The Mysterious Doctor Du Brange

During a search of the British Newspaper Archive we found reports of a man with the unusual name of Du Brange who lived in Kilburn. We were intrigued when we discovered that he appeared several times in court.

Indecent Handbills

The first time that he is shown in the newspapers was in October 1869 when Gilbert Du Brange of 99 Seymour Street, Euston Square, (which is now called Eversholt Street), was charged in the Marylebone Police Court with causing indecent handbills to be distributed by Timothy Leonard.

Sergeant Martin, a plain clothes detective of S Division, said they’d been observing Du Brange for some time and that his real name was Charles Tiffin, a native of Scotland. Du Brange said this was a lie. Another detective, John Robertson, said he was in Seymour Street at 8.30pm on the 4th August and he saw Timothy Leonard go into Du Brange’s house. He came out again with a handful of small bills and he gave one to every person he met. He gave two to Detective Robertson who followed him as far as Camden High Street. Here Robertson took Leonard’s name and address, which turned out to be false and he was later apprehended on a warrant. On 20 Oct Detective Robertson went to Du Brange’s house. Eventually Du Brange admitted he had asked Leonard to distribute the bills. He said he also gave out handbills under the railway arch at Camden Town when Du Brange had gone there to lecture about the medicinal properties of his pills. Detective Martin said Tim Leonard had told him he was paid 1s 6d a day to hand out the bills.

Du Brange said he was well known and he had been selling pills in the open air for about two or three year until about nine months ago when his business had increased and he stayed in his shop. When he sold a box of pills he wrapped them in a handbill to advertise his products. When he sold them to a woman he wrapped them in plain paper. He said he sold about three or four gross of pills every day. The magistrate asked if he was a qualified medical man. Du Brange said he was a graduate of medicine from Giessen, Germany. The court clerk explained that anyone could get a diploma there for 10s. The police said that from their enquiries Du Brange was not in any way connected with the medical profession and the case was brought under the Metropolitan Streets Act of 1867, a section of which prohibited the distribution of handbills.  

The magistrate concluded there were no doubts about the case and Du Brange would pay a penalty of 40s and Leonard 10s or they would be imprisoned for 14 days and seven days respectively. Du Brange paid the fines and said the case would be his ruin. 

Following the report in the Times, Dr Wilbrand of the University of Giessen in Germany, wrote a letter to the editor saying they were repeatedly been accused of selling diplomas of medicine. This was not true and neither Charles Tiffin or Gilbert Du Brange was a graduate of the University.

Selling pills

It’s clear that the bad publicity didn’t stop Du Brange from peddling his pills. In March 1871 he was summoned at the Marlborough Street court with unlawfully representing himself as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. He had now moved his business to 36 Gilbert Street, off Oxford Street and he was living at ‘Salisbury House Kilburn’. He saw patients in Gilbert Street and in Kilburn. Police Sergeant Micklejohn said he went to 36 Gilbert Street and it had the appearance of a doctor’s shop. A diploma in the name of Dr Peskett was displayed in the window while ‘Du Brange’ was on the door. He had observed Peskett go into the shop numerous times and he witnessed Du Brange making up medicines and selling them. He also saw what he called ‘several disgusting medical representations’ in the shop. Micklejohn returned with the summoning officer Costigan, who asked Du Brange if he was the doctor. Du Brange replied that he was. The secretary of the Royal College of Surgeons gave evidence in court and said Du Brange was not on the register.

In summing up the magistrate said unqualified practitioners were ‘common pests in large towns’ and he imposed a full fine of £20 with costs, saying he wished it could be more. The next edition of the Lancet congratulated the Royal College of Surgeons for successfully bringing the prosecution against Du Brange and ‘having at last awoken to a sense of its duty’. 

Medical quacks had been common for years and Du Brange’s name appeared on a list of 26 quacks ‘practising’ in London in a book called ‘Revelations of Quacks and Quackery’ by Francis Burdett Courtenay. Punch in their review of the book said:

The vile practices, the monstrous impudence, the cruel rapacity, and the enormous gains of the obscene tribe of quacks, the mischief they do, the ruin they work, even to the causation of suicide, are fully set forth in "Revelations of Quacks and Quackery."

The Quack Doctor, by FOC. Darley from 'Every Saturday' a Boston Magazine, 1871

Despite his fines Du Brange remained undeterred and was summoned for the distribution of handbills in August 1874 and again in June 1875. His address was now given as the ‘Medical Institute’ 36 Gilbert Street. At the 1875 hearing Du Brange, behaving in a very excited manner, said the bills had been previously judged by Sir Thomas Henry (the chief magistrate at Bow Street), not to be obscene and there was no case to answer. The magistrate told him his manner was offensive and ungentlemanly and to conduct himself better. The case was proved and Du Brange was fined 10s. 

