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The dwarf who sang: Henry Collard

 

In the Victorian era, the fashion for childish performers, curiosities and theatre and circus 'freaks' was at its peak. 

But, mostly, it was a fashion. Few of the too-young and little people actually had memorable talent beyond being 'little'. Occasionally a Louisa Vinning or a Julia Mathews would surface, who took her amazing childish vocal talents into skilled and starry adult years. Or the dwarvish minstrel, Japanese Tommy, who amused audiences with his grotesqueries for a good number of years. There were juvenile opera troupes and there were kiddie shows of all kinds, but rarely did any of these come up to adult standard. Their attraction was that they were kiddies. Or miniature men and women. Giving material normally performed by normally proportioned singers, dancers and actors.

Japanese Tommy

The dwarvish performers who are remembered today are largely those who were poured on to the worlds concert stages in the wake of the 'Tom Thumb' promotion. Publicity pays. P T Barnum's Charles Stratton -- under the name of the famous French fairytale -- resulted in a host of midgetmen displayed as Commodore this, Admiral that, General the other and advertised on a myriad cartes de visite. What did they all do ..? Not very much, it seems, excepted be looked at. And 'Tom Thumb' has been, in modern times, identified with Mr Stratton, rather than with his illustrious predecessor-namesakes.

All this, as preface to ...  one little (in inches) man who didn't need to emphasise his height to get splendid review. Because Henry Collard could really sing! 

This photo from 1870. Nineteen years of age, 35 inches in height ... taken in his home town in Kent

So who and why was he?

Henry Collard was born in Knowlton, Kent, the son of Edward Collard ('farmer of 192 acres, employing five men..') a member of a wide and well-known farming family, and of his wife Mary [Denne] née Collard (cousin?) which may explain his dwarfery. One other of their children was born similarly afflicted.

But Henry didn't and his family didn't clearly regard him as 'afflicted'. He was put to music, with a young Kingstone man named Richard Rye, and in his mid-teens began appearing as 'Master Collard' in local village concerts. He was not precisely 'Master'. At eighteen, although he was still described as 'a child with the voice of a man', he was not a child. Only in size. His voice? It seems to have been one of those that slips from boy soprano to alto and thence to a species of tenor.  However, the quality of Henry's organ was evidently appealingly sweet and soft, his diction exemplary, and Mr Rye's teaching of technique sensibly correct, and the whole made up into the armoury of a pleasing young local singer who was heard in the concerts around Canterbury, Faverham', Dover et environs in the later 1860s. The solo singers were usually amateurs, or the choristers from Rochester Cathedral notably the veteran William Makepeace at whose Faversham concert (15 April 1868) I spot our Henry. 

In 1868-9 Henry appeared at a number of such concerts ('The Lover and the Bird', 'Little Nell') where, as far as I can tell, only his singing and not his stature was noticed as being of interest until Show Business came his way in the person of the popular comic vocalist Arthur Lloyd. Mr Lloyd was interested in both Henry's size and his singing. Midgets/dwarves were 'in' thanks to Mr Barnum, and one who could really sing ...?  So he hired him for his 1869-70 concert party tour

It proved a happy hiring. If Henry's size was now the initial attraction ('he resembles Tom Thumb') his ballad singing ('I'd nothing else to do') and his 'remarkably good tenor voice' also won encores and plaudits, and he became a major attraction for the little party. 'The star of the evening [was] a youth about eighteen years old and two feet high ... a very pleasing singer' ... 'the greatest curiosity of the age ... smaller than Tom Thumb or Commodore Nutt' ... 'Arthur Lloyd intends to introduce him to the metropolis at the conclusion of his provincial tour.' The 'two feet' was undoubtedly an exaggeration but it seems Henry was indeed smaller than Mr Stratton. Also 'better shaped and much handsomer

The tour made its way through Scotland, Ireland and the North of England . 'Possessed of a fair, frank face, yellow curled hair and a brilliant complexion, the tiny singer at once prepossesses his audience. But when he begins to sing, all sense of the phenomenal is lost ... a really good and pure tenor voice .. singing in a masterly manner...'

It was Easter Monday 1870, at the Royal Music Hall, Holborn that the 'accomplished and agreeable dwarf vocalist' 'the world's smallest singer' appeared in London. 'Besides being a rare and interesting curiosity as a miniature man [he] is an excellent and delightful singer' 'a tremendous success' 'he sings simple ballads ('A Bashful Man', 'Sporting in the Sunshine', 'Happy Be thy dreams') with an evenness and simplicity which are in themselves delightful.

