S[usan?] MILLS [née HOWELL]. When Eva was born, in Washington DC, around 1852, she was not surnamed 'Mills' but 'Howell'. She became Mills when her mother who was seemingly née Susan E K Guest, married the well-known Washington sculptor, Clark Mills in 1861. In his will, Mills referred to her as his 'adopted daughter'. I have tried to trace Eva's birth, but without success. Susan's re-marriage may or may not have been legal.
By 1873 she was singing soprano at Washington's St Aloysius Church and later at other churches and concerts, with the nearest thing to a theatrical engagement being the performance of Act 2 of Martha at a church concert. HMS Pinafore was her first theatrical job, and the most substantial of her career, although she sang Serpolette et al on its back. By 1883 she had returned to church choiring and teaching in Washington, and my last sighting of her is in 1908, back at St Aloysius.
Stepfather Mills |
Celia [Mary?] McFADDEN contralto, of Philadelphia, appears only briefly on my screen. She sang in concert in her home town in 1878 and in 1880 made a brief foray on to the stage as Buttercup and Ruth. That's all I know.
Charles MACK and his wife Sarah MACK seem to have been veritably Charles McKAY of Rochdale and his wife Saran née THOMAS. Is that he in 1913 at Whitby, in 1921 at Leeds, in 1927 at Hull ... probably not.
James MATTHEWS (b Westminster c 1861; d unknown) was the son of John William Matthews (plasterer) and his wife Mary née Mills. Although you wouldn't believe it to read the family historians who have attached all sorts other Johns to their tree. In the 1881 census, he can been seen with his parents 'vocalist unemployed'. I can follow up sisters Fanny and Charlotte but ... not John.
Robert [William] McQUEEN (b c 1887; d Exeter 30 April 1960) had a sliced-up career with the Carte Company. In between times I see him in pantomime, variety and musicals round the country, my last sighting being in the cast of The Student Prince (1950). He is supposed to have been born in Alnwick in 1887, but ... He married latterly a widow named Peggy with three children, who survived him.
Agnes [Gertrude] MITCHELL (b USA c 1859) was not easy, and I hav'n't quite 'got' her yet. We are told she was American. In 1861 she admits, in the English census, to being 21 years old and having a middle initial of 'G'. That helps. She later claimed to have sung/acted at Booth's Theatre. I hav'n't got my Norton to hand... Then came Christmas 1880 as principal girl in Robinson Crusoe in Dublin (1880) and her stint with the Carte companies. From there, she went on to appear as Fiametta in La Mascotte and in Olivette at the Strand Theatre (1881), before heading to Australia with A T Dunning's comic opera company (The King's Dragoons, Boccaccio etc). She was the first to play the title role in Olivette, down under.
She had travelled to Australia on the John Elder on which Dr Richard Benson Warren FRCSI was surgeon, and, at some stage in 1882, they were married. The couple were still in Australia in 1889 ... but I guess that they (or at least he) returned to Britain, for the respected Dr Warren 'acting surgeon to the Mounted Infantry Regiment' died, aged 35, in London 31 July 1891. He left his £188 8s 11d to be executed by his father. No mention of Agnes. I've lost her.
William [Craig Denniston] MORGAN (b Glasgow 20 October 1852; d Esher 2 January 1944). A performer from a young age, he developed into a stager and director. His personal life seems to have included at least three wives, and a dozen children.
Tom [Thomas] MOSS (b Halifax, Nova Scotia 8 September 1843; d Wales 4 February 1894), son of Henry Moss, a musician 'of Scarborough' in the 1871 census of Belgravia, with his Birmingham-born wife, Sarah Ann née Kimberley 'of Rotherham'. He is still professing music in 1891, in Moss Side, and three sons and a daughter have been added to the family. They subsequently removed to Wales, where Tom died in 1894 and Sarah the following year. Is he the Tom Moss 'tenor and comic character vocalist' at the Croydon Music Hall in 1866, at Battersea in 1871?