The indecent bills were most likely adverts for medicines claimed to cure the pox, other sexual diseases (usually called ‘secret diseases’ by the quacks), impotence, and abortion remedies for women, but we haven’t been able to find descriptions of Du Brange’s potions and pills.

Who was Gilbert Du Brange?

Obviously, he was a man operating on the edge and it proved difficult to find out who he really was. The only time he appears in official documents is on the 1871 census which shows a Gilbert Du Brange, at 19 Salusbury Road, Kilburn. He is 32 years old, a ‘medical botanist’, born in Carlisle. His wife is shown as Sarah Du Brange, 44, a skirt maker, born in Benson, Oxfordshire. Four children are listed: Robert Francis Greenwood, son, 18, a shopman to a medical botanist (presumably Gilbert), born in Islington; Alice Greenwood, daughter, 14, born in Islington and Clara Greenwood, daughter, 11, born in St Pancras. There is also a one year and nine month old son, Gilbert Du Brange, born in St Pancras; which indicates they had only recently moved to Kilburn.

The older children were Sarah’s. She was previously the wife of Robert Greenwood, a ‘chemist’ who made ‘laundry blue’ used to wash and whiten clothes, of Upper Seymour Street in Somers Town. On 17 January 1861 they baptised five children who had been born between 1850 and 1857 but they only got married in Lambeth on 6 March 1859. Robert Greenwood died in April 1866 and Sarah and her children later moved in with Gilbert Du Brange. There is no record of them marrying. Du Brange may have met Robert Greenwood through the manufacture of his pills.

In April 1875 Robert Francis Greenwood, Sarah’s eldest son, married Ellenor Tiffin in Manchester. Her father was Joseph Tiffin a blacksmith born in Penrith Cumberland. This set us thinking. During the first court case the police had claimed Gilbert Du Brange was really Charles Tiffin. As Tiffin is rather an usual name, this seemed too much of a coincidence. We believe that Tiffin came to London and began selling pox medicines under the name of Gilbert Du Brange. A linking fact was that a Gilbert Tiffin was born in 1869 in St Pancras, surely the boy called Gilbert Du Brange in the 1871 census. We sent off for his birth certificate which showed that Gilbert Tiffin was born on 11 August 1869 at 99 Seymour Street, Euston Square. His father is shown as William Tiffin, ‘herbalist master’. His mother is Sarah Tiffin, late Greenwood, formerly Warner (her maiden name). So it is clear that Gilbert Du Brange was really William Tiffin.

Dr William Richardson and the Greenwoods

There is an unusual newspaper report from May 1873, when surgeon William Richardson of 24 Southampton Street, Strand was charged with indecent behaviour to two girls in Hyde Park. In the Marlborough Street court, Clara Greenwood aged 13 of 36 Gilbert Street said her father was a doctor. She gave evidence that the previous afternoon she was in Hyde Park with her younger brother (probably Gilbert but not named), and an eight year old friend called Caroline Plante. They were sitting on a seat when the prisoner came and sat beside them. It was raining but he told them not to go as the rain would soon be over. Clara said that when she attempted to leave he grabbed hold of her jacket and indecently assaulted her. He did the same to Caroline who confirmed the story. PC Berry who was on duty in the Park, saw the incident and immediately arrested Richardson. Despite evidence of Richardson’s good character, the magistrate said the case should go to trial and he released Dr Richardson on bail of £500 and two sureties of £200 each.

Unlike William Tiffin alias Gilbert Du Grange, William Richardson had qualified as a doctor in 1859 and was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. In the 1871 census he was a GP, born in York and living at 13 New Bridge Street, Bridewell in the City with his wife Louisa. In 1873 his practice was at 24 Southampton Street, Strand as he said in court. But we couldn’t find a record of his subsequent trial and perhaps he came to a financial agreement with Du Brange/Tiffin and the case was dropped? Dr Richardson continued to practice as a GP and live with his wife until he died in 1890 aged 54. He left Louisa £94, worth about £8,500 today. 

After 1875

Despite our best efforts, it is frustrating that we were unable to track Gilbert Du Brange or William Tiffin beyond 1875, but he probably changed his name again and continued selling potions.

