Charles Lauri junior as the monkey in The Sioux, a mimetic sketch at the Canterbury music hall, London, 1894

The front cover of The Amusing Journal, published in London, Saturday, 22 September 1894, features ‘A Photograph from Life on One Negative. From a Photo specially taken for the “A.J.” by Alfred Ellis, 20 Upper Baker Street, N.W.’ The caption further states, ‘EXCITING INCIDENT AT THE CANTERBURY. – Mr. Chas. Lauri attacked by a Gorilla.’

Charles Lauri junior (1860-1903), English pantomimist and animal impersonator, whose repertoire had long included apes of one sort or another, devised an ‘Indian pantomime ballet divertissement’ for the Alhambra, Leicester Square, entitled The Sioux, which was produced on Monday, 12 October 1891. According to The Era (London, Saturday, 17 October 1891, p. 16a), the music was by Walter Slaughter, ‘costumes by M. and Madame Alias, and incidental dances arranged by Francis Wagner. The scene is a picturesque settlement in the “Wild West.” Here the settler (Mr H. Plano) and his daughter (Miss Hooton) and his little son (Miss Taylor) and his Nigger slave (Mr H. Ewins) seem to be very happy notwithstanding that some murderous Indians are prowling about, and they become happier still with the appearance of the settler’s eldest son (Mr F. Kitchen), a gallant and and handsome young middy, who has been sailing the seas. Of course, he is welcome for himself alone, but he is doubly welcome seeing that he has brought along some very pretty present and one very ugly one in the shape of a man-monkey (Mr Charles Lauri). It is to that monkey we have to look for the principal fun, for, although the settle is very vigorous when it comes to fighting, and the middy can dance very nimbly, and the Nigger servant is exceedingly active, and when occasion calls can double himself up in a tale in less than no time, the man-monkey claims all the attention, and it is not diverted even when a section of the Alhambra corps de ballet, with their beauty concealed by Indian disguises and hideous “war paint,” come on headed by their chief (Mr H. Kitchen), and, armed with formidable knives and axes, proceed to dance their grotesque dances, and finally to set fire to the settler’s house. The man-monkey is not to be denied. He will drag a “go-cart,” or play at ball, or spoil the dinner and set everybody sneezing by playing too freely with the pepper-box, or outdo the middy in dancing, or cut funny antics before a mirror, or pelt the Indian enemy with bricks, or masquerade as a soldier, or walk a perpendicular rope with all the skill of a Japanese funambulist. This rope ascent and descent by Mr Charles Lauri is the most notable thing in connection with The Sioux, and on Monday evening it called for a hurricane of applause. There is much leaping through windows, and many strange disappearances through trick boxes and sacks, and in the end, when the man-monkey has assisted the settler’s youngest daughter to escape from the burning house, and has been shot, the artist give a remarkable illustration of pantomimic skill in the realisation of the animal’s death.’

Charles Lauri subsequently adapted The Sioux ballet as a mimetic sketch for the music hall stage, giving the first performance at the Canterbury, Westminster Bridge Road, London, on 10 September 1894. The piece ran for a week or so before setting out on a UK tour. The part of the daughter was played by 9 year old Maud Violet Street, for whom a special license was granted.

Police Intelligence, Lambeth, south London, before Mr. Andrew Hopkins, magistrate
‘Mr. W.H. Armstrong, solicitor, applied on behalf of the manager of the Canterbury and Paragon Music-halls for a licence for a child named Maud Violet Street, not in her ninth year, to appear in a play without words called The Sioux. he explained that she would be on the stage only about half an hour. – Mrs. Street, the mother of the child, said her daughter simply had to play on the stage with a ball, and run about as a child would do in the garden. – Mr. Hopkins: Is there anything else she has to do? – Mr. Armstrong: she has to get into a swing. – Mr. Hopkins: How does she get off the stage? – Mrs. Street: she is brought off by a lady supposed to be her sister. – Mr. Hopkins: What is the play about? – Mrs. Street: It’s an Indian play, but there is nothing to cause any harm to the child. – Mr. Hopkins: does she get carried off by Indians? – Mrs. Street: No, nothing of that sort. – Mr. Armstrong explained that the piece was one in which Mr. Charles Lauri played the part of a monkey. – Mr. Hopkins: there is nothing in which the child is exposed to danger. She is not saved by an animal or anything of that sort? – Mrs. Street: No, sir. – Mr. Hopkins: Very well, then, she shall have the licence.’
(The Standard, London, Wednesday, 22 August 1894, p. 3d)