William Lister MORRAH (b King's Lynn 16 November 1871; d Barnet February 1953), son of Colonel James Arthur Morrah, latterly Mayor of Winchester. He and his 'acceptable tenor voice' worked for a decade in the musical theatre, following his Cartesian years with appearances in The Little Michus and the juvenile leads in The Sweet Girl (Dick Kenyon) and Sergeant Brue (Michael Brue) on the road, before retiring to become 'a traveller in motorists' sundries' and 'a superintendant at Selfridge's'. He married Marguerite Longhurst (b France 21 July 1871; d St Albans 1950) who does not appear to have been a performer.
Ida ?Tylor MüLLE (b Massachussetts 28 April 1868; d Manhattan August 1934) was the most successful of the singing daughters of German immigrant musician Ernst Mülle (b 25 September 1826), from Märckranstädt, Saxony, and his wife Mathilde Auguste (d 1903). Her career has been well documented elsewhere, her personal life included an abortive marriage to a certain James Benjamin Tuthill (1885). Sister Babette Antoinette married the well-heeled James V Simpson, and Mathilde, Ida and middle sister, Emma (d 1916) lived many years with the Simpsons in Mount Vernon. Eldest sister, Marie, who led her own company as [Mrs] Marie Bell died 1902.
Ida Mülle |
I'll probably add to this bunch over the remaining weeks of my time in the sun ... but this is enough for one meal!
PS Well, George responded with a few other names needing investigation, so ....
Marie [Elsie] WILSON (b Hulme, Manchester 10 December 1888 or 1889) is, I think, a pre-marital child of Francis Sunley Wilson, solicitor's clerk, and singer Eleonore ('Lori') Recoschewitz from Bergedorf, Hamburg. When she joined the Carte organisation in 1906, a great point was made of her age and birthdate. Only 17. Alas, the records of the British nation don't agree. It seems that Lori may have already had the odd pre-marital child. Anyway, parents and Marie can be seen in Manchester in 1891, and Hammersmith in 1901 and 1911 by which time Marie is 'vocalist'.
Mama Wilson |
A[lbert] Laurence (var Lawrence] LEGGE (b Dorchester, Devon 7 December 1880; d Hallam Street Marylebone 27 October 1927) is rather more transparent. Son of Joseph Legge (telegraphist) and his wife, Jane, married 1907 to Evelyn Constance Maria Ede. After his time with Carte, and London appearances in The Mountaineers and The Islander, he ventured to Suth Africa. On his return he took to the Halls and revue, and I see him in the theatre only in The Only Girl (1916). Suring the war he became a temporary Captain and Major in the RAF.
A L Legge |
Ruby GRAY (b Kentish Town 10 September 1888; d Henley, Oxon 1978), daughter of pub btoker William Gray and his wife Eliza, began her career at the Savoy as a teenager. In between Savoy engagements, she toured for Courtneidge in My Mimosa Maid, and after leaving the Savoy permanently, was seen with the Beecham Opera Comique Company as Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, and Nicklausse in Tales of Hoffmann. in 1911 she toured as Nadia in The Chocolate Soldier. How long she continued performing, I know not, but in the 1939 census she is a marriage registrar. She died, unmarried, at the age of 90. Several other performers worked as 'Ruby Gray' subsequently.
Ethel GEORGE [JIRIKOVIC, Ethel Rose] (b Marylebone 24 September 1889; d St Albans 1966)
Daughter of Vencil/Wenzel George Jirikovic (d 1940), laundryman and tailot, and his wife Alice née Raymond (d 1931). Ethel and her sister Mabel Alice (b 20 October 1896; d St Albans 1970) went into the theatre as Ethel George and Mabelle George. Mabelle remained single and in the theatre for many years, Ethel married musician Kingsford William Shortland, and gave him a daughter, Patricia (12 August 1921) before they separated. In the 1939 census, the sisters are sharing a home: Mabelle is 'theatrical'; Ethel is a 'cloak room attendant'.
