Who am I? What am I? When was I? Where was I?

I can only guess

Paris. Clearly.

Early 20th century.

There is a suggestion that it is a version of Aladin ... but I don't see any lamps or genies.

'Rip's Parisian art-nouveau `opérette féerie' Aladin with music by Willy Redstone and décors by Bakst (Théâtre Marigny, 21 May 1919)?'  Doesn't look very Baksty to me. The burlesque of 1912?  

Any ideas?  Anybody recognise a performer?

Theatre photos ... from sopranissimo Americano to the murderer's bride

I have a habit, as I wander the web, of gathering up un- or ill-identified C19th theatre photos ... and then trying to put precise captions to them.

The box of bits sometimes grows a bit, and has to be emptied ... and today (since I don't have the energy for much else) seems like a good day.

This is my prize find. I searched everywhere for a photo of the American soprano Laura Harris, to use in my book Victorian Vocalists, in which she is one of the 100 featured artists, back in 2017. No luck. But now ...

'HARRIS, Laura (b New York, c 1846; d 13 Emmanuel Avenue, Acton 19 July 1917)

The early 1860s saw the emergence, in America, of a group home-grown prime donne who – following in the footsteps of such as Cora de Wilhorst, Lucy Escott and Virginia Whiting Lorini -- would make themselves celebrated on an international basis.

 Apart from the American-bred, but not -born, Adelina Patti, the name which has survived down the years, to the virtual exclusion of all others, is that of Clara Louise Kellogg, but Miss Kellogg was certainly not alone among American women in establishing herself as a leading soprano on the European opera circuits, in these years. Indeed, there was one lady, in particular, four (?) years Kellogg’s junior, who ultimately achieved considerably more on the stages of the old Continent than her countrywoman did. And that was the now forgotten Laura Harris.'

There follow eleven pages of minute details of her career and life which, now that Victorian Vocalists is out in paperback, anyone who wishes can read at reduced price!  But no photo. Which, herewith ...

While we're on soprani, here's one thoroughly well-known, and many times photographed one. The famed Euphrosyne Parepa. I popped this in the box because it is such a pretty picture. Euphrosyne as a young vocalist before she fell prey to prima-donna-waistline. And another of her as Lucrezia Borgia ... 

I was surprised to find another 'Miss Harris', but alas not a relation of Laura (whose parentage remains a mystery to me) but of 'Augustus Harris' who, of course, wasn't 'Harris' at all, but Glossop.

This is said to be Maria Elizabeth (1844-1904), daughter of ... I'm sure she had a career in the theatre ...

This one was not identified, but I wouldn't be the author of The Encyclopaedia of the Musical Theatre if I didn't recognise this scabrous wee scene ...

La Mascotte. Done a thousand times round the world in the 1880s. But this is the original Parisian cast. King Laurent (Hittemans) is having a worried scout to make sure his goosegirl, Bettina, isn't losing her virginity to the cute shepherd, Pippo. Because if she does, she stops being his 'good luck charm' ...

 And one from the ballet. Le Corsaire with Louis Mérante and Mlle Granzoff .. some time in the late 1860s. Mlle Granzoff made her first Parisian appearance in 1866, apparently coming from Russia. She was well-liked, but seems to have flourished only a few years. I wonder why so little seems to be known about her.

This is nice. A sort of cigarette-card, seemingly done on the cheap, featuring the original cast of the wonderful opéra-bouffe Chilpéric. 1868. 

"One of the most successful of extravagantly humorous full-length opéras-bouffes written and composed by the playwright/composer Hervé, Chilpéric went even further in its almost surreal burlesque humour than Meilhac and Halévy had done with their recent texts for Offenbach's La Belle Hélène, Barbe-bleue or La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein. Hervé went back to the medieval era, so successfully used by Offenbach and Tréfeu in Geneviève de Brabant, for his subject matter, and he alighted on the Merovingian King Chilpéric I of Neustria and Soissons, whose lastingest claim to fame (apart from this opéra-bouffe) seems to have been that he was the first monarch to construct a circus in Paris. Chilpéric’s life and career were decorated with murderous women. His second wife, Galswinthe, was murdered by Frédégonde, who became his third wife, and who subsequently came to clutches with Galswinthe's sister, Brunehaut. All these dangerous ladies turned up in Hervé's opéra-bouffe.

