The days are getting colder. I dont have much impetus behind me to get outside and pretend to pull weeds.And I'm not finding much on e-bay to inspire grand researches .. so, I've turned back to the jolly old Cartesians to see if I can squeeze a few more answers out of the remaining mystery-folk ... even if it's just a birth-date, a death-date, a marriage or, most desirably, a real name behind a stage-name.Well, much to my surprise, I've found a number!So here are the first results.
[Image]Sam SAMUEL REED (b Massachussetts August 1855; d East Boothbay, Maine 11 April 1924) seems to have taken a few years to get into the professional theatre. I see him first in the Baltimore German theatre (ahha! is 'Reed' a pseudonym?) in 1884 in Bettelstudent with the contralto-ised Alice May, prima donna of G&S's original Sorcerer, and her new husband, and a young German soprano of several years leading lady experience, Marie Böckel. At some stage Herr Saml Reed and Fräulein Böckel were wed. And they remained married until Sam's death forty years later. Both of them would have sound careers, as vocalists, and then as character performers. [Image]
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I popped into the Ws, and while I was there, I had a go at Josephine WOODWARD. I doubt that was her real name, but she came from Edinburgh. I see her there in 1878 singing in little concerts and acting in amdrams, before she joined the Carte companies (see David Stone's archive). David loses her after the Carte stint, but I don't. She played in Polly (1885) with a heap of other ex-Cartesians, fairy in Robinson Crusoe (always a part for A Vocalist),, with the touring troupe of Falka (1888), and then in a series of good supporting roles in and around Scotland (Mattie then Jean McAlpine in Rob Roy, Lady Margaret in The Lady of the Lake, Miss McKillop in Robert Burns, Tibbie Howieson in Holyrood, Mrs Cregan in The Colleen Bawn, Claire Ffoliott in The Shaughraun). She appeared as Margaret Hay in The Bonnie Briar Bush with Durward Lely at Manchester, and again when the production ventured for 3 weeks to London, and spent three or four years with William Mollison's company, appearing in everything from Shakespeare to death. I see her at Derby in 1912-13, as Ellen Dunlop in Bunty Pulls the Strings ... And that's it. It's hard tracking down someone when you don't know their real name!Still W. Walter Olivant WILKINSON (b Manchester 1852; d NYC 18 May 1908). His participation in the Carte company seems too have been a rare venture. He professed thereafter to be an organist.William Thompson WRIGHT (b Aldeburgh 1848; d West Ham 1911). After finishing his time with Carte, he worked as a travelling salesman.Grace Pauline WOLLASTON (b Allahabad 27 July 1867 ; d 29 Spencer Rd, 2 March 1952). Born and married (Ernest Ouseley ELLIOT) in India. Returned to England, some time after 1899 (when she can still be seen prominently in concert in India) after which she made her foray into the theatre. I sight her little after her Carte stint, only that she stopped being Mrs Elliot after one short-lived child and he went back to India where the child died (in whichever order) ... Pause for sherry, saucisson and sleep. Harry [Henry] PEPPER (b Nottingham 10 October 1857; d Philadephia 29 December 1945). I am assuming this is the right Harry. There can't be many Harry son of Harrys who married a Susan ....If so, he was a framework-maker in Nottingham, and didn't work in England before he got a job in 1882 at the Boston Museum playing Dunstable in Patience. He repeated the role at Tony Pastor's and with Lillian Russell and from there it was theatre and concerts ('not a better ballad singer in New York') all the way. Apparently the move was not definitive, because Susan gave birth back in England in 1888 (infant died), and Harry would latterly claim to have moved to the USA in 1888 ..When his busy performing career was over, Harry apparently went back into fabrics. He is latterly listed as 'knitter in a hosiery mill'.[Image]
Pause for merlot, marketing and horse racingNoone seems ever to have looked into 'Miss Twyman' of the original Princess Ida cast. Well, I have, and I can tell you that she was Lily TWYMAN born in Margate in 1868; died Canterbury 13 July 1920, one of the large family of a seagoing man and his second wife. She allegedly attended the RAM from a pre-teen age, practised as a vocalist for a few years both on the stage (Savoy, Tommy at the Avenue, Croydon in panto, An Adamless Eden at St George's Hall) and concert platform before in 1905 married Henry Fairbrass, a farm worker, and had a son ...Next day. I have failed to find the real name of Arthur MARCEL, a man who seems to have lived much of his life in the 'bohemian', woman-less clubs of London. He was clearly a competent performer, touring between 1884-1888, much of the time, as leading man to Mrs Bernard Beere. Inn the musical theatre (he was the possessor of a fine baritone) he played, as well as his Gondoliers Luiz, in the musical comedy Iduna, and for a lengthy tour in Hayden Coffin's role in Dorothy. In 1891, he essayed the music-halls but the death of his father, that year, seems to have put an end to his career, if not his frequenting of the clubs.I did rather better with "Mr W D Marks" who played the Pirate King in America. He was in fact, an Englishman, born Woolf David MARKS or Marx in 1846, to a Jewish East End cap-maker, Isaac MARKS and his wife, Phoebe. Woolf worked as a book-keeper after the family emigrated to America in