Later. Two days later. Yesterday was a frank failure. But I was awakened by torrential rain at 6am, so I vengefully came straight to 'work'. Where to start? Why not with letter 'A'? Mr M Abbey. The only one I can find is a Morriss Abbey and he was a ship's captain. Jane Addy? Must be a pseudonym. Or a foreigner.
Stuart [Duncan] ALEXANDER (b Aberdeen 1872; d Blackpool 23 October 1911). Educated at public school, Cambridge, medical intentions ... but ended up singing in pierrots, on piers and in concert parties ('The Romantic Knights', Reuben More's Pierrots). He played in The Price of Pilsen on tour, sang at the Aeolian Hall with David Bispham, but was stymied by a heart problem when scheduled to appear in Iolanthe at the Savoy. Which didn't stop his being billed thereafter as 'the Savoy tenor'. He tured with Albert Chevalier, and Ernest Lord's Light Opera Singers, and in 1907 founded his own concert party, 'The So and Sos'. His heart trouble caught up with him during an engagement at Fleetwood, and he died at the age of 39.
He married, in his south coast pier days, singer Maude Dorothy Davis (b Ryde, Isle of Wight) who appeared alongside him in many of his engagements.
WHAT A FLUKE! I stumbled upon a death notice for Mr MORRIS ABBEY (d Atlanta, Ga 24 November 1901). A regular chorister in musicals, he was an understudy in a touring company of A Runaway Girl and apparently died of stage fright when suddenly asked to go on .... 'aged 35'.
Kate [Katharine Thomasina] ALLWOOD (b Lambeth x 7 January 1848; d unknown) was the daughter of violinist Thams H Allwood and his wife Margaret Ann née Laidlaw. She was singing at her father's concerts in Scotland from her earliest teens, joined soon by her younger sister, Ellen Louisa (later Mrs Richard Henry Eaton) and the pair of them appeared in music halls, pantomime and concerts, after their father's death (1865), in the early 1870s. Kate did not allow her marriage to an Alfred Sanders (1871) or the birth of their son (18 August 1873) to keep her from performing ('fascinating appearance and finished vocalisation') and after her stint with Carte she was seen as Ganem at Sanger's (1878) and as Alice in Dick Whittington (1880), before -- after the 1881 census -- she and son simply vanish. Even the family historians have given up trying to trace them.
Marie [ie Mary Eliza] ARNOLD (b Peterborough 8 January 1863) was the daughter of a coal man, and thus she spent a portion of her young years in Cardiff with mother Mary and her siblings. I first see her singing in 1887 in Liverpool ('Scenes that are brightest') before she joined vanBiene and Lingard's company as Inez to Louise Henschel's Pepita, and as Murielle in The Old Guard. At some stage she is said to have attended the RAM and taken a gold medal. I see her, with her 'exceptionally sweet soprano voice' singing oratorio music in York, before she joined Redfern's endlessly touring Dorothy company. It was said she sang the title role nearly 300 times, but she seems to have taken some time out to sing Gondoliers with the Carte tour. At Chritmas 1890 she appeared in the Nottingham panto of Puss in Boots. In 1891, she gave a London concert (4 June) at Steinway Hall, and then took to the road as no2 to Giulia Warwick in Madame Cartouche.
I never quite understand why performers who have had success elsewhere (vide Miss Allwood) join the Carte companies in altogether lesser roles. Yes, Marie played Gianetta (latterly Fiametta, and presumably understudying), and Leila (Iolanthe, ditto) ... but ...
She played Fairy Fly in the Glasgow pantomime, sang in Scottish concerts and W F Frame's concert party; I see her singing Messiah selections in Middlesborough and ballads on the Pier at Skegness ...
Latterly she played the title role in the touring musical The Lady Philosopher (1899-1900), appeared as Nora in Fun on the Bristol, Dolores in a Florodora tour (1904) ... and then she vanishes. Age 40. Whither? Someone tell me ....
It gets tougher all the time .. but a few fragments have floated to the surface ...