Frédégonde (Blanche d'Antigny, a late replacement for Oeil crevé star Julia Baron) starts the evening as an innocent little shepherdess, but she is spotted during the course of a hunt by the randy king (Hervé) and whisked off to court to be royal laundress etcetera. No one else is very pleased, not Frédégonde's peasant swain, Landry, nor Chilpéric's brother Sigebert (Berret), nor especially his brother's Spanish wife Brunehaut (Caroline Jullien), who had lined up her sister Galswinthe (Mlle Berthal) as a wife for the King, intending then to assassinate the royal couple and claim the throne herself by kinship. Since this Spanish marriage brings advantages of state, however, it is still on, and when it becomes imminent Chilpéric has to get rid of the slightly used Frédégonde. But Frédégonde has shown remarkable powers of adaptation in her swift transformation from shepherdess to royal plaything, and she doesn't let herself be evicted quietly. She screams, howls, and sings embarrassing top Cs all round the throne room. And now the murdering starts. Brunehaut has seduced Landry and persuaded him to kill Frédégonde, Frédégonde has attracted the court chamberlain, Le Grand Legendaire, and has asked him nicely to strangle Galswinthe on her wedding night, whilst Chilpéric has become deeply suspicious of Brunehaut's machinations and ordered the court doctor (Milher) to slip her something poisonous. Everything comes to a peak in the nuptial chamber on the royal wedding night, when the King has slipped out for a bit to defend his city against an irritatingly untimely attack by a disloyal brother. The three would-be murderers attack, the three women fight back, and in the dark it all gets very confused before someone presses a button which sends the whole lot of them -- and the bed -- straight down to the dungeons. Chilpéric wins his little battle, pops back home and sorts everyone out in time for a jolly finale with no deaths and only a little bit of stripping and whipping.

Hervé's lively score was as full of fun as his libretto, with Frédégonde being particularly well provided with an introductory waltz (`Voyez cette figure'), the pyrotechnic musical tantrums on her dismissal from court, and a lament in burlesque of the grand operatic (`Nuit fortunée'), whilst Chilpéric scored with his entrance number, the nonsensical Chanson du jambon, sung perched unhappily on the back of a real, live horse like the ones they use at the Opéra, and with his second-act butterfly song (`Petit papillon, bleu volage'). Galswinthe's boléro (`À la Sierra Morena') added a touch of the Spanish, whilst a basso druid (Varlet) opened proceedings Norma-like, invoking `Prêtres D'Ésus'.

This photo was just so appealing that I had to investigate ...

Her name was 'Millie Turnour' and she was one of the outstanding lady gymnasts-aerialists of the 1870s and thereafter. And when I went to delve in her doings ... well, she had quite a life.

Millie's real name was apparently Carlotta Amelia Turner, and she was born, it seems, in Portugal where her parents plied the family trade of gymnastics and associated circus feats. Father was Englishman Thomas Godfrey Turner (1811-1855), mother was Hephzibah Amelia née Drummond (1822-1903). 'Millie' is quoted as being born 3 May 1855, her sister in December 1856 ...  the Turners had been married in 1844, so there were elder siblings and, after mother Hepsy's remarriage to another athlete, Alfred Ireland aka Turnour (1859), younger ones. Eight in all, while still working the act. Tough, these acrobatic ladies.