about 1849, and began singing, it seems, around 1876, at New York's Caledonian Club. That same year, he made appearances with an English Opera Company built around one Gertrude Corbett, with a not wholly negligable cast (Alice Hosmer, Christian Fritsch, Eugene Clarke, Alcuin Blum). Blum, of course, was primo basso. Apart from his Pirates of Penzance engagement, I see he played Lt Montgomery in the 1880 production of Deseret, and sang in occasional concerts in Brooklyn (''Honour and Arms', Rigoletto quartet). Is he the same W D Marks (there were a few of them about!) who thereafter arranged and conducted music for Booth, Barrett, Irving and Margaret Mather? Well, by 1891 he was listed as an 'agent', then once more a bookkeeper. The theatre adventure had not lasted very many years. He married a lady named Leah, had a daughter christened Phoebe (1905-1966) and died in 1915. It's not much, but more than we had before!Four years ago, I renounced finding out the 'who was' of 'Mr G J LACKNER'. Now I have assuredly, if accidentally, cracked him.LACKNER, G J [LACK, George Joseph] (b 60 Tottenham Court Rd, 14 February 1843).Mr Lackner first appears on the musical scene in 1876 (25 October) at the Alexandra Palace, singing with Alice Sugden and Edith Bacon the music of Macbeth as an accompaniment to Mrs Stirling's reading. I see him on of the Crystal Palace afternoon concerts then in 1877 at Duncan Finlay's Scots concert, and at Drury Lane in a modest Benefit performance of Der Freischütz. He appeared again at Crystal Palace, Alexandra Palace ('Arm, arm, ye brave', 'Honour and Arms') and for Finlay, and in 1878 at Rivière's Proms ('Nazareth') and at a Venetian Fête on the lake at Alexandra Palace with no less than Charlotte Russell. Then, in 1879, he joined the Carte. He played Bobstay in Pinafore, the Notary in The Sorcerer and Samuel/the Sergeant in Pirates ... after which, August 1882, he disappears from the English press.So, who was he? Well, the 1881 census of Preston shows Mrs Emeline Neild (married, vocalist) sharing digs with John Joseph LACK, vocalist, 38. In 1871 George J Lack is a crape dresser in the Tottenham Court Rd. In 1861 he is a shopman for a greengrocer, and tiens! Here is George Joseph LACK born at 60 Tottenham Court Rd, father Jackson Lack (carpenter), mother Elizabeth Mary, on 14 February 1843! Gotcha my lad! Alas, my success stops there. He seems not to have married and not to have died. But at least we have half his data! oh the 'accidentally' bit. I was looking for Ms Neild or Nield ... who may have been Mrs Williams and certainly wasn't baptised Emelina ... and who wasn't around as either for long.TRITTON, Charles [? LESTER, Charles] (b c 1853) isn't really a Cartesian, but he's in the David Stone index so I include him. What was his real name? Well, as an amateur actor, in 1874, he played as 'Charles Tritton Lester'. When he promptly transferred to the professional theatre he became 'Charles Tritton'. When he was sentenced to hard labour, it was as Charles Tritton. Merely a stage name, he told the court, which didn't reveal his off-stage name. He was 'very respectably connected', it was reported. Hewas documented as 'labourer'. So he can't have been the Charles Tritton, 14 year-old errand boy, caught stealing neckties in 1870. He started in the professional theatre playing with Kate Santley in 1875 (Sans Vergogne in Les Pres St Gervais &c), played at the Globe, the Royalty, the Criterion -- where he covered Charles Wyndham -- and in the Crystal Palace plays. Described everywhere as 'manly' and 'gentlemanly'. He played Paris, Gratiano, Roderigo, Philario and the Bleeding Sergeant at Drury lane and visited NewYork with an English company, and returned to the Criterion where he met his fate. There are two versions about who conned whom, but the facts remained that he was 'lured' to a house in Brompton by two young women, and after a certain amount of 'drunkenness and debauchery' forged several cheques ... He pleaded guilty and got fifteen months. Mrs Rose Buhl née Cleghorn pleaded guity and got nine months. Mr Frank Gustave Buhl (bootmaker's assistant) sued for divorce and cited as co-respondent ... Charles. Far from it being an accidental meeting or a drunken escapade, the affair had seemingly been going on some time .. What became of the pair after their release from prison I know not. But Charles, seemingly, acted no more.[Laude] Charles THORBURN (b Lamb's Conduit 26 December 1870; d Kirkstall Rd Streatham 18 February 1946). Gertrude THORNTON [TUBBS, Gertrude Darling] (b Barnes, 13 January 1875), daughter of Frank Thornton otherwise Tubbs(qv) and his wife Julia Maude, and her sister Maude Thornton (b Barnes 12 October 1873) both went into the theatre. Both girls stayed, unmarried, with their widowed father, into their thirties ... after that .. more work needed ... Ah! 1939 census Maude 'private means' and Gertrude D ALLAN (widow) together in Hailsham ... Maude died 12 March 1964. Gertrude died in Bexhill 3 September 1968. Well, Mr Allan must have been a whiz. She left over £85,000 ... NELLIE VIBERT [WOODVINE, Ellen] (b Chelsea 1866) spent 20 years in the theatre, as an actress and a singer. I see her as early as 1883 playing in the Edinburgh panto alongside Emelie Petrelli and Eric Lewis, and she is still appearing occasionally in the earliest years of the 20th century. Unfortunately, I have had little success in tracking her down after her marriage to porter cum bass singer Jess Smith. But he's still doing it in the 1900s as well.
Then there are the two Miss Vivians. Neither is related to the other. Neither's real name was Vivian. They were born on opposite sides of the Manche. Both had reasonable careers of a good length. Both married. How do I know that? Weeeeeellll ... I must admit to a teensy bit of guesswork here. But only a teensy bit.First comes Kate VIVIAN who seems to have flourished on the stage from 1873 to 1905. Unless there was more than one! I imagine she was pretty for she had 'thinking parts' in pantomime and burlesque at Covent Garden, the Holborn, the Globe, the St James and at the Opera Comique (in the 'unclad' Ixion) in 1873-4. I lose her for a couple of years, while she is becoming a mother, and she resurfaces, apparently with Carte, then in panto at the Standard, in a stepout at the Park .. she seems to have been eminently employable. And then she steps out of the chorus into the role of Josephine in HMS Pinafore with ther Bristol Amateurs (1881). But this is not just any amateur production. The cast included Faulkener Leigh, Cotsford Dick, Walter Clifford ... She followed up with the Aylesbury Amateurs, and then joined Lester Collingwood's Merrie Makers with Maggie Duggan and Lytton Grey playing the operetta Collars and Cuffs. In 1884 she joined the Walton/Hemming troupe (md: the young Sidney Jones) and somewhere along the line got with child again. Her husband was not pleased and divorced her.The divorce proceedings informed us that 'Kate Vivian' was Mrs George Monkhouse Walker née Maria Pallant, born in Hornsea 13 June 1846 and the mother of three sons. The name of the co-respondent and father of her daughter was witheld. He was 'unknown'. Really? How many men had Maria connubed with? Elsewhere it was whispered that he was 'famous' and his name had to be a secret. The baby died, engineer's draughtsman Walker got his divorce and custody, and Kate went merrily back on the stage -- Butler Stanhope's Co, Fred Wright's tour, Mrs Dalmaine's, J F Preston's, the Cowper-Calvert company ... there's a Kate Vivian in the West Hartlepool stock co in 1895, one singing with Alice Barth in 1904, and playing Lady Coodle in a Messenger Boy tour ...There is a 'Kate Vivian' therafter touring with James Sydney Montague Oldham-Oldham's company. Endlessly. Did our Kate remarry? Mr Oldham-Oldham's wife was Kate Josephine née Corbett. And our Kate? Don't know.Secondly Ray VIVIAN. 'Ray' had a rather more substantial career with Carte, being a member of the company from 1896 to 1903. I have spotted her in 1893 playing with Rudolph Lewis iin the F J Harris burlesque company, and then with Harris's Morocco Bound troupe. In 1895 she appeared with Willie Edouin in a brief London season of his megahit The Babes. Following her Cartesian stint she toured as Nell Reddish in A Princess of Kensington, did the seaside circuit ('an old favourite in Ilfracombe') ... then a couple of stints as an Ugly Sister and in 1910 the part of Miss Western in the Tom Jones tour then ...Coup d'arret. I thought I'd identified her. The only 'Ray' I could find was Jewish Russian American Ray Rockman (Mrs 'Braham'). I beavered away half an afternoon, and then found a mention that she was a 'protégée of Sarah Bernhardt'. Hmmm. Reverse and try again. If it's not 'Ray' I suppose it's Rachel. Oh, hang on what's this. 1911 census of Shrewsbury. Frank Lennard vocalist and actor born Alresford aged 44 and Ray Lennard 35 born Hull vocalist and actress ... mistranscribed .. Frank Lennard who was 'in the original cast of Utopia Ltd?' Where? How? Anyone got a chorus listing for 1893? Well, I scoured Alresford, and the only theatrical I found was 'Laura Linden' and her brother Arthur Wade Clinton. Is he the Mr F Leonard in the archive. 'Ray' in Hull? No better. I'm giving up, for now, on this one. I need a successful one. Here's one. Not facilitated by a dose of misspellings again. He's listed as Louis van HESS and he was actually Louis van HES (b Aldgate 10 April 1880; d Jewish House of Rest, Balham 30 January 1962). It seems that his wee stint with the Carte was just that. He was a builder's clerk in real life. A bachelor till almost 70, he took a w
"Lost Cartesians: more bits of the jigsaw"
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