Nellie of New Zealand

 

Old New Zealand photos usually have a little story to tell, so when I saw this one, I thought I'd try ...

The verso of the carte tells us that she is Nellie Dukes, and seemingly that it is 'for Aunt Sarah'.

Here we are. Nellie Hannah Dukes. Born in the Rugeley/Penkridge area of Staffordshire in the year 1874. Father: John Dukes. Mother Sarah Alltritt née Scott (b 6 March 1840), from Armitage, Staffs, daughter of an Irish farmer.  Mother and sister both named Hannah. Married the previous year ... she seems to have been some five years older than he. I see that she is listed as a 'housekeeper'. He ...?  Well, bit of a mystery here. For John reinvented himself at the age of about 35. At the time the Dukes, mother, father and daughter decided to leave Staffordshire for New Zealand. And, lacking a marriage certificate, I'm not quite sure who and what he was before he reinvented. The 1871 census shows a John Dukes, labourer, in Rugeley  ... but he's got a wife and three young daughters ..

John Dukes reinvented himself, on his arrival down under, as a preacher man. A Weslyan Methodist. The Reverend John Dukes. Presumably no qualification save enthusiasm was needed? Anyway, over the next forty years he held positions in Dunedin, Masterton, Hamilton, Whangarei, Devonport, Hawera, Waimate, Thames, Kaiapoi, Pukekohe, Onehunga and, finally Te Aroha.

Sarah died at the parsonage in Pukekohe 28 July 1910, and the Rev Dukes remarried before his death 16 August 1919.

As for Nellie, she married, in 1903, a locksmith from Raetihi, Joseph Dearlove Gibson, and gave birth to a daughter Loie Mary Willard Gibson in 1906. Gibson died in 1909, and after a decade as a widow, she married again, to farmer Herbert Wood of Weymouth Rd, Manurewa. She died 7 December 1935. Father, mother and Nellie are commemorated at Pukekohe Cemetery 

"In Loving Memory of SARAH ALLDRITT DUKES beloved wife of the Revd. JOHN DUKES who entered into rest July 28th 1910 Aged 70 years. "So he giveth his beloved sleep." In Loving Memory of The Rev. JOHN DUKES. For 40 years a Methodist Minister who entered into rest at the Methodist Parsonage Te Aroha, August 16th 1919 Aged 74 years. "Coming as at first I came, To take and not bestow on me, Friend of sinners spotless Lamb, the Blood was shed for me." Also their beloved daughter NELLIE HANNAH WOOD of Manurewa, who died 7th December, 1935 aged 61".
The ashes of daughter Loie (Mrs Claude Hammond Coup) lie there also. 

Which leaves just one tiny mystery. Who was Aunt Sarah to whom the photo was dedicated? Obviously not mother's sister ... and John the Rugeley labourer had four sisters, none of whom was named Sarah ..

Ah, well ...

Did Grandmother go to the grand Vienna City Ball (1911) ...?

 

Vienna. February 1911.

Rudolfine Gänzl was a young, married woman of 24. And six and a half months pregnant.

Rudi and Pepi

After the second war, some years widowed, she emigrated to New Zealand to join her son. And brought with her a slightly odd collection of bits and pieces, from a vast dinner service to a stamp collection to father's childhood toys, to ...  this little box.

Its a Damenspende. Ladies attending a ball would be given one, containing the programme of dances for the night ... and this one is dated 2 February 1911.  The 21st 'Ball der Stadt Wien'. Topbilling the Erherzog Karl Franz Josef followed by an immense list of public officials and industrialists of all kinds ... the ballroom at the Rathaus must have been huge!

Was Rudi really there? Amongst all those nobs. A respectable shopkeeper's daughter from Floridsdorf. Puzzlement. Or did someone give her the Damenspende ...  ? She kept it for half a century, carried it through two world wars to the other side of the world ...

The only possible reason for her presence could have political. Her father, Eduard Stojetz, was prominent in the Naturfreund movement in Floridsdorf. But that movement was more than a camping, hiking and skiing outfit. It also stood staunchly to the left ... with the so-called Social Democrat Party of Viktor Adler. My father's earliest days are recorded as being spent at Hinterholz bei Kirchstetten 'the home of Professor Adler'. Who is to know? Unfortunately' Rudi's diary only starts with her son's birth ... a 'baby book'.