For an interesting book about the subject see, ‘The Quack Doctor’ by Caroline Rance, The History Press, 2013. Caroline also writes a regular blog; http://thequackdoctor.com/

Riches to rags – the story of Leslie Crotty and Georgina Burns

The streets of West Hampstead and Kilburn were home to hundreds of performers and musicians in the late nineteenth century: from acrobats to actors, music hall turns and singers. Some lived with their family, others rented accommodation; some stayed for many years, others were transient. When they were out of work, they placed adverts in The Stage and the Era newspapers, informing the profession they were ‘disengaged’ and seeking a company to work for, or a tour to join.

This is the story of two performers, husband and wife Leslie Crotty and Georgina Burns. Leslie was born in Galway in 1852, the son of a Presbyterian minister; Georgina was born in 1859 at 17 Porteus Road Paddington, the daughter of George and Eliza Burns. He was a printer.

The Burns family lived in Paddington and Kilburn for more than forty years. Baptist Minister Jabez Burns was the first to arrive in 1835, when he accepted the post of minister at the Aenon Baptist Chapel in New Church Street (later Church Street) Marylebone. His son George was living at 17 Porteus Road Paddington by 1851. The property was occupied by either Jabez or George, until George died there in 1884.

The Golden Years

Georgina Burns and Leslie Crotty were superb singers; she was a soprano and he a baritone. A performance in 1877 prompted the comment, ‘he promises to be one of the best baritone singers of the day’, this was one of hundreds of superlative reviews he received. Georgina was nicknamed ‘the English Patti’, a reference to Adelina Patti, born in Spain to Italian parents and described by Verdi as possibly the finest opera singer who ever lived.

Both were discovered by Carl Rosa, (the founder of the successful Carla Rosa Opera Company). Leslie was working in Dublin as a bank clerk while making a reputation for himself as an amateur singer. Rosa liked his voice and advised he go to Italy to be tutored, which he did. Georgina’s talent was obvious to her friends and they too urged her to go abroad to study but she refused: ‘I have only had about a dozen lessons in my life’ she later told a reporter. Employed by Rosa after he heard her sing a duet with sister Caroline, whose professional name was Cora Stuart, Georgina was already a rising star in the Company by the time Leslie was signed up and arrived in London in 1878.

Both Leslie and Georgina’s careers blossomed as they became popular and important members of the troupe, enjoying successful tours and rave reviews. They were married in St Mary’s Church Paddington on 21 June 1882; Carl Rosa was one of the witnesses. Their daughter Norah Leslie was born the following year.

Georgina Burns, 1879

The Crottys didn’t have a permanent home, probably because they spent so much time on tour. So they arranged to use the addresses of relatives as a contact point and to receive mail. By 1890, Georgina’s brother Thomas was living at 57 Brondesbury Villas Kilburn with his family, while his sister Mary Jane and husband were only a few doors away at number 75. The Crottys used both addresses while Thomas and Mary Jane remained in Kilburn. It’s also likely they stayed with their relatives when they were to London. In the 1891 census their daughter Norah was living with her uncle Thomas at number 57 Brondesbury Villas.

Leslie Crotty

Independence

After enjoying more than a decade of adulation and success, Georgina and Leslie left Carl Rosa and set up their own opera company, known as the Georgina Burns Light Opera Company or the Burns-Crotty Opera Company.

The timings are complicated by an April 1891 report, saying they had signed for the Carla Rosa 1891-1892 season. The press had already leaked the couple’s intention to tour with their own troupe that summer in what Georgina and Leslie described as an ‘operatic aside’ that did not conflict with their contract. But by May 1891, Georgina and Leslie were appearing independently of Carla Rosa, indicating they’d already left the Company.

There was an agreement with Carl Rosa that the tours of his and the new company would not conflict, which extended to the repertoire on offer. A very young Henry Wood (later the famous conductor of the Proms for over 50 years), was hired as musical director (his parents were old friends of the Crottys). Georgina and Leslie took to the road with a ‘lavish production’ of Rossini's Cenerentola (Cinderella). This work had never featured in the Carla Rosa repertoire and had last appeared on tour in 1870. It took some time to prepare; music from another composer was incorporated and the whole performance was directed by Cora’s husband, the actor manager T.W. Robertson. He revised and condensed the libretto to bring the opera up-to-date for modern audiences. After a few trial performances, the first tour began in August 1892 at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle on Tyne. The review described it as ‘a fairy story poetically treated and free from vulgar excrescences, with the strongest claims as a musical production’. Henry Wood departed for an engagement in London and was replaced as conductor by Eugene Goossens, junior.