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Fay Davis as Monica Blayne in The Tree of Knowledge, St. James’s Theatre, London, 1897

Fay Davis (1869-1945), American actress, as Monica Blayne in R.C. Carton’s play, The Tree of Knowledge, produced by and starring George Alexander at the St. James’s Theatre, London, on 25 October 1897.
(cabinet photo: Alfred Ellis, 20 Upper Baker Street, London, NW, negative no. 23806-1a, which appears to be a cropped version of negative no. 23806-1, which is described in the copyright registration form submitted by Alfred Ellis on 29 April 1897 as ‘Photograph, panel [i.e. 8 ½ x 4 in.] of Miss Fay Davis … Three quarter length standing figure, with hat on, leaning against cabinet.’)

Fay Louise Davis was born in Houlton, Maine, Massachusetts, on 15 December 1869, the youngest child of Asa T. Davis (1830-?), the proprietor of an express line, and his wife, Mary F. (nèe Snell, 1835-?). She visited England for the first time in 1895, arriving at Southampton on board the S.S. Columbia on 16 May. Introduced to London society by Edith Bigelow (first wife of the noted American journalist and author, Poulteney Bigelow), she soon received an offer from Charles Wyndham to join his company at the Criterion Theatre, London. Her first appearance was there as Zoë Nuggetson in The Squire of Dames, a comedy adapted by R.C. Carton from the French, produced on 5 November 1895. Her immediate success brought further offers, including the part of Fay Zuliani (photographed by Alfred Ellis) opposite George Alexander in A.W. Pinero’s comedy, The Princess and the Butterfly; or, The Fantastics, produced at the St. James’s Theatre, London, on 29 March 1897.

Miss Davis was married at the home of Mrs Frank M. Linnell, 61 Columbia Road, Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts, on 23 May 1906, to the English actor manager, Gerald Lawrence (1873-1957). The latter’s first wife, whom he had married in 1897, was the actress Lilian Braithwaite, who obtained a divorce from him in November 1905.

Fay Davis’s final professional appearance was as Mary Dawson in Vivian Tidmarsh’s ‘unusual comedy,’ Behind the Blinds, produced at the Winter Garden Theatre, London, on 10 October 1938, in which her husband played Richard Dawson.

Alexandra Dagmar as Dandini in the pantomime Cinderella, Drury Lane Theatre, Christmas 1895

Alexandra Dagmar (1868-1940), English music hall vocalist and pantomime principal boy as Dandini in the Ballroom Scene of the pantomime Cinderella, produced at Drury Lane Theatre on Boxing Night, 26 December 1895.
(cabinet size photo: Alfred Ellis, 20 Upper Baker Street, London, W, negative no. 20706-7, early 1896)

‘Miss Alexandra Dagmar, the Dandini, is an accomplished vocalist, and her singing adds much to the general effect.’
(The Standard, London, Friday, 27 December 1895, p. 2b)

* * * * *

Alexandra Dagmar, whose real name was Dagmar Alexandra Heckell, was born in Polar, east London, on 13 March 1868, one of the daughters of her Danish-born parents, Charles Heckell (1828?-1889), a ship’s chandler (bankrupt, 1868) and later a wholesale provision merchant, and his wife, Christine (1833?-1898).

Miss Dagmar first came to general notice on 8 November 1884 under the management of ‘Lord’ George Sanger at his Grand National Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge Road, London. Sanger, who billed her as ‘First appearance in England of the celebrated American actress Miss Grant Washington,’ cast her as Richard, Duke of Glo’ster to appear in ‘the Fifth Act of ”Richard III.,” portraying the Battle of Bosworth Field and Death of White Surrey – a scene of unparalleled effect.’ (The Era, London, Saturday, 1 November 1884, p. 16b) ‘… and then the last act of ”Richard III.” was given, an especial novelty being the representation of the chief personages by ladies. It had certainly a comic effect when Miss Grant Washington appeared as the crook-backed tyrant with beard and moustache, fighting and declaiming in the most ”robustious” manner. If Shakespeare was shaky it could not be denied that Miss Grant Washington was a handsome young lady with a fine figure and a good voice, and her rendering of Richard was vigorous in the extreme.’ (The Morning Post, London, Monday, 10 November 1884, p. 2f)

Miss Dagmar subsequently toured the United States under the auspices of the Boston Redpath Lyceum Bureau. Here she met Edmond DeCelle (1854?-1920), a tenor, and the couple were married in New York in 1888; their son, Edmond Carl DeCelle (1890-1972), became an artist and costume designer. Mr and Mrs DeCelle subsequently appeared for a few years together on both sides of the Atlantic, billed as Dagmar and DeCelle, before Miss Dagmar resumed her solo career. She appears to have retired on the outbreak of the First World War, after which she and her family resided exclusively in America.