I really opened the little box to see whether there was a dance card. Sadly, not. A series of photos of the 'Stadt Wien' and ... the musical programme. Fascinating! What was 'in' for official dancing in 1911?

The usual occasional pieces 'dedicated to the committe' but otherwise loads of Strausses, Fall, Lehár, Eysler and Ziehrer, Joseph Müller ... who in the heck is Willy Wacek?  1864-1944. Military conductor. Well, that's one I didn't know about!  Lots and lots of waltzing. And waltz arrangements of things that weren't originally waltzes ..

So did my father dance around the Rathaus at minus 2 1/2 months of age?  Or merely watch from the sidelines ...

I imagine that I'll never know.

PS I see that the Damenspende was manufactured by the firm of Wilhelm Melzer, headquartered at 24 Mariahilferstraße

'Miss Violet Granville' ... a Dutch operetta mystery

 

I've known about 'Miss Granville' for a long long time. Not because she was particularly prominent in the Victorian musical theatre, but because she worked for Charles Morton and Emily Soldene in their heyday. I investigated her a little while back when, in the 1980s, I was writing my mega-biog of Soldene, but she didn't remain a Soldene singer, or indeed a performer, for more than a decade, so  ..

A short while ago, I came upon a photo of her ..

Then, today, another

A bit bijou, yes? But, of course, she was Jewish and, at this stage, theatrical ...

So, who was she? Well, that's no problem. The one document I have concerning her is her marriage certificate. I actually bought it, in days before the Internet. Judita Drucquer, daughter of John, interpreter aged 33. That's what it says. I say: oh yeah?

John, from Amsterdam? No. Joachim Jonas Drukker, son of Jonas Hijam Iom-Tov Chaim Drukker and his wife Judic Zise Kok, married Alida van Leeuwen in Amsterdam in 1828 (13 August). They had five sons, and two or three daughters, before they emigrated to England where their last daughter, Judith/Judita, seemingly, was born in 1842. Yes 1842. So at her marriage she was not 33 but 40. You can forgive her for lying. Her husband was some twenty years younger.

Father may have interpreted, but basically he was a tobacconist 'opposite Somerset House, in the Strand'. And a tobacconist and cigar-vendor/manufacturer he remained, through solvency and bankruptcy (allied with De Meza Brothers) until his death, 16 May 1883, at Forest Hill. Alida died the following year (1 July 1884) and is buried in the West Ham Jewish Cemetery.

But it isn't quite straightforward. In the 1851 census the family can be seen at 286 The Strand. Papa 'interpreter', mama 'milliner' (so they're not doing that well!), Jonas, George, Michael, Henry 'cigar makers', Julia, Elizabeth, Sophia 10. But no Judith. Is she Sophia? But she's 'Judith' in the birth records. Isn't she? The 1841 census has the Drukkers with four sons plus Julia, no Elizabeth, and an unnamed baby. Sophia? Hang on. One family historian equates Sophia with Julia, and it is odd that 'Violet' appears on the stage only after Sophia's divorce (for adultery) from one David de Heer. You get a bit muddled with these double Jewish names ...  I see eldest brother Jonas named his 1879 daughter 'Sophia Violet' ... 

Whatever, I spot a 'Miss Granville' at the Lyceum Theatre, in the chorus of Chilpéric. The pseudo-aristocratic pseudonym was not hers alone -- I remember Clara Granville with the Pelham girls at the Royalty half a dozen years earlier, and there was a 'Miss Granville' singing on the halls in the late 'sixties -- but I have a feeling that this may be 'Violet' using her good soprano voice and her noticeable figure for the first time in opéra-bouffe.

By 1873, she had got on well and truly to the Charles Morton-Emily Soldene train, and she took part in their season at the Opera Comique, playing in a little Lecocq pasticcio called My New Maid with Claliah Albertazzi. The season featured La Fille de Madame Angot, and I'd be pretty certain those two ladies were the understudies to the two leading ladies. And yes, I would guess Violet covered (as I suspect she did on other occasions) Soldene. Although if Soldene was off (as she rarely ever was) the show would probably have been cancelled. When Geneviève de Brabant was staged, Violet was a 'striking' Charles Martel.