Cinderella Programme, Hull, 9 January 1893 (The Arthur Lloyd website)

On Christmas Eve 1892, the Burns-Crotty Opera Company’s autumn tour closed in Cardiff, the 100^th night they had performed. Georgina was given ‘lovely presents, including a handsome sliver slipper, a case of toilet requisites and more than a dozen beautiful bouquets.’  There was only a short break before the spring tour began with a performance in Hull on 9 January 1893, a punishing regime. Georgina gave an interview to a Blackburn reporter the following month. She told him that she was familiar with numerous minor and at least 55 principal roles: ‘if a part were put in her hands one day she would be almost ready to play it the next.’  They had played to packed houses, reluctantly turning away disappointed customers and the Company was fully booked until May; ‘then they may rest awhile and in August, when they start again, the public may expect to see some novelties produced by them.’ 

Failure

Unfortunately the Crotty’s success was short lived and the company closed inside the space of two years. Touring was expensive (theatre hire, train tickets, publicity, salaries and accommodation to name but a few expenses), and despite positive reviews, perhaps the piece was not as popular as anticipated; a report of the first night in Birmingham said, ‘the attendance was not so good as the production merited, but is sure to improve during the week.’  

At their peak with the Carla Rosa Company, Leslie and Georgina had shared a substantial salary of £100 a week, equivalent to about £9,000 today. But they lost it all trying to make a success of their company, condemned by one reporter for attempting, ‘a wild scheme to popularise Rossini’s ‘Cenerentola’ in the provinces.’

The Beginning of the End

By April 1894 Georgina was ‘disengaged for concerts and operas.’ The couple were advertising their availability in the trade papers, giving 75 Brondesbury Villas (her sister Mary Jane’s home) as their postal address. It’s likely they were almost bankrupt. Added to issues of the possibly unwise choice of opera to tour, Georgina’s health was poor and there were hints that it had been failing for some time; a report of the Dundee performance of Cenerentola in August 1892 noted she had only recently recovered from a severe illness. She was eventually diagnosed as suffering from ataxia, which manifests as a lack of muscle co-ordination which can affect speech and walking. It can be inherited and is incurable. As one report put it when their company failed, ‘Madame Burns fell seriously ill and Mr Crotty’s voice lost its freshness.’

We can’t know if they were offered any work, but their names (plus the Kilburn address) appear in the columns of The Stage in August 1894 and again June 1895: in previous years there had been no need to advertise. Now, aside from a few performances, their singing careers were over.

The marriage broke down and Leslie and Georgina went their separate ways: he to Newcastle where he worked as a teacher and she to Liverpool. We think their daughter remained with relatives until she was old enough to lead an independent life, as no mention is ever made of Norah in the various press reports that chronicle the couple’s later years. By January of 1896 Georgina was living in Liverpool, still unable to perform but her health had improved. Her illness seems to have experienced periods of remission sufficient to give her and friends hope that Georgina might once again assume her role of a Prima Donna.

Leslie was also in a bad way. In November 1898, under the headline: ‘The Famous Baritone, Sad Position of Mr Leslie Crotty’, he appeared before Newcastle magistrates on a charge of insanity. Clearly lacking sufficient funds to be treated privately, and thought to be in danger of committing suicide, he’d been taken to the Workhouse to receive medical care. His state of mind was put down to heavy drinking. Leslie told the court he was ‘perfectly sane at the moment’ and asked to be released into the care of a friend, but the magistrate took the advice of a doctor who said Leslie must return to the Workhouse to be treated for at least another week.

When a performer was down on their luck, their colleagues often rallied round by holding a ‘benefit concert’ where the venue made no charge and performers gave their services for free. The takings were donated to a named recipient. In March 1899, a successful benefit was held for Georgina in Liverpool. She’d now been ill for nearly five years, ‘the victim of prolonged sickness, sorrow and unmerited trouble.’ She attended the concert, even mounting the stage where a colleague spoke for her: ‘I appear before you this afternoon as the mouthpiece of Madame Georgina Burns, who, unfortunately, is not yet strong enough to address you and say all she would so dearly love to say on her own account.’ Another benefit was held in September; but this time Georgina was absent.

Leslie was given his benefit concert in Newcastle in May 1900; it raised £145. He sang a couple of songs and was well received. A reporter noted Leslie hadn’t performed publically for some years due to ill health, but the event must have encouraged him to plan a come-back. He placed what was probably his last advertisement that July: Late Principal Baritone, Carla Rosa Opera Company. Mr Crotty is desirous of joining a good Light or Grand Opera Company going out in the Autumn.