Annette BIDGOOD (b Bedminster 24 July 1898; d Weston super Mare 1982) daughter of a joiner, Herbert Bidgood, and his wife Ann née Andrews. Appeared on the music halls in the war years. Mrs Grantley John Samuel Short.
Harry BARRON (b London 1871) may have been otherwise named. He turns up in 1888 giving an Entertainment at New Cross Hall ('an elocutionist of ability') already a member of the Carte establishment. In 1891 he is in a Penzance hotl, with a bunch of other Carte choristers. In 1892, he went on tour with Leonora Braham, playing the title-role in Ching Chow Hi and Pierre Palliott in The Duke's Diversion, and I see him subsequently as Larivaudière in La Fille de Madame Angot, in various comedy tours, and as Will Atkins in Robinson Crusor at Reigate. In 1893 he was Alphonse in a no3 tour of The French Maid. In the late '90s, he tried his hand at directing and writing. A comic opera His Satanic Majesty witten with Fred Marlow jr was produced 13 November 1899 at Marlow sr's theatre in Southend. J W Hooper was the lead comedian. Other than that ...
Wesley BRENHAM (yes, the 'W' was for Wesley!) has been irritatingly difficult to disrobe. I can only suppose that his name was a pseudonym, for I can't find him anywhere except on theatre ads. Mostly for minstrel shows. In 1873 it was W G Braide's Minstrels, then W P Collins' Christy Minstrels ('Little Sunshine') in 1874 Livermore's more substantial Court Minstrels. Later that year he joined the Gompertz diorama 'London to St Petersburgh', purveyed 'Half Hour Sketches from the Operas', and joined Sam Lloyd and Ellen Brougham and the Sestini Wilsons in their Entertainment. J F Tute's Minstrels, Fred Smith's Phantoscopic Company (he got to sing Faust and Trovatore selections), pantomime at Barrow and in 1879 he reached the London stage in the May Bulmer A Cruise to China. Then began his time with Gilbert and Sullivan .. after wehich ..?
Wigmore BROOKES (b Marylebone 11 February 1870; d Aylesbury 24 February 1951) was the son of art dealer Reuben Brooks and his wife Eliza Jane. He began life being something medical in the armed forces before joining Carte. However, his main occupation was as a photographer, a trade he plied into his elderly years. He married Harriet Amelia Coates and had five children.
Wigmore Brooks |
Eglinton |
Lilian EVELYN [JACKSON] (b Wigan 22 May 1887; d Appledore, Devon 18 May 1971). Married fellow Cartesian Ralph Hilton Layland, son, unmarried him and latterly became Mrs Herbert van Os.
A[ntonio] J[oseph LOPRESTI (b Montpelier Row, Knightsbridge 6 June 1844; d Nunhead 15 March 1888), son of cook Joseph Lopresti (the family of 'Lopresti's Duke of Gloucester Sauce') and his wife Edith née Coleman. Brought up, with his siblings, by Edith's replacement husband, post-office messenger Edward Clarke. A watchmaker ('general watch jobber to the trade') as a teenager, her ventured into music and theatre, conducting little concerts in the suburbs, and I see him in 1875 in Les Géorgiennes at the Phil. In 1886, he was down the bill with Mary Anderson in Dublin.
Twice married, he was survived by six og his eight children, on of whom, Harold Essex Lopresti (1886-1967) ventured into music.
Christan [Gray] LORIMER (b Edinburgh c1883; d 13 April 1977) sang the role of Ruth in Edinburgh as early as 1905 (with Cora Lingard as Mabel). Her far-roving appearance in the Savoy repertoire are listed in the Archive. She served in the army in the Great War, and I see her travelling from South Africa in the early stages of the second war.
Christian Lorimer |
Mirian Callaway |
NITA CLUTTERBUCK [CLUTTERBUCK Annie] (b London ?16 February 1870).
Poor Nita. The family historians have made a frightful mess of her, crediting her with 3 marriages and 11 children. As if her story weren't messy enough already. So, yoohoo, family: her are the facts.