At Christmas, she took time out to visit the Manchester Theatre Royal, where she played principal girl (Lady Melusine) to the Bluff King Hal of Scots musical-comedian Tom Maclagan. Maclagan had been Soldene's leading man in Le Petit Faust, which had followed Chilpéric at the Lyceum. So I dragged out my Lyceum playbill and yes! There is 'Miss Granville' as 'Rosa' as one of nine slightly featured girls in the cast ... so, we can confirm that she was on the Lyceum stage by 1870.

I pick her up over the 1874-5 in only a few concerts -- 7 February at the Princess's Theatre in a Benefit for the Cospatrick Fund. She sang Offenbach's 'Wind that Blows Across the Sea' (Whittington) Odoardo Barri's 'Why?' and took the mezzo part in the Rigoletto quartet. The soprano was Blanche Cole.  At Hastings, she joined Arthur Matthison and Barri in dance-music composer C H R Marriott's concert on the Pier Pavilion where her contributions were Pinsuti's 'The Maiden's Flower Song' and Sullivan's 'Little Maid of Arcadee'. She was praised for her 'splendid soprano'. On 21st February, with The Schubert Society (a haven for barely professionals) she sang 'Addio' and another Barri piece.

By mid-1875, she was back on the stage, this time at the Alexandra Theatre, cast in a spectacle coupé as the Queen in Balfe's The Sleeping Queen ('a bright and pleasing voice') and in The Gallant Waiter. When Charles Morton followed up with some performances of La Fille de Madame Angot, Charlotte Russell dropped out, and it was Violet who played the Soldene role of Lange.

Violet was evidently a useful lady, capable of taking a principal role, and willing to understudy.  Morton next deployed her to the Royalty Theatre, where Selina Dolaro was starring in La Périchole. Trial by Jury was the afterpiece (and the main attraction), but the forepiece was, as ever, movable and, when My Wife's Out was replaced by The Dumb Belle, Violet was brought in to play opposite Charlotte Russell. I would suspect, also, to cover Dolly.

Violet continued onwards and gently upwards. Morton produced Madame l'Archiduc in London, with Soldene in the title-role and no less a star than Kate Santley as the toyboy Fortunato.  There was really only one other at all substantial female role in the piece: that of the Countess. It was taken by Violet Granville. Who, again, doubtless, covered the star(s).

After some time 'available' (agent: R D'Oyly Carte), I see her next at the Folly Theatre, featured in a triple bill of Hervé and Offenbach operettas. She took the female role in Hervé's little Up the River, while Nellie Bromley, Kate Munroe and Violet Cameron played in the other, more substantial, pieces. Understudy again? 

Kate Munroe

Next, she was summoned to the St James's Theatre, to take up the famous role of the Directrice, in the effort to salvage the flop Philharmonic production of Le Petit Duc. The Directrice was a voluptuously comic Desclauzas character role. It seems Violet was going that way. But the piece sank, and Miss Granville headed back to the bosom of Morton and Soldene. Emily had just returned from ther famous 'tour of the world' and she brought a number of her faithful servants with her. She also brought her 4-act version of La Périchole and staged it, under Morton's management, at the Alhambra. This time, Violet got to play one of the three cousins (Guadalena) alongside Emily's sister Clara Vesey and Etty Bertie. Then, when Morton followed up with La Poule aux oeufs d'or the same three ladies were cast as the plotworthy sprites ...

Violet seemed to have found herself a comfy berth in the Mortonian hierarchy. But when the Christmas show ended, she disappears from my view ...

In 1881 'after some time absent' she resurfaced at the Strand Theatre, playing in the afterpiece, Paradise Villa, to Alexander Henderson's production of Olivette. Was she covering Florence St John in the star role? If she were, she didn't get the takeover. That went to Mlle Sylvia. The production ended 3 February 1882. 18 November, Violet married (as 'Judita') a young 'silk merchant' by name George Walter Roberts, and disappeared from out my ken ...