The 1901 census finds him still giving his profession as that of an ‘operatic singer’ and occupying two rooms in a lodging house in Newcastle, while Georgina was now a patient at the National Hospital for Incurables in Finchley. Her illness was progressive but a year later, in May, when she was planning to give two concerts in Dublin, it was publicised that ‘her glorious voice retains its brilliance.’ We haven’t been able to find a review, just an advert for the night of the 27^th.

Advert 1902

Sadly, there was no recovery for Leslie and he died suddenly on 18 April, 1903 at 31 Grantham Road, Newcastle. His drinking problems must have been known in the opera world, so it’s unlikely he received any serious offers of employment in response to his advertisement. At the inquest, his landlady said;

He had been in the habit of drinking, and had suffered pains at the heart. On Saturday morning he was recovering from the effects of intemperance, (a drinking bout that had begun on Thursday), and she left him for a time, but he called her and said he had fallen. She found that he had slipped on the floor with his legs doubled under him. He was conscious for a few minutes, and tried to pull himself up by the bed, but failed.

By the time a doctor arrived, Leslie was dead. A verdict of ‘death from heart failure, accelerated by drinking’ was given. His funeral was conducted by his brother Albert, who was a rector in Ireland. Sadly, there’s no report of any other family member attending.

Poor Georgina suffered continuing ill health and persistent poverty: given his circumstances, it’s fairly certain she didn’t benefit from Leslie’s death. Things were looking very bleak and there was a good chance she too would also be sent to the Workhouse, when in February 1907, Dora Bagot took up her cause. Dora was married to an ex-MP and lived at Levens Hall, Westmoreland. Dora wrote about Georgina to the Daily Chronicle and her ‘pathetic appeal’ was reprinted by several other papers. At the time Georgina was living in Milnthorpe just a few miles from Dora’s home, ‘forsaken, forgotten and destitute.’ Dora further describes Georgina as a ‘widow with not a single relative in a position to support her’, yet she had relatives financially able to help her. Perhaps her nursing requirements were overwhelming.

Why Georgina had left Liverpool for Milnthorpe isn’t mentioned, but Dora wanted to raise enough money to send her back, ‘to where she is known and much respected.’ After a couple of weeks the fund stood at £250, headed by two donations of £5 each from the Prince and Princess of Wales. That July Georgina made what was probably her first appearance on a music hall stage, a far cry from her Carla Rosa opera days. The 1911 census finds her back in London at a boarding house on Brixton Hill. She probably stayed in the neighbourhood, as in 1914 she was admitted to the British Home for Incurables at Streatham. Yet another appeal for help was launched, this time by Major William Houghton Gastrell, the MP for North Lambeth. Georgina may have been one of his constituents. But she died at the Home on 24 May 1932; her death certificate indicates she died of heart disease.

James Joyce, a keen opera fan, who may have seen her perform was aware of Georgina's decline. A character in 'The Dead', his last story in 'The Dubliners' (1914), says that she remembers 'poor Georgina Burns'.

This is a sad story of two talented singers who achieved great adulation and praise before illness, depression and drink, brought them crashing down.

James Curtis, a crime writer

In 2007 London Books republished The Gilt Kid, a book written by James Curtis in 1936. This was followed by two more of his books, They Drive By Night and There Ain’t No Justice which were republished in 2008 and 2014.

During the 1930s James Curtis became popular for his gritty novels of the London underworld. The reviewers praised his use of slang, his hardboiled style and the refusal to romanticise his protagonist. He was later compared with Patrick Hamilton and American crime writers such as David Goodis and James T. Farrell.

There are more than a thousand words and phrases attributed to Curtis by lexicographer, Eric Partridge, in his ‘Dictionary of Slang’. For example the expression, ‘Gordon Bennett’ was used in his 1937 novel, You’re In the Racket Too. James Curtis was writing about working class life twenty years before the ‘Angry Young Men’ of the 50s.

Two of his books were made into films and Curtis wrote both the screenplays. They Drive By Night (1938) starring Emyln Williams was directed by Arthur Woods. Woods was an established director who made 26 films. When Alfred Hitchcock left the studio for America, Woods was scheduled to take over from him, but he was killed in WWII. The whole of the film is available on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-KpJzFl8BM

The second film, There Ain’t No Justice, was made in 1939. The leading role of a young boxer was played by Jimmy Hanley who becomes involved with a crooked promoter. The champion boxer, ‘Bombardier Billy Wells’ plays an unaccredited role in the film. The director was Pen Tennyson, the great-grandson of Lord Tennyson. He made three films in two years, but like Woods, he too was killed in the War.