I managed to get on to the real Annie via the 1891 census. Vocalist. Soprano. Living with aunt Mary Ann Gosden in Windsor. Mary Ann was the widow of a labourer, Isaac Gosden, and her maiden name was Baxter. One step to find a small Annie C, born in London to a gasfitter-cum-bell hanger, Henry Clutterbuck, with a wife named Emma Baxter ...
Annie studied with a Mr John Thorman RAM and began appearing in concerts in 1889. I see her at Devonshire House on a bill with Rosina Brandram and Sybil Grey ... singing for J H Bonawitz, trying 'Bel Raggio' at the Portman Rooms, at John Thomas's 1891 concert, at Steinway Hall ('her voice is light but pleasing and altogether agreeable') but mostly in very minor affairs with showpieces such as 'Caro nome'. And then came her moment with D'Oyly Carte. But after 1893 she is invisible. Except in the 1901 census, where she is living in Clapham (along with some Baxter cousins) with widowed Emma, aged 31, and no longer saying 'vocalist'. It seems the music had gone out of her life.
It was certainly about to. In 1902 Nita went to church to marry Captain Cecil Wilfrid Frank Wallis 'of the Royal New Zealand artillery'. In short time, it was revealed that the Captain, who had already pillaged Emma's piggy bank, was no captain at all, and under the names of 'Cecil Sutcliffe' and 'Bruce Wilson' had at least one other wife ...the press of two hemispheres had a field day, the big-or-trigamist went to jail for a good spell, and Annie and Emma were left to count the cost.
Annie may have lived out her days in Hove. If she still called herself Clutterbuck. And counted as 'widow'. And was born 6 January. The family historians plump for died 1936.
Contrary evidence. Henry the gasfitter and Emma of 122 Hempstead Rd reckon on another child 12 June 1874. Frederick William. He was christened in 1875 along with their daughter, Annie. Born 16 February 1870 ...
Malcolm COCKERELL (b Dulwich 6 February 1882; d unknown) was one of the children of John Cockerell (secretary) and his wife Jessie née Green, a pianist and music teacher. He was trained as a chemical engineer, but took to the stage until the Great War when he joined the army and went to France. At the end of the war, he married Simonne Julienne Leblanc in Lille, and after a return to Britain, seems to have settled somewhere in France.
Alice [Matilda] COLEMAN (b Loughborough 18 September 1878; d unknown). Daughter of William Frederick Coleman and his wife Mary Jane née JOHNSON. Educated at the RAM and swiftly into the Carte Companies as described in the Archive. On to the Prince of Wales and the Apollo, and married William Smith, general exporter. They moved back to Leicestershire, where Alice taught singing and performed -- latterly as a contralto -- in concert ('Madame Alice Coleman'). A son and a daughter were born.
The widowed Alice can be seen in the 1939 census in Amersham, but then disappears. Maybe she followed her son to Canada. Dig deeper.
Alice Coleman |
I see her in concert at Chickering Hall in 1880, after which she had her G&S interlude, and was cast alongside Ed Marble and Lizzie Harrold in a 'musical comedy satire' titled Idle Hours (Portland 16 September 1880, Violet Remington). Elder sister Ella was also in the cast.
Younger sister, Florence, joined her in a performance of W S Hancock's 'Te Deum'.
In 1881 she visited Australia with Wilhelmj, and gave the Queen of the Night's vengeance aria et al in support of him, remaining in the colony till mid-1882.
She played with the Duff organisation in two versions of Le Coeur et la main and played Josephine in HMS Pinafore when it was hurriedly staged to replace the production of Lecocq's work at the Standard Theatre.
She died at the age of 26, and the press reported
Marie Conron |
Not entirely factual. Father had been dead 15 years. The sisters were Ella, Lulu and Florence. WHICH two years is she supposed to have been in Europe? I hav'n't got my Norton with me, but I suppose she did play all those works at some stage. And 'the bread winner'? I see Florence, for one, crossing the Atlantic ...
Rose Hignell |
James Danvers |
Marjorie Eyre |
Helene Francois |
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