Alexandra Dagmar died in Mobile, Alabama, on 8 December 1940.

Florence St. John, star of burlesque and comic opera, photographed in 1893

Florence St. John (née Margaret Florence Greig, 1855-1912), English actress and vocalist
(photo: Alfred Ellis, 20 Upper Baker Street, London, NW, negative no. 13721-14, early 1893; see the National Archives, London, COPY 1/412/470)

This photograph was taken during the run of the musical farce, In Town, following its transfer in December 1892 from the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, London, to the Gaiety Theatre, London, in which Miss St. John played the part of Kitty Hetherton.

Florence St. John (née Margaret Florence Greig, 1855-1912), English actress and vocalist
(photo: Alfred Ellis, 20 Upper Baker Street, London, NW, negative no. 13721-14, early 1893; see the National Archives, London, COPY 1/412/470)

This photograph was taken during the run of the musical farce, In Town, following its transfer in December 1892 from the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, London, to the Gaiety Theatre, London, in which Miss St. John played the part of Kitty Hetherton.

An incident in the original production of H.A. Jone’s play, The Masqueraders, London, 1894

an incident from the original production of Henry Arthur Jones‘s play, The Masqueraders with, left to right, Mrs Edward Saker as Lady Crandover, Beryl Faber as Lady Charles Reindean, W.G. Elliott as Montagu Lushington and Irene Vanbrugh as Charley Wisranger. The play opened at the St. James’s Theatre, London, on 28 April 1894.
(cabinet photo: Alfred Ellis, 20 Upper Baker Street, London, NW, negative no. 16228-2)

Emily Mary Kate Saker (1847-1912) was the widow of the actor manager, Edward Sloman Saker (1838-1883); before her marriage she was known on the stage as Marie O’Berne (or O’Beirne).

Beryl Crossley Faber (1872-1912) was the first wife of the playwright and novelist, Cosmo Hamilton (1870-1942). She was also the sister of the stage and film actor, C. Aubrey Smith.

Irene Vanbrugh (née Irene Barnes) (1872-1949) was married in 1901 to the actor and director, Dion Boucicault junior.

Marie Tempest

Marie Tempest (1864-1942), English actress and vocalist, as O Mimosa San in The Geisha: A Story of a Teahouse, Daly’s, London, 25 April 1896.
(photo: Alfred Ellis, London, 1896)

500th performance of The Geisha, Daly’s Theatre, London, September 1897
’ By the way, the 500th performance of The Geisha, at Daly’s Theatre, last week – albeit there was no distribution of souvenirs, and Mr. George Edwardes refrained from making one of his characteristic speeches – was memorable if only by reason of the stirring ovation accorded by the overflowing audience to each of the prominent members of the cast now happily returned from well-deserved holidays. Miss Tempest, who resumed her part after a short visit to Aix-les-Bains, received a welcome on her home-coming which visibly affected her. Later on in the play, when Miss Letty Lind tripped across the bridge with her ‘riskha, there was another burst of applause, which prevented her from beginning her dialogue for some moments. For the rest the popular enthusiasm was pretty evenly distributed among Mr. Hayden Coffin, Mr. Huntley Wright, and Mr. Rutland Barrington. At the close a galleryite summed up the situation in a terse sentence which nobody seemed inclined to dispute, “Good old George [Edwardes] always gives us good value!” Amongst the artists who are still filling their original parts in The Geisha at Daly’s is Miss Mary Collette, the original O Kamurasaki San.’
(The Bristol Times and Mirror, Bristol, Tuesday, 14 September 1897, p.3g)

Harry Monkhouse

a cabinet photograph of Harry Monkhouse (1854-1901), English actor,
as Duvet in the comic opera Captain Thérèse,
by Alexandre Bisson and F.C. Burnand, with music by Robert Planquette,
which was produced at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, London, on 25 August 1890.
The cast also included Hayden Coffin, Joseph Tapley, Tom A. Shale,
Attalie Claire (in the title role), and Phyllis Broughton
(photo: Alfred Ellis, London, 1890)