So what became of her?  Why can I not find her in one single census, as Judith Drukker/Drucquer, as Judita Roberts or as Violet?  She may have hooned off to Holland or Belgium sometimes, but in both 1871 and 1881 she was working in the London theatre. 

Papa, Mama and the siblings seem to have stayed in England. Hijman/Henry ran the hotel in Battle for twenty years. They all married. Jonas Joachim junior had ten children ... there must be someone out there who knows what happened to Auntie Judith-Violet. Did she and her boy go off to where the silkworms grow? Did the marriage last? I just don't know.

So, a frustrating tale. Susceptible (maybe) of improvement. Any help, much appreciated.

ASK AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN.  Bryan Kesselmann sends me, just hours later:

"Judita Sophie Violet Roberts of Lord Street, Southport, Lancashire, died 13 May 1909 and is buried in Duke Street Cemetery, Southport, Sefton, Merseyside. She left £2442 5s. 7d. to be administered by her husband George Walter Roberts, who was clerk to the vestry clerk".

So Judita WAS Sophie, she DID marry Mr de Heer and adulterise with Mr Nunes in Brussels ... got divorced by him, and then married a silk merchant who went into the church ...

and Anne Stanyon messages me that 'she was one of the girlies who threw themselves at the lovely Mr [Arthur] Sullivan' !!!!

OK, so where are they in the censi...? And why does the stone say 'aged 69'? Was she born in the Strand or in Amsterdam?  Is she not the Judith born 1842? The mysteries hav'n't all finished yet.  

One little, two little, three little injuns, four little five little ...

 

Having a bit of time off between lunch and dinner ....

The President of Fendalton

 

Yesterday, we went to town. Christchurch, that is. We don't often venture there. Its sixty years since I lived there. And the time is gone when we took our horses to Addington Raceway. But yesterday we were on the track of something that couldn't be had in Rangiora: a brand new car!  We found our way through the streets with the aid of the-lady-who-talks ... made our purchase  ... and I discovered that I could remember a much simpler way home ... Hagley, Fendalton, Papanui ...

This morning, while having my teatime stroll through ebay-land, I struck a New Zealand carte de visite of a baby.

I don't normally look into babies, but this one was from ... Fendalton, Christchurch! So ...

William Gordon Victor Fernie, aged 1 year and 8 months.

Jessie was his mother. Jessie Williamina Fernie née Crombie (b Peebles 26 December 1866; d Auckland, 25 September 1953) daughter of the one-time Peebles stationmaster, who had emigrated and become stationmaster at Dunedin.

Jessie had married David Fernie, son of a ship's carpenter/stoker ('Pomone'), from Dumbarton (d Auckland 11 June 1961), in New Zealand, 13 June 1900, and little Willie had been born, in Dunedin, 5 September 1901.

I imagine that 'dear Aunt Mary Ann' was Jessie's younger sister.

It must be embarrassing for public figures when their baby photos turn up. W G V was originally a schoolmaster, but he worked his way into Positions of Confidence, and became President or Director of the most unimaginably huge lists of Associations and Companies. In no particular order, here are but a few: President of the Canterbury Radio Traders Assoc; President of the NZ Furniture Manufacturers Assoc; General Manager of Calder, Mackay; Director/Chairman of Bunting & Co; Director of the New Zealand Refrigeration So; President of the NZ Retailers' Federation; President of the New Zealand Employer's Federation; Chairman of the Hire Purchase Association; President of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce ...

He married, firstly, one Mary Ann Gallaugher (1927) by whom he had a son and a daughter before she walked out on him, and secondly Eveleen Dorothy Bannerman (8 June 1938) who apparently gave him another daughter.

Daughter Roma Vee married a Mr Hugh Macintosh Macdonald, bred and divorced. Son Kay Livingstone may have also married ...

W G V died in Auckland 3 September 1975.

Anyway, next time I pass through Fendalton, I shall look out for 52 Wroxton Terrace and 20 Wairarapa Terrace and say hello to his ghost ...