At first seen only at the Royal, he then appeared at the North Woolwich Gardens, the South London Palace, the Bedford, the Sun in Knightsbridge, as well as in concerts in his own Kentish area about the time that our photo was taken

35 inches sounds more probable. 

In March 1871 he was cast in a Drury Lane production of The Dragon of Wantley, as a miniature blacksmith, at Easter at the Princess's as a little fiddler in the fantasy The Man in the Moon, singing 'Come Back to Erin, he played the Olympic, the Cambridge ('Thou art so near and yet so far', 'She wore a wreath of roses'), the Manchester Alhambra, the Liverpool Music Hall and then with W J Hill's Omnifarious concert party, before he was recalled to Drury Lane to take to title-role in the pantomime Tom Thumb. His rather abusive cognomen of 'le petit Sims Reeves' was emphasised by his singing 'My Pretty Jane'.

Another 'novelty' casting came in June 1872 at Liverpool, when he was put up as Tom Tug in The Waterman. Obviously he could sing the songs. The sight of a 3-foot Tom romancing a 5ft Wilhelmina must have been odd. But The Waterman had been subjected to all sorts of weirdisms over the years. And Henry's version clearly went down all right, for he repeated it on a number of occasions.

His next venture was a 'novelty' one. Jarrett and Palmer of the newly rebuilt Niblo's Garden, New York, formerly the home of The Black Crook, decided to have a shot at repeating their legs-and-scenery show and its long-running success and, just as with the former show, lined up a set of dancers, acts and vocalists from Britain and Europe to feature as its main attractions. Thus, for the 'grand spectacular dramatic romance' Leo and Lotos they arranged to import star dancers Katti Lanner and Jeanne Pitteri from the Alhambra, Crystal Palace prima donna Marie Rossetti (Miss Brennan from Norwich), Lizzie Kelsey, Laura Joyce, Bessie Sudlow and ... Henry Collard to feature alongside the performing dogs, a ventriloquist, a drum soloist, a child violonist billed as 'the coming Mozart', a panorama of 'Paris under the commune', the obligatory transformation scene et al.  Henry was cast as Kohinoor, the King of the Realm of Jewels alongside one very large Mrs Edward Wright as his Queen. He was billed to give his 'imitations of Sims Reeves'. 'The miniature Mario, the smallest and sweetest singer living...'.  Some of the New York press were not impressed: 'a piping, childish, treble voice ... the dexterity with which he manages it does not compensate for its general feebleness and immaturity'. They affirmed that he was 40 inches tall; and 20 years old. Leo and Lotos was made over, but stayed on stage for only four months, then sank. On 2 April, Henry returned to the UK.

But the adventures were not quite over. He took an engagement singing Irish songs between the trick for Maskelyne and Cooke at the Egyptian Hall, and then was hired for a month by Heinrich Hoffmann at the Schützenhaus in Hamburg. 'The smallest tenor and comedian in the world'. Yes, his light comic acting ability had been recognised. But now the adventures were touching their end. He went back to Liverpool  for more performances of The Waterman and to play King Williwag, the dwarf king, in the panto The King of the Golden Valley, sang at Vance's Varieties and again at the Egyptian Hall, then visited Nottingham to play yet more Waterman and Tom Thumb in the pantomime Little Bo Peep and Boy Blue, or Tom Thumb and the Norfolk Giant. The last professional credit I can find for Henry in 22 September 1877, when he was hired for a spot to sing 'Maids Must Marry' as Sir Geoffrey Hudson in the play England at Drury Lane.

He returned, as ever, to Kent, sang once again in local concerts (Canterbury, Chislet, Ash etc) in church, at the cricket club and in 1879 he married. He and Agnes née Wood would have three children. I have no idea whether she and they were of 'normal' size, but Henry -- now a considerable farmer and timber-merchant/builder in Margate -- would not live to see them grown to adulthood. On 13 April 1888, at his home in Myrtle Villas, Tivoli Road he went upstairs to bed ... and died.

In my humble opinion, Henry Collard is one of the period's few dwarvish performers of the Victorian stage and platform who deserves to be remembered for anything but his size ...   when he is remembered.

A slippery song: Did you Ever See an Oyster Walk Upstairs?

 

Last week, this piece of music-hall sheet-music turned up on e-bay.