‘Monkhouse, Harry. (John Adolph McKie.) – there is no more general favourite than Mr. Harry Monkhouse, who is a native of Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he was born in 1854. Of course he was never intended for the stage – actors and actresses never are – and his parents, who were Presbyterians, gave him a liberal education at Newcastle Grammar School, which they intended should fit him either for a clergyman or a doctor. From acting in amateur theatricals and assisting behind the scenes at the local theatre on benefit nights, he rose to the dignity of small parts, and at length secured his first regular engagement at the Theatre Royal, Blythe, where Mrs. Wybert Rousby seeing him act, offered him his next engagement to go to Jersey as one of her company. From the Grecian, where he first played in London, he migrated to the Alhambra, and thence to the Gaiety for three years. He met, whilst touring with the Nellie Farren Gaiety Company, Mr. Wilton Jones, who wrote for him a very funny burlesque entitled Larks, and with this and other plays, he made several long and very successful provincial tours. Just as every comedian fancies himself a tragedian, so Mr. Monkhouse, who made his name in burlesque, fancies himself for parts in melodramas where pathos is the prevailing characteristic, and squeezes into his characters a little touch of pathos whenever the chance occasion offers. As Bouillabaisse in Paul Jones (1889) he made himself wonderfully popular, and the way he eventually worked up the part during its run at the Princes of Wales’ Theatre was very marked. As Gosric in Marjorie and M. Duvet in Captain Thérèse he further added to his reputation for originality and humour. There he also played during the run of The Rose and the Ring and Maid Marian, but was drafted over to fill the ranks at the Lyric when the second edition of La Cigale was produced, and played with great drollness the part of Uncle Mat.’
(Erskine Reid and Herbert Compton, The Dramatic Peerage, Raithby, Lawrence & Co Ltd, London, 1892, pp. 154 and 155)

Letty Lind and Hetty Hamer

Letty Lind (1862-1923),
English actress, dancer and singer,
contrasted with
Hetty Hamer (fl. late 1880s-early 20th Century),
English Gaiety Girl, showgirl and later music hall celebrity

Letty Lind as Daisy Vane in An Artist’s Model,
Daly’s Theatre, London, 2 February 1895.
(photo: W. & D. Downey, London, 1895)

‘Letty Lind the Idol of the Theatre Goers – Hetty Hamer Is a Beauty Devoid of Talents …
‘To be a favorite on the state in the “Modern Babylon,” a woman must be equipped in at least one of three ways. She may be only beautiful, and the lack of talent will be overlooked; if she startles by her “fetching” quality, audacity, diablerie, she may be plain and sublimely stupid; or she must legitimately amuse and interest according to English canons, which, by the way, are frequently ours. Two of these types are found in The Artist’s Model [sic], the comic opera which has held a London stage now for very nearly a year – Letty Lind and Hetty Hamer.
‘We are familiar with the dainty little Englishwoman who transformed skirt-dancing into a sort of butterfly art four or five years ago. London pets her. In the blue jean trousers and blouse of the Paris street urchin, as she dances in her diminutive clogs and smiles in her odd, one-sided way, she sparkles into the sympathy of the watchers. Her face is piquant – an honest, little face – but of absolute beauty she has scarcely any, and after three years’ illness she returned to the stage last year with only an echo of a voice, even for spoken lines. Her charm, however, does not depend on beauty of face or voice. She seems a sprite, her every glance an unreserved expression of the part she plays; her smile flashing over every part of a crowded house an invisible lasso knitting the attention and homage of her audience. And then, lastly, and most important, those little feet of hers! In the timings of the “Tom-tit” dance they waft the blues away as gracefully as clouds of tobacco smoke; acrobatic sky assaults find no exponent in Letty Lind. She is a born comedienne. Seldom does a dancing member of a comic-opera company give any semblance of reality to the lines of the libretto – as a rule it is considered quite enough to strut through the part; but as the runaway school-girl in Paris, playing truant in the blouse and cap of a saucy gamin, she is satisfying enough to dispense with songs and dances and still be a success.

Letty Lind as Di Dalrymple in Go-Bang, Trafalgar Square, London, 1894
(photo: probably Alfred Ellis, London, 1894)

‘In contrast to her stands Hetty Hamer. Her photographs decorate the theater lobbies as prominently as those of the principals, yet she does nothing. She is an actress as she might be a model in a cloak shop. Her face is beautiful, though lacking in shades of expression. She neither sings nor acts. She merely exists behind the foot-lights and draws her large salary because her eyes are like big, shadowed violets, her mouth like a Greek bow, the cut of her nose and chin strikingly classic. She suggests Hardy’s milkmaid heroine, Tess – the bovine calm in the large, clear eyes, the pouting lips, with the red pinch in the middle of the upper one, the surprised, ingenuous, unvarying smile. Lengthy notices are always given Hetty Hamer in the papers, and the interest the audience takes in her is eloquent of another national difference between the English and us – their critical appreciation of feminine beauty, merely as beauty, irrespective of talent and social status.
(The Gazette, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, Wednesday, 20 November 1894, p.9a)