 

Mr Smith and Mr Jones: their panto song 1881

 

An unusual sheet music cover. Sadly, only the cover, it seems. I'd rather like to have heard the song ...

I daresay not many copies survive, for it was a number tried as part of the patchwork score of one provincial pantomime and seemingly, thereafter, put away. 

The pantomime in question was the 1881-2 Leeds Grand annual, Little Red Riding Hood, and it had some fair names attached to it. The producer was Wilson Barrett, the author was J Wilton Jones, the writer of many such, Jenny Hill was principal boy, Addie Blanche was one of the two principal girl, Kissie Wood the other, Harry Rickards was the villain, William Walton was the dog ...

Amongs these fine music-hall topbillers, Mr Henry C Arnold appeared as Mother Hubbard, and Mr J S Haydon as the wolf.

Now, John S Haydon (b Oxfordshire, 1837-1907) was a familar name in the midlands; more than forty years a dramatic actor (and, as we see here, a comic dramatic actor) ... I see him first at Leamington in the 1860s, and lastly in 1906, just before his death ... a long professional biography appears in the Leamington Spa Courier of 31 May 1901. If I cannot find out more about his personal background (yet), I have been much more successful with Messrs Arnold and Stamford. It was not an easy dig, for both men operated under noms de théâtre, and their real names were ... Mr Smith and Mr Jones.

Let's go with our dame comedian first. "Henry C Arnold". His birth name was apparently Hamilton Smith. Maybe Hamilton Clarke Smith. He said on his marriage certificate that his father was also Hamilton Clarke Smith, traveller, deceased. I think that may be fiction. Anyway, he seems to have been born in Liverpool, and I guess that is he working as a pawnbroker's apprentice in 1871. Born 1856? But the British records have no Hamilton Smith born between .. ahha!!! Hamilton Smith CLARKE. Born Everton, 9 July 1855. The familiar scenario. Daddy was a traveller .. by name Daniel Clarke. Mother was Matilda, probably Miss Smith.

It seems that Ham didn't broke pawn for long. Still in his teens, he hit the boards and 'Mr H C Arnold' can be seen in the 1872 Disney Roebuck pantomime The Fair One With the Golden Locks at Kidderminster, then in 1873 in the company at Southport, already in a travesty role. At Christmas he was Bluebeard in the panto at Ashton-under Lyme. In 1876, he was in the company at the Rotunda, Liverpool, director and md, Mr 'Charles Wood'. Mr Wood's teenage daughter, Miss 'Kissie Wood' was also a member, and the next year the young couple were married

And we discover that Kissie is actually Kezia Redfern. Anyway, the couple had a solid marriage which lasted till death did them part, and also worked alongside each other frequently through good provincial careers, in the later part of which Ham turned producer ..

I note that the ageing John S Haydon leads the cast ... and down the list is Miss Entwistle, daughter of Kissie's sister Mary, and 'Mr H C Arnold junior' so, it appears that, under one name or another the 'Arnolds' had a son. And, yes ... in the 1911 census, in Everton, Kezia gives '5 children, two living'.  The other was daughter, Dorothy, who also took up the theatre as 'Dorothy Clarke-Smith' (b Kirkdale 19 February 1893). 

Ham died at 14 Carstairs Rd Liverpool 12 November 1920 and is buried at Anfield. Kissie died in April 1928 in Devon, and is also buried in Anfield.

So, that's Mr Smith (ish). Now John J[ones] Stamford. Born plain John Jones born near Swansea. Sorry, but I should have no idea which John Jones is he! He turned out words and/or tunes for a plethora of songs of which 'What a Wonder', The Pride of the Regiment, All Have a Liquor', Don't tell your sister', 'Please do not tease me', 'When I say "no"' and 'Oh what a wicked young man you are' for Ethel Victor, 'Hang Up Your Hat Behind the Door (that leads into the shop)', 'Where was Moses when the light went out', 'Poor But a Gentleman Still', 'Turn off the Gas at the Metre', 'Jeremiah, blow the fire' and the durable 'Macnamara's Band' (one of 73 songs written for Billy Ashcroft, and the Alhambra) give the flavour.  He took over the management of the Belfast Alhambra and then the Dundee Music Hall, but returned to Belfast where he later turned from music-hall manager to publican and 'spirit merchant', before his death, 24 May 1899.

So now I know. And it was fun finding out ...

Three soldier boys ...

 

Saw this photo on e-bay this morning. 

Not the sort of picture I usually like to investigate. But the chappie in the middle looked so joyful and relaxed, with his pipe and plus-fours ... so while I devoured my morning tea, I looked ...

The back of the photo gives us a little information. A date: 1923-30. And names: Lieutenant Lister on the left, Lieutenant King on the right, and in the middle ... Lieutenant D'Arcy Symonds.  Well, that's not going to be difficult! 

And it wasn't. Herbert Frank Gordon D'Arcy Symonds, born Brighton 14 April 1899. Son of Jermyn D'Arcy Travers Symonds and his wife Beatrice Mary (née Ledsam) of Val Plaisant, St Helier, Jersey.  Father, grandfather (Major General Jermyn Charles Symonds) all military men ...

Married 1929

Seems to have been in Burma between 1830-3 with the 1st batallion of the Buffs ... I would guess this may have been where this jolly photo was taken ...

A sad photo, too. Herbert was killed at Mersa Matruh, in Egypt 7 July 1936, when the airplane in which he was travelling, on exercises, crashed on landing ...

He left one child, Jennifer who became Mrs Fleming ...

Hester remarried (Mrs Eric G S Shefford) in 1940.

Anybody know about Messrs Lister and King ... ?

Ladies of the Harem ... in retirement?

Once upon a time a flock of nearly 50 peafowl ranged the fields of Gerolstein. I was reduced to eating their eggs every year to stop a populations explosion. But they got wise, and hid said eggs in unlikely places  ... so we called in Nigel the peacock catcher & exporter and finally reduced the flock to (1) Paterfamilas (2) two of his lusty male descendants (3) two hens. Right? No. Some neighbouring (!) hens heard the cries of the marauding males and moved in! And everyone cried out some more, Paterfamilas was cowed and the hens laid a double crop. Call for Nigel! Cut off the problem, so to say, at its root. 

The lusty lads were ensnared and exported, and Paterfamilas left alone at the head of his wee harem. The five of them perch in a line on the rail of my wheelchair ramp, peacefully and companionably pecking the nits out of one another's eyes ...

Is this the aged Pascha, impotent after years of extravagance, luxuriating in his older years, attended by his  sisters, cousins, aunts, daughters, grand-grand-daughters ..?  Or will he be having a cockerel of a time come next breeding season? We'll see ..

Meanwhile, the ladies of the harem are cultivating their suntans while Mr P looks benignly on ...

From Funambulist and Pyrotechnician to Australian dancing girls ...

 

Yesterday, I came on a curious theatrical photo. Saucy girl dancers? But. This photo was taken in Melbourne, Australia. It was asking to be investigated!

 The vendor had it labelled as the 'Sisters Davablic". Errrr ... I don't think so!

The sisters Davalli .. or, recte, Duvalli ... which, of course, wasn't their name at all ... but little did I realise just how complex and fascinating finding my way to their real names and their family history would be.

On 23 August 1869, our girls took the Essex, out of London, under contract to the Theatre Royal, Melbourne. On 10 November 1869 the 'Misses Duvalli' (operatic and acrobatic dancers) -- Heloise and Rosalie -- and Mr C F Coutts arrived in Australia. 'Mr Coutts' (ex-watchmaker turned comedian) was Heloise's real, legitimate husband. The ship's manifest says that Heloise was 20, Rosalie 22, and Charles 26. Well, er ...

Charles was born Charles Findlay. Rosalie Edith Irvine was born and registered in Berkshire in 1842, so was, thus, 27. So maybe the 2 is a 7? Heloise Agnes Irvine, who was really her sister, seems to have missed registration. Unless she was just plain Agnes. Her gravestone, in Sydney's Waverley Cemetery, says that she was born 1849. If so, she was married at 16 (21 August 1865), a mother at 17, performing at 10 ... Oh, and I think their name was not really Irvine at all ... but we'll get to that ...

Anyway, the girls made their Aussie debut 4 December 1869

They were delightedly received, and went on to appear as Harlequin and Columbine in Akhurst's pantomime The House that Jack Built. They ended up staying till February of 1871, and in that time Rosalie took herself a husband, J Charles Hall of the Theatre Royal company, who became part of the act.

The four purveyed their act around the music halls of England, before returning to Australia in 1874 for a more extended period, and though they voyaged to Asia and America in the years to come, it was Australia which they -- and their widowed mother -- made their home. 

Ah. The widowed mother. This is where it gets interesting. Mother's maiden name was Gyngell. Louise Malvina Gyngell. She was born in Bow 23 February 1808, one of the children of Daniel Gyngell 'musician' (b 1771; d Camberwell 31 August 1836) and his second wife, Louisa Perry. I suspect 'musician' may have been an approximation, for I think this 1815 advertisement is our man 

'The Swinging wire'. And there he is as early as 1805 plying the same well-regarded booth show. Musical glasses and slack rope vaulting by Master [Joseph] Gyngell. There's conjuring and marionettes and this and that, balacing an egg on a wheat straw ('the English equilibrist').

 

Three years on the Continent ..  and in 1819 come into the show Master H[oratio] Gyngell and Miss L Gyngell 'only nine years of age'.  It's Mama. By 1824 she has graduated to the tight rope 'from the stage to the gallery', the corde elastique and by 1826 the 'daring ascension on the fiery rope' which would become her trademark. By 1828 she is performing with a Signor Georgia and his display of fireworks ... and playing the harp! 1830 ...

And then, in 1831, Mama got married. She married a man named Thomas Wilkinson. That's what the records say. I wonder if he were 'Signor Georgia'

Anyway, she is still performing as Miss Gyngell in 1835 and ... what?  'Miss Gyngell met her death by a fall from a rope'???  Which Miss Gyngell? Why, the wife of 'Signor [de] Irvine'. 

Louise did fall from her rope, while performing at Covent Garden in 1837. But she only broke her arm, and she came back. But these days (since 1833?) she was under a new name ..

Signor is 'principal assistant'?

I mean 'de Irvine'? What is this? We know that this gentleman's name was Thomas. Is this Thomas Wilkinson under a new appellation? Or has he gone by the wayside at some stage? Did Louise marry this man who apparently gave her four children - Ethelbert d Melbourbne 1876), Rosalie, Heloise and Edwy -- that we know of ... and who seemingly died, as Thomas Irvin, in 1863 (1 November) 'aged 60' at Leeds. Or were they just de facto? What they became was, in 1842, 'Duvalli' ...   

Not Louise. She was permanently sidelined from climbing her ropes by her pregnancies. But father became 'Signor Duvalli' 'the British Blondin', tightroping across the Thames and, most famously, the River Tyne. And the girls went into the halls, around 1859, as 'the Sisters Duvalli'.

Louise's two sons died young. Edwy Hubert aged 19 (23 October 1863), Ethelbert Irvine in Melbourbe, at 26 (9 January 1873). She erected this monument to the two of them, and to her husband 'Clement Duvalli ascensionist and hero of the Tyne' who had followed his elder son to an unconsecrated grave three days later.

Clement? In 1842 he was 'Signor Nicolo Duvalli'. Sigh. 

There is little more to say.

Heloise (d Darlinghurst 16 May 1904) and Mr Finlay-Coutts (d Darlinghurst 4 June 1912) had a second daughter, in Australia.  Their elder, English daughter, as Rosalie Coutts-Duvalli (b Medway 1967) became a harpist, the second, Heloise Claire Duvalli-Coutts (b Melbourne, 9 November 1887), under the name of Heloise Alva, worked as a vocalist and musician, often in tandem with her sister. She married a Mr Norman Thomas from San Francisco.

Rosalie (d Darlinghurst 13 July 1912) outlived her husband, Hall, (d Darlinghurst  1 February 1907)

Mama Louise died 13 September 1893 in Darlinghurst, 'aged 84'.

I'm sure there's more to know.  A clutch of birth certificates would help ...  maybe someone else can fill in the gaps ...