Some thirty years ago, when I was researching the life of Teddy Solomon, I got the impression that the then very young musician had something to do with this piece. Orchestrated? Conducted, perhaps? I ultimately came to the conclusion that the case had to rest 'unproven', but the song's title has stuck in my mind ever since.

I hav'n't managed to find the lyrics, but the gist is - the chappie is trying to find an oyster with perambulatory tendancies, because his girl will only marry him when he does. You know, one of those 'till all the seas run dry' poems. But, of course, comic, as our singer runs from policeman to mermaid to fishmonger in search of the whereabouts of the mythical creature.

So, if not Teddy, who? Well, the music cover gives us three names. In descending size of billing: Fred Roberts, Fred Gilbert and Lizzie Coote. The first singer, the writer, and the lass who made the piece a success. A success which made the title a catch word for thirty years. Rather longer than the song was sung. But that song was a fair success in its time, thanks to the three folk above and the man who organised them and it, music-hall agent Charles [Adolphe] ROBERTS (b France 12 May 1839; d  in the street 6 July 1897). No relation, it seems, to the aforesaid Fred.

At the time of the 'invention' of the Oyster Song, Charles was a flourishing music-hall agent, with 300 acts on his books, at 5 York Road, Gilbert was one of his clerks who wrote songs on the side, Lizzie [COOTE, Elizabeth Phyllis] (b Dundee 9 October 1862; d Chorlton 18 February 1886) was just turned ten years of age, and Fred was a middle-of-the-bill comic singer at lesser music-halls in, mostly, the London suburbs. All, of course, represented by Charles, who had the privilege of supplying the whole bill to some such establishments.

Just as today, entertainment advertisements were not always quite honest. Here is one for the Watford Corn Exchange 17 December 1872, with Fred billed underneath top British opera contralto 'Lucy Franklein' (POWELL, Lucy Mary).

Curious. Firstly, it was not 'especially for', secondly it was not officially set by Roberts, thirdly .. why be 'of Cremorne Proms' when you could be 'of Sadler's Wells' or a handful of London Music Halls? Mostly,  Fred's engagements were reported merely in the list of 'also sangs' with only rare mention of 'what he sang'. Up to now, his cover of Harry Sydney's 'It's just as well to take things in a quiet sort of way of way' had been the only notability. Until now.

I have found three occasions where Fred gave his 'Oyster' song prior to Watford, and there were doubtless more; 7 November at chairman F W Montague's Benefit at the Pavilion, 28 November at manager Robert Fort's Benefit at the Forester's Music Hall in Mile End, and 14 December at Conquest's Concert Hall for Edward Westbrook. It was not particularly noticed, except for its curious title. And on the last-named occasion the authorship was credited, in The London and Provincial Entr'acte, to Gilbert and small-time agent Frank Elton, along with a swatch of other titles. 

Roberts sang 'his' song at the Bedford (one of Charles's 'dominions'), the Marylebone, at various country fetes under his boss's management, but not as a feature -- he now had other songs to deliver: 'Yachting around the coast', 'Although She Said Don't I Knew she meant Do', 'Newspapers', 'Old Clothes, Old Hats', 'Get Away, Come a Little it Closer', 'Take It Bob', 'Don't I Wish I had known it Before' , 'Etcetera'. But , whilst the country's amateur vocalists tried their skills, other folk picked up the piece. In a feminine version. The well-liked serio, Patti Goddard, at the Sun Music Hall and 'the perfect little lady', child performer Lizzie Coote, at the Marylebone, the Canterbury, the Cambridge. In 1876, she was still giving her version at the Pavilion.

Lizzie was a good performer, but her salient quality was her youth. By the time she died, at 23, with credits ranging from Oliver Twist at the Olympic, to pantomime at Covent Garden, to supporting Lydia Thompson and Willie Edouin, she was just another pretty soubrette of talent.

And, of course, not American at all! She and most of her musical siblings (that's another article!) were born in Dundee, Scotland. They had merely visited America for some months as part of the 'Miniature Minstrels'.

Another of the principals of our tale also had a sad end. But not before he had had his Big Moment. Frederick [Younge] GILBERT (b Strand, 2 March 1850; d Sandgate, Kent 12 April 1903) started out in the business in his teens as a singer of comic songs, but soon switched his attention to the agency side, workng briefly for Ambrose Maynard, and then for Charles Roberts. Like others of his ilk, he also turned his pen to writing and composing material for the agency's clients -- Arthur Lloyd ('The Royal Academy Beau') Nelly Melville, James Hillier ('Just a Tickle in the Tunnel', The Dorking Tunnel'), Kate Melbourne ('Epsom Downs') , Edith Murray ('Floating on the Tide'), the black-face comics Brothers Seward (Joe's Farewell), Fred Roberts -- and the 'Oyster' was an early success. There were to be many more songs: 'At Trinity Church I Met My Doom', Gus Elen's 'Down the Road went Polly' and its burlesque 'Up the road', 'Under the Maybush', Bessie Bellwood's 'Kensington Road', 'That's What the Girl Said to the Soldier' , 'Romano's, 'I'll Place it in the hands of my solicitor, 'Why is the World so Gay' , 'Bridget the Spanish Dancer', Tom Costello's 'She Comes Home Tight on Saturday Night', and, most enduringly, 'The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo', as Gilbert pursued a tidy career as a music-hall agent, latterly on his own account, at 7 York Rd, through nearly three decades, until struck down by consumption at 53. 

Fred's personal life appears a lot more opaque than his professional one. The birth records of Britain have Frederick Younge Gilbert listed in 1850. The death records, Frederick Young Gilbert in 1903. I have found plain Frederick Gilbert fathering daughter Emma 1875 and Esther 1877, and a son Frederick Charles in 1879 (died 1880). The mother is listed as Emma Young. Apparently a concubine. I knew about the daughters, because 'The Man Who Broke the Bank' made a fortune, and the sisters had to go to court, years later, to get it. But I find no wife. Mother and daughters can be seen in Chelsea in 1881. ut no Fred. Oh, the family historians have turned up a different wife, and in the 1901 census he is accompanied by a Mrs Julia Haswell.  I'm sure the answer to these seeming anomalies is simple, but I can't find it.

Another 'Oyster' man had a sad end too. Charles 'Gus' Roberts did not last at the top of the music-hall tree. His fortunes dwindled until he was employed as a charity clerk ... and one day he fell down dead in the street. Aged 58.

Which leaves us with Fred ROBERTS.  Born St Pancras saith the 1871 cenus. 25. Unmarried. Professor of Music. I guess that is he. So apparently he is the Fred Roberts, 'piano and comic', claiming to be be of the RAM, who can be seen as accompanist in a very minor concert party with Charles Mackney ('brother of') and wife, a pair of blackfaced minstrels et the odd al, playing at Knowsley, Leeds' Hole in the Wall, Hyde, Mansfield, Lincoln et al in 1866, singing Harry Sydney's' 'It's just as well to take things in a quiet sort of way'. 'The provincial comic' found his way on to the middle reaches of a number of smaller London houses, including Edward Garcia's Regent Music Hall, the Raglan and Wilton's, and a number of the fêtes organised by Charles Roberts. And on 7 November 1872, he brought out the Oyster song at the Pavilion.

It went down all right. He sang it at the Bedford, the Marylebone, at Ipswich and Leicester, while moving on to other new songs -- 'Yachting Round the Coast', 'Floating with the Tide', 'Although she said don't, I knew she meant do', 'Although', 'Newspapers', 'Take it, Bob', 'Old clothes', 'Don't I wish I had known it before', 'Not Very Far from Regent Street', 'Get away, come a little bit closer', 'Nod your head when you mean yes', 'I don't care a fig what you say', 'I don't know how they do it, but they do'  -- while others, mostly ladies, picked up the Oyster.

Roberts was a useful supporting act in the London minors, but at the end of the 1870s he moved up to be the manager of the Bedford Musical Hall, run by George Fredericks (BARBER, George Hearne) and his wife, 'Carrie Julian'. He would stay there until the owner's death, and the destruction of the Bedford.

Fred can be seen in the 1891 census ('music hall manager') at 11 Acacia Rd, Marylebone, with a wife named Hannah ...

Which means that he is not the English comic-songster Fred Roberts who appeared on the American stages in the 1880s and 1890s. 

So is he the Fred Roberts singing at the Oxford in Brighton in 1890? At the Marylebone in 1891? Penning 'Arthful Cards' for Alf Cawthorn .. Playing with a minstrel troupe at Llandudno? Its surely he at the funeral of Botting of the Marylebone ... 'Fred Roberts comic vocalist' ... maybe. But I can't find proof ...

I see there's a suggestion that he died in 1930. If so, nobody noticed ....

So, in the end the 'Oyster' didn't bring lasting luck to its makers. Shame ...

And I haven't done wonderfully either. But I tried.