'Miss Vernie': half a century a performer

 

Miss Vernie or, rather the Misses Vernie, have floated by -- largely unnoticed -- in the background of my theatre research for half a century. A couple of chorus girls in whom I took little particular interest, until yesterday. Yesterday, an odd collection of 1870s photos, grossly coloured, appeared on e-bay, labelled 'Gaiety Girls'. Alhambra diva Kate Santley, the 'beautiful' actress Clara Rousbey. Emily Soldene's sister Clara Vesey, the blackmailing lovely Lennox Grey, Helen Barry of Black Crook fame, Clara Jecks, singing star Violet Cameron .. I am sure many of them did play shorter or longer engagements at John Hollingshead's theatre at some stage, but few were what we understand as 'Gaiety Girls'. Alma Egerton, definitely. One of the first and finest ..

She happily escaped the colouring-in that the others suffered. But Miss Verni and Miss Elise Verni didn't, poor dears.

The plumper is the younger. And they weren't factually named 'Verni(e), and the elder wasn't 'Elise'.

So. We start our story in Shipston on Sour, Hinckley, Burton-on-Trent and environs. George Paul Barratt, from Hinckley, who called himself, in a very mediaeval manner, Barât, ventured as an artist, a musician et al, until he found the calling of photographer more appealing. 

George Barât

Mr Barat (1831-1916) and his wife Mary Ann née Doherty (1822-1878) collaborated on work, and also on four children, two sons and two daughters ...

Agnes Mary Josephine Elsie BARÂT (b Hinckley 24 February 1853; d Marylebone 26 February 1919)

Mary Eugenie BARÂT (b Burton-on-Trent 1857; d Harrow 17 December 1934)

Who would take the names of Elsie VERNIE and Eugenie VERNIE, respectively.

Elsie became a 'professional singer' by the time of the 1871 census. Eugenie was, at that stage, was still helping Father as a 'photo printer'.  But not for long. And they had moved to the metropolis. Elsie was a chorister, quite where I cannot find. She would remain largely such until her marriage and retirement from the profession. It is 1872 when I first come upon the two girls, playing 'pages' in Augusta Thompson's touring company of Geneviève de Brabant, and then in the chorus of L'Oeil crevé at the Opera Comique. One Miss Vernie played Fairy Queen in panto, with Julia Mathews, at Manchester at Christmas 1872 and presumably the same one was with Julia in La Fille de Madame Angot at the Standard Theatre in 1874. Probably Elsie, given that Eugenie was only 17. But who knows?

The pair took turns as stage furniture with Lydia Thompson (Blue Beard, Piff Paff, Robinson Crusoe), on tour with Fleur de thé, with the Blondinette Minstrels, in the Plymouth, Manchester and Sanger's pantomimes and ... then there was one. Elsie married Mr William Henry Hart and disappeared from theatrical annals.

Not so Eugenie! Eugenie had 50 years more to spend in the theatre. Most of it was not the musical theatre. She seems to have become a capable supporting actress, largely in the provinces. She voyaged to the colonies -- India, South Africa and apparently Canada -- and an 1884 trip resulted in her marrying, in 1887, an actor named Alfred Joseph BYDE [WHITE, Alfred Joseph Harry]. They divorced after two children. And Eugenie plunged on!

I have compiled a list of Eugenie's engagements through the decade that followed, from the 1880s on.  Here's a selection, as she moved from musical chorine, to supporting actress ...

1880 Gertrude Norman's Company

1880 Nottingham pantomime

1881-2 Disney Roebuck's company in South Africa

1882 G W Anson's burlesque tour

1882 Chester Pantomime. Princess in ALADDIN

1883 Henry Vernon's Co. 

1883 Glasgow, Newcastle, May Holt's company, Newcastle panto SINDBAD

1884 May Holt, Roebuck. Crystal Palace

1884-5 Roebuck in India

1886 Wybert Rousby MAN IN THE IRON MASK, SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL &c

1886 G W Hawtrey Mrs Hope in THE PICKPOCKET

1886 Eastbourne pantomime Maid Marian in BABES IN THE WOOD

1887-8 Miss Lingard's company

1888 Olympic Theatre J Pitt Hardacre's Co. Joyce in EAST LYNNE

1889  Theatre Royal, Drury Lane Susan Sloe in THE ROYAL OAK

1890 Mrs Bandmann Palmer's company

and so it continued. When she died, at the age of 77, her longevity in the business earned her an obituary

A 'working actress' to be sure!

Of Eugenie's children, Dulcie Mary Verney White or Byde (b Paddington 28 November 1890; d Hounslow 1965) (Mrs Alfred Rowland Hill) is listed as a 'vacuum cleaner demonstrator' in 1939, and Alfred George Harry Verney White (b Paddington 13 September 1888; d Barnard Castle 26 November 1970) as an employee of the Ministry of Labour. I think mama may have had more fun!