There are two short clips of the film on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBRsJGebPJ8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8SR3dztkIw

Geoffrey Basil Maiden

James Curtis was the pen name of Geoffrey Basil Maiden. He was born on 4 July 1907 at Sturry in Kent, the youngest of the five children of Joseph (Joe) Maiden and his wife Bertha Laura von Fabricius. His parents had run a hotel in Delhi for about ten years when his mother came back to England for Geoffrey’s birth. She stayed for 18 months before returning to India. In 1912 they sold the hotel and the family settled in Hertfordshire, where they acquired the Aldenham Lodge Hotel. Joe Maiden also bought the Foley Arms Hotel in Great Malvern which he ran until the late 1930s. Geoffrey followed his two elder brothers as a border at the Kings School in Canterbury. It was probably here that he developed his dislike for the Maiden surname after being teased about it.

After leaving school Geoffrey spent a year in France rather than going to university. Back in London he got a job in the Reuters News Agency at the London Stock Exchange. But in 1932, he was in court, pleading guilty to stealing £460 of jewellery (today worth about £26,000), from his friend Mrs Magdalen Blanche Gillilan. She was a member of the very wealthy Curzon family and had just been granted a divorce. A detective said that Maiden was short of money, and had taken the jewellery when he’d been left alone in Magdalen’s flat for an hour and half. He’d travelled straight to France and sold it. Geoffrey was sentenced to six months hard labour and his experience of jail provided background material for some of his books.

Geoffrey went to Spain during the Civil War and then taught English in Barcelona for a short time before returning to London. He was outraged by the social inequality he witnessed in England and this led to his commitment to left-wing politics. He was a member of the Communist party for a short period.

Geoffrey Maiden (Nicolette Edwards)

A handsome and charismatic man, he socialised with bohemian artists and writers in London. During a visit to a bookshop in Chelsea he met Shirley Finlayson (born Finklestein), the daughter of a jeweller. She became pregnant and they were married on 2 September 1936 at the Chelsea Register Office. At the time he was working as a screenwriter at Pinewood Studios. The same year his first novel, The Gilt Kid, was published under the pen name ‘James Curtis’. He wrote four other novels in the 30s which received praise from the critics and sold well.

In 1939 Geoffrey volunteered for the British Army before War was declared and was posted to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force. He later served in Burma where he attained the rank of major in the Intelligence Corps. Much of his time was spent with Lord Mountbatten screenwriting the film Burma Victory. 

 

Still from Burma Victory (1946), where Geoffrey appears in a cameo role and detonates a stick of dynamite

His daughter Nicolette (Nicky) was born while he was abroad. But the enforced separation during the war hastened the break-up of the marriage and there was no further contact between Geoffrey and Shirley after her parents split up.

When Geoffrey returned to civilian life, his literary career ground to a halt as his drinking and gambling escalated. Nicky told us that her father worked as a night porter at some of the big London hotels, including Brown’s and the Dorchester. This meant he was able to carry out his research at The British Library during daytime hours. Geoffrey published his sixth and last novel, Look Long Upon a Monkey, in 1956. The title forms part of a longer quote by the poet William Congreve.

From 1959 Geoffrey lived alone in a bed-sit at 179 Kilburn Park Road for several years. Nicky said:

He was completely unmaterialistic and saw possessions as unnecessary. His sense of outrage about social injustice was always with him to some extent. He developed an obsessive interest in the IRA and spent his days frequenting Irish pubs in North London where he was very generous buying drinks for his pals.

179 Kilburn Park Road, today

When Nicky was a teenager she got her father’s address from his sister Naomi, a private secretary with a flat in Chelsea. Naomi supported Geoffrey both emotionally and financially through his difficult times. Nicky wrote to her father and arranged to meet, which they did periodically for some time after. Geoffrey took her on daunting cultural tours of London and she was always sent home with a second hand copy of a classic book from a shop in Tottenham Court Road. Every year he sent a Christmas card and wrote to her on her birthday. 

By 1973 he moved to 122 Gloucester Road for a brief period. The following year his address was Flat 4, 73 Rochester Place, Camden Road. But Geoffrey had developed late onset diabetes and was unwell. Sadly, he suffered a heart attack while in a local chemist shop, and died in the ambulance on the way to the Royal Free Hospital on 26 August 1977. Nicky and her husband Brian Edwards were the only mourners at his funeral in St Pancras cemetery in East Finchley. His death was not reported in the national newspapers.

We leave the last words to Nicky who said:

He was an intelligent, intellectual man frustrated by leading a mundane life. I am so glad he hasn’t been forgotten and that the re-launch of his books has created new interest in his life, which became very sad, particularly after his sister died.

We are very grateful to London Books and particularly to Nicolette Edwards, for help with this story of a pioneering novelist of the underworld.