Hetty Hamer
(photo: W. & D. Downey, London, early 1890s)

Cora Stuart

Cora Stuart (1857-1940),
English actress
(photo: Alfred Ellis, London, early 1890s)

The English actress Cora Stuart is chiefly remembered for her appearances as Lady Kitty Clare in E. Haslingden Russell’s one act musical comedy sketch, The Fair Equestrienne; or, The Circus Rider which was first produced at the Prince’s Theatre, Bristol, on 14 March 1890. Afterwards Miss Stuart toured successfully in the piece for some years throughout the United Kingdom on the music hall circuit, with two matinee performances at the Trafalgar Square Theatre, London, on 14 and 15 March 1893, when the other parts of Charles Kinghorn and Lord Loftus were respectively sustained by W.T. Lovell and Percy Brough.

‘Mounted upon nothing more spirited than an ordinary cane-bottomed chair, the “Fair Equestrienne,” when I was admitted to her dressing room, presented a far easier subject to interview than I had anticipated. Miss Stuart was riding her quadruped Mazeppa fashion – that is to say, she was sitting upon it with the back of her head touching the back of her chair; and the thought occurred to me as I looked at the two – the cane-bottomed quadruped and its skilful rider – that I had seen many a circus Mazeppa urging on her wild career (thought it was always the horse that wanted urging) on an animal with quite as little life in it as that chair.
‘When I was comfortably seated on the nubbly surface of a tall dress basket, such as you see riding about on the outsides of broughams at night, the “Fair Equestrienne” turned in her saddle, and said to me, sweetly: “Well, and I suppose you have come to blow me up for deserting the theatres for the halls?”
‘“Nothing of the kind, Miss Stuart. I should indeed be unreasonable to complain of your behaviour. It may be a loss to the theatre, but, at the same time, ‘sketch’ artists who can act are by no means so plentiful that we can afford to blow them up when we have them.”
‘An interval of one minute’s silence, which I occupy in converting a couple of towels into a cushion. the basket was beginning to make me which I hadn’t sat upon it.
‘“And how do you like your new line, Miss Stuart?” ‘“Oh, I think variety is charming!” was the enthusiastic reply.
‘“You are not the only one I have heard say that, Miss Stuart. It seems to me to be the universal opinion.”
‘“I have tried all stages,” Miss Stuart continued, “and I must say I prefer the variety stage to any other. One thing, the audiences are so awfully good.”
‘“They wouldn’t be unless you were awfully good, Miss Stuart, you may depend upon that.”
‘“And I find I can always depend upon them.”
‘“That is because they find they can always depend upon you.”
‘“You seem determined that I shall not acknowledge my indebtedness to my audiences, Mr. Call Boy.”
‘“I am determined, Miss Stuart, for I have hear – and having heard it so often, I cannot help thinking there must be some truth in it – that one good ‘turn’ deserves another… . You haven’t another towel or something to spare me while I am here, have you? I’ve been doing my best to imagine this wicker-work lid is eiderdown, but it won’t let me. Thanks! … And now, Miss Stuart – -“
‘“Now, Mr. Call Boy, I suppose you want me to tell you something; but what am I to tell? Nothing new, that’s certain. Of course you know I have done the whole ‘round’ – made my first appearance in grand opera; played in nearly all the comedies written by my father-in-law, the late T.W. Robertson; made hits in Pinero-comedy; been in melodrama, farce, and farcical-comedy; and now you behold me ‘on at the halls.’ Yes, and I’m not sorry; I like it. I always have a dressing room to myself, and they are every bit as comfortable as the dressing rooms in the theatre. Everyone has been most kind to me – public, critics, and managers alike; and I contemplate going on as I have begun – since, of course, I joined the music-hall profession.”
‘“Thank you, Miss Stuart. I’m much obliged for the ‘sketch’ of your career; and now, as I see you want [to] be going on, I’ll be going off.”
‘And the ‘Fair Equestrienne,” graciously and gracefully dismounting from her chair, pointed out to me the passages which would not lead to my first appearance on the music-hall stage, and I eventually, and by the grossest error, passed out of the right exit. “And so home.”’
(On and Off, Judy’s Annual, London, 1894, p.38)