Millie's adeptness for the family trade, her originality (she did her gyrations on the trapeze without holding the side ropes!) made her a feature at a young age

 I see her in 1868 performing at Tony Pastor's -- 'the female Leotard' 'the Spanish beauty and Queen of the Air' and in 1872 she was billed with Noyes' Circus. Another member of the company was former child somersault rider Alexander Wood[a]son Cook (b Fayette City 30 March 1852; d unknown) and in 1872 (26 March) the young couple were married at Shreveport. 'Wooda' and Millie continued their performing -- in America and Europe -- while Millie gave birth to a succession of babies over the next decade. And then something curious happened in Cuba. Apparently the pair were performing with Orrin Brothers Circus ..

and a report came through that Wooda had died of the fever. Other Havana folk confirmed it. But Millie wrote saying 'nonsense', he was alive and well. I wonder why he didn't write himself. But something wasn't 'well'. Millie gave birth to a daughter around this time -- back in Pennsylvania -- and no more Wooda! The family historians posit chastely that he died in 1881. But he didn't. In 1883 he can be seen playing at the Great Australian Circus at the Big Indian Wigwam on 35th and Broadway. In 1889 he applied for a passport from Berlin. And, yes, it is he. 'Born Fayette 30 March 1852..'. Curious. Ah! Here's a report in the US press. 1885. 'Divorced some three years ago'. 'Three children assigned to the wife'. Three? And here's a ship's manifest from 1875, Wooda Cook acrobat, wife Mabel, children Mabel and James ... that's two. Then Carlotte ... so is this saying that the sons of 8 January 1879 and 18 March 1880 and the 1881 daughter weren't his?  

Well, whatever was going on, in 1884 Millie married another acrobat, the pint-sized Achille Onofrio. The following year Onofrio struck the 9 year-old Lottie with a shovel when she failed to perform to his satisfaction on the tightrope. He was convicted of first-class murder, commuted to an eventual nine years in jail. And Millie went out and got herself another acrobat: John Daggert Ashby, and mothered two further children. There was a fourth husband to come. A rather younger one. Harry Boise Treadwell was born 19 August ... 1871. And Millie was performing with Ringling Brothers Circus. On her wedding banns she said she had been married twice before. So was Onofrio or Ashby the 'de facto'?

Harry Boise died in 1930. Millie survived him, and died in Valley Stream, Long Island 27 January 1939.

A full life. A busy one. Unconventional, to say the least. But, hey, the world of the circus was and is a law unto itself. And why not? Unless it turns to killing a nine year-old girl with blows of a shovel. 

Oh, Mr Onofrio apparently spent some of his time in gaol painting. There is an effort on the www. It is pretty unimpressive, but has zeroes on its price because of the attached story. Peuuugh!

Wooda Cook seems to be playing in variety as a 'Chinese acrobat' as late as 1908.

Yes, it is another world.

 

The Aston families ...

I've been three weeks laid low -- really low -- by the Jacinda Ardern influenza epidemic. Never felt so ill in all my 76 years. Unable to eat, or even face the thought of food ... 10 kilograms disappeared from my bodyweight in just ten days. What hours of the day were not spent in bed, were passed in my LaZyboy, by the fire, surrounded by unsympathetic and joyous kittens. Feeling that "this is the way the world ends". A gradual fading away into inability to move, insufficient energy to do, or even think about doing, anything at all ... just "sleep some more" ...

Well, its Day 23 now, and I think I am on the mend. Wendy has persuaded a little food into me -- mashed potato was the breakthrough, then boiled eggs, a beautiful cheese omelette, white beans and garlic... I'm no longer repulsed by the sight of a crumpet, a little pasta ... but I'm not pushing it. I have the odd culinary whim, like a pregnant woman ... 

And milk has finally made way for wine ...

So, where's the energy? I may have to force it back. To get to my office I have to pass by the fire and the LaZyboy. Most of the time, I still flop into that chair. I mustn't! I must DO something. No matter how useless or insignificant... So I decided to play the game of 'Victorian photos'. Pick an old, ill-identified mid-19th-century photo from ebay and winkle out its background.

Just a easy one to start with. Not too much effort. Ah! Four little siblings photographed in Kensington:

Edith [Margaret], Eccles, Lucy [Alice] and Walter Aston. The four eldest (surviving) children of Mr James Jones Aston, barrister, QC, of the Middle Temple (and inventor of a mechanism for the propulsion of steamships), and his wife Sarah Margaret née Eccles of Walton-le-Dale. A little Arthur Thomas had already gone before ...

'One of my brothers ...'. There were to be several more. "S A"? I suspect that the penman here, or at least the initialler, was youngest brother, Stafford Aston (b 16 September 1875; d Barnet 15 November 1959). But the original inscription is, I believe, by an older sibling.

Anyway here they (almost) all are.

The Judge (1822-1885) ...

The Judge's sisters, Alicia Elizabeth (1839-1908) and Ellen Charlotte (1842-1898, Mrs Hadlow)

And, of course, the Judge's wife (I assume) (1835-1912)

and again, with her son Lawrence (1865-1951)

Right. One by one.

First, Edith Margaret. Spinster (b 11 November 1852; d 13 February 1945). Pictured above, and also

Second came Eccles (b 3 February 1858; d 15 August 1927), who seems to have wandered around the country clerking before marrying in 1913 and dying as anonymously as he had lived

"my eldest brother" .. OK, we'll get on to that later.

Then came little Arthur, who did not survive, followed by Lucy ...

Alas, Lucy did not have a long life. She died 21 October 1886 'at 8 Elsworthy Terrace, Kensington' aged 25. I wonder why. She left a will, not normal for a girl of 25, with sister Edith and brother Lawrence as executors. I suspect her other siblings were less reliable.

The next sibling was Walter (d South Africa 12 April 1909), pictured above. It is always unkind to lumber a child with a famous name ... and Walter followed the trend. He seems to have clerked here and there and ended up in the Cape Colony as a railway clerk. The Judge's sons were not upholding the family name.

Gerard didn't do much to help. He was intriguingly 'drowned in the Thames' aged 30.

There were some daughters thereafter, who were apparently connected with nursing, but the last son, Stafford, around whom this collection seems ultimately to have been axed, by inscription if nothing else, gave a taint of achievement to a family sadly, it seems, in decline from its days of QCs and barristers and a well-staffed house. This handsome wee chappie became County Chemical Analyst for Middlesex.

So, we can see that the collection ranges from the 1850s, and the childhood of Edith, to 1890 and Stafford aged 15. Somebody -- or more than one somebody -- hoarded the family photos through four decades and more ... 

Anyway, not a difficult family, it seems, to sort out. But.

Is this just a coincidence or ....

This group of photographs, for all that it has seemingly no connection with France or the French, was posted on ebay by a French dealer of high class who features a stock largely, naturally, French. So what was I to think when his offerings turned up five more Astons? I mean, 'Aston' isn't that common a name. So, are the two lots connected? The handwriting is different, the style is different, the second lot are from Birmingham rather than Kensington ...

George Lyttleton Aston (1839-1902), buttonmaker, and his wife, Sarah née Chippindale, banker's daughter.

And their children

[Emily Lucy] Ethel Aston (b 25 July 1865; d Solihull 13 March 1933) Mrs John Howard Heaton

[Georgiana] Maude Aston (b 30 June 1867; d Weymouth 29 April 1945). Mrs Hubert Wells Bayly Shewell

William Chippindale Manskopf Aston (b 1868; d Weymouth 20 April 1938)

Mary Augusta Meredith Aston (b Bennett's Hill, 7 December 1871; d Rowington 27 March 1921) Mrs Charles Madeley.

Well, I have looked. But I have found no connection. Perhaps I haven't looked hard enough ... 

But now I'm headed back to my LaZyboy. That's enough 'effort' for a first outing.

A bit "off". The calm before the Bug.

 

Nasty night, grey day, kitty #8 and I both a bit 'off' ... washing on the line ... time to get back into the 19th century ..

First eyecatcher, is this one. With that hairdo and pose he looks in for a life either on the stage or the army. Or maybe he's experiencing the pangs of puberty. He's fifteen years old.

 

Francis William Galbraith TOTHILL (b Clifton 22 May 1860; Gosport 4 December 1938). And yes, Captain, Royal Artillery. Son of a barrister and JP: 1877, squeaked in (in last qualifying place!) to the Royal Military Academy in 1877, and qualified (in second last place!) for a commission two years later. Lieutenant then Captain in the 1880s, adjutant of militia in Jersey in the 1890s, then Sheerness (now a major) before he was sent to South Africa on Lord Robert's staff, where he was a station commander and made a Deputy Assistant Adjutant General. Apparently, by his retirement, he was a Lieutenant Colonel. Looks like 40 years a soldier and never a shot fired ...?  Anyway he duly married Winifred Arnold Pittis), bred ... and I think I'll leave him there ...

Someone liked this childhood photo .. the back is inscribed

Let's try one who clearly isn't army. This chappie looks as if he might be a Rev. And the ladies. No, they are not one and the same woman. They are sisters.

Robert George Young (supervisor, inland revenue) and his wife Isabella née Cousland had ten children as they moved from one of father's postings to another ..

Their eldest was Elizabeth Mary YOUNG (lower), born in Shoreditch 14 July 1857. She married John Edward TRANTER, congregational minister, in Rochdale, where the family had settled, in 1892. The couple had a long married life, and a number of children ... I see them in their eighties in Northampton with grown up son David, a biology teacher.  There had been a Marjory Gladys, and a Dorothy Joyce before that ..

Laura Bella YOUNG (upper) was born in Argyll, Scotland 21 September 1863, and went to work as a teenager as a board school teacher. She married William Watkin SHERRIF, pictured with her here, who was not a clergyman but a carpet designer, and later manager of a velvet factory, and they too would have a long married life, punctuated by eight children. I imagine that the rather unhappy looking infant here was their first, William.  Sherrif lived till 1940, and Laura till 13 March 1950.

PS I have never been able to spell 'sher(r)if(f)' as in Nottingham, so have followed the inscription here!

Right. Who next. This looks like a fine, upstanding gent. And he's from Kettering, Northants, which used to be my bus-stop.

And a lovely inscription .. 'best love' to his married daughter. And he is 'Samuel' not 'Sam' ...

Samuel Richards, born circa 1804 in Kettering. Like so many in that once-beautiful town he worked in the boot and shoe trade, until he rose to the plutocratic position (see 1871 census) of being a 'sewing machine proprietor'. He married Miss Frances Walker, and together they gave birth to Ann, Jane, Sarah, Caroline, Mary, Martha, Elizabeth ... yes, seven daughters.

Sarah was born in 1837, and like most of the family, also went into the boot and shoe industry. A boot closer, sewing the leather uppers together --- papa's sewing machine probably arrived too late for her!  She married before her twentieth birthday, but that didn't put a stop to the boot-closing. Her husband (1856) was an Irish shoemaker!  And, I suspect, not very literate. Samuel spells his name KELLY, the Brits marriage and death records spell it KELLEY ... did Martin the married know the difference?

In 1858 the couple had a son, [Samuel] John [Richards] Kelley, before they left Northampton and headed for Westminster, London. Martin made shoes, Sarah closed until 1870. And then Martin died. Aged 40. Sarah went home to Northampton ... but after the 1871 census, I lose her.

Papa Samuel seems to have died in 1879. I see son John ... well, best leave it there ...

I would have liked to have hugged Samuel. A caring papa. 

Article abruptly ended. Kitty #8 is getting better, but I, alas, am not.