Theft due to Influenza!

In January 1892, Joseph Hall who lived in Birchington Road, Kilburn, appeared at the Middlesex Magistrate Sessions. He’d been on remand since the previous October when the jury, after a hearing that lasted five hours, was unable to agree a verdict. Hall had been charged with stealing £5 from his employers, the Grand Junction Waterworks Company. He had worked as a rate collector for nine years, at a ‘large salary’ during which time he spent every Friday at the Ealing office.

Mr Atlas, the chief collector at Ealing, had noticed money had been going missing for some time, so he decided to mark some sovereigns and leave them in the till. He went out for a few minutes and when he returned, found five of the marked sovereigns had gone. He asked Joseph if anyone had come into the office and Joseph said no, no one had. Mr Atlas called a detective who searched Joseph and found the sovereigns and a £5 note in his pocket. Joseph changed his story, saying he now remembered giving change for a £5 note. He had taken coins from Mr Atlas’s till, but forgotten to put the note into the drawer.

In court, Joseph didn’t deny taking the money, but his unusual defence was that after recently suffering a severe bout of influenza he had become forgetful. He even produced two doctors who gave evidence to support this idea. Mr Littler, the magistrate in his summing up, said that if this was the result of influenza, it was a most dangerous disease! This time, the jury found Joseph Hall guilty but recommended him for mercy. He was sentenced to three months hard labour and £25 costs, with an extra month to be added to his sentence if he didn’t pay.

Two weeks later newspapers carried reports that Joseph had committed suicide in Holloway Goal. But the next day they said this was a mistake, he was alive and well and serving his sentence in Wormwood Scrubs!

Joseph Kennedy Hall was born in Islington in 1856, the son of a Parliamentary Association clerk. In the 1881 census Joseph was living with his parents at 89 Windsor Road Islington, and working as a clerk for a colonial broker. In 1887 he married Ella Margaret Alice Elliott at St Mary’s Church in Kilburn. When their daughter was born the following year, they were at 11 Kingsley Road, Brondesbury. By 1891 they had moved to 27 West End Lane and later to Birchington Road.

When Joseph came out of prison they lived for many years with Ella’s parents at 160 Belsize Road. Her father, James William Elliott, was a Professor of Music who composed hymns, anthems and two operettas. Arthur Sullivan invited him to be the editor of ‘Church Hymns’.  James was also a collector of nursery rhymes and in 1870 he published, ‘Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs Set to Music.’ He was the organist at All Saints, St. John’s Wood and then St. Mark’s, in Hamil­ton Square.

Joseph Hall died in 1908. His widow, Ella and her three children were living at 2 Linacre Mansions, Willesden Green at the time of the 1911 census. She and one of her daughters were working from home as writers for a benevolent society. Her elder brother Edward Elliott who lived with her, was a clerk at the office of the same society.

Influenza Epidemics

The reason Joseph Hall gave in court for his ‘forgetfulness’ was probably because he knew about the influenza epidemic which had started in 1889 and spread throughout the world. This is also why he was able to produce two doctors to give evidence in his defence. Influenza had arrived in London at the end of 1889 and this was followed by a second and then a third wave which hit London in 1892. 

Lots of patent medicines were advertised, some more lethal than others!

Godfrey's Amonium Inhaler, 1890's advert

The Illustrated Police News of 20 February 1892 reported a new form of influenza from Hungary. People suffered a very high fever and terrible stomach cramps. They became frenzied, struck out at people, and even tried to throw themselves out of windows.

The paper then told the tragic story of Charles Evans, a 22 years old architect who shared an apartment in Kensington Court Place. Suffering from influenza, he had woken up at 2 am shouting, ‘I am Mad, Mad’. Evans tore his nightdress to pieces and had a terrible fight with his friend. Evans said, ‘I shall have the strength of a madman in a few minutes. I do not want to hurt you, but I am afraid I shall.’

Front page, Illustrated Police News, 20 February 1892

His friend Campbell Moore ran to get help, but when he returned he found that Charles had thrown himself out of the window. On being taken to hospital, it was found that his spine was broken and he died shortly afterwards. On the 19 February, the inquest jury returned a verdict of suicide during temporary insanity.

Various strains of influenza have spread across the world. The worst was the so called ‘Spanish Flu’ epidemic of 1918 which killed huge numbers of troops as they returned from War. This pandemic killed more people than any other disease outbreak in history. Contemporary accounts believed that 21 million people died across the world, but more recent estimates suggest that it was much higher, between 50 and 100 million deaths.

It had started in what just looked like a mild spring fever, but then the number and severity of infections rose quickly and some people died within hours. It attacked young adults and the symptoms were so unusual that it was misdiagnosed as cholera or typhoid. The original site of the virus is unknown, but is now thought to be America. It probably came from a variant of a bird virus and the later 1957 and 1968 epidemics were found to have links to an avian strain.

The Famous Folly from Kilburn

Pelissier’s Follies

Harry Pelissier was born in 1874, in Finchley, the son of a diamond merchant who wanted his son to join the family business. But after only six months working at the office, Harry realised that he preferred music and the stage. With friends he formed ‘The Baddley Troupe’ and in 1894, they were giving performances for charities in London, including ones in Hampstead. Soon after turning professional, Harry saw that his Pierrot style of entertainment was replacing negro minstrels as the most popular seaside show. Pierrots wore a type of clown costume derived from the 17C Italian Commedia dell’Arte. The following year Harry bought control of the show, renamed it Pelissier’s Follies, and reduced the number of performers from ten to six. He believed a more sophisticated set of sketches would have greater appeal than the seasonal pier show and could tour all year round in theatres and music halls.

Harry Pelissier

In 1898 Pelissier’s Follies supported the famous music hall star Albert Chevalier; (who wrote the popular humorous tune, ‘Appy ‘Hampstead’). Over the next few years the Follies became very popular, appearing in London at the Alhambra, the Palace Theatre and the Tivoli Music Hall. In 1903 the group consisted of Harry, Lewis Sydney, Marjorie Napier, Dan Everard, Ethel Allandale and Gwennie Mars.

Their show combined parodies and skits on opera, Shakespearean plays and current London dramatic and musical successes, which Harry called ‘potted plays.’  In December 1904 Pelissier’s Follies were one of the acts chosen to perform at Sandringham before the King and Queen, to celebrate the Queen’s birthday. They established a regular show at the Apollo Theatre in Shaftsbury Avenue and also toured the provinces: it was a relentless schedule. One of their most popular sketches was ‘The Wild West Kilburn Shooting Act’, a parody of Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley. (It would be wonderful to see this performed in Kilburn today!)

Gwennie Mars, the Kilburn Folly

Gwennie Mars was the stage name of Gwenllean Mary Evans who was born at 75 Southampton Row Bloomsbury, in 1880. Her father Ebenezer Evans was a Welsh musician, who came to London in the 1850s. He worked as a piano tuner and gave lessons on the harp and piano. Gwennie’s brother Herbert was a comedian, and her sister Maud also joined the Follies, where she played the piano. In 1890 the family were living at 6 Fordwych Road and by 1897 they had moved to 26 Kilburn Park Road.

Gwennie said she first appeared on stage at the age of six in a duet with Maud. In her teens she joined a concert party and then became a principal girl in touring pantomimes. She developed a comedy routine playing piano and singing songs in broken English, which culminated in a seven week engagement at the Alhambra.

When Harry Pelissier saw Gwennie perform, he asked her to join his Follies troupe. She became one of its most popular members with her imitations of the music hall star Harry Lauder. Following one of Lauder’s many visits to the USA, she changed the words of his most famous song, “I love a lassie” to “I love the Yankees.”

Smiling and slim, she made her entrance with the Harry Lauder walk, leaning on a replica of his crooked stick, and brought the house down. In make-up, in voice and in manner, Miss Gwennie Mars gives a resemblance which is astonishingly true. And she has, more marvellous still, got Mr Lauder’s exact expression.

Gwennie Mars as Harry Lauder

The audience also loved her parody of Ophelia, who in the Follies version of Hamlet, fails to drown.

Marriage and a new life for Gwennie

By the 1901 census, the Evans family had moved again, to 26 Kilburn Priory, near Maida Vale. Ebenezer died here in May 1909 and was buried in Hampstead Cemetery, Fortune Green Road.

The 1911 census shows Gwennie and her mother had crossed the Kilburn High Road, to 143 Brondesbury Villas. That April she married Henry Burkinshaw, a civil engineer who worked in India. The fact the wedding was to take place was widely known, but no-one knew where. The service was held at Holy Trinity Church, Brondesbury Road and attended by close friends and family only. Described in one report as ‘exceedingly pretty,’ Gwennie wore a beautifully embroidered white silk dress made in Calcutta, a present from her husband.

Lewis Sydney, a fellow Follies star, was the best man. Harry couldn’t attend but his brother Fred took his place. One of the wedding presents was a handsome clock with diamond studded hands. The note said it was from ‘The Claque’ a group of four well known gentlemen, one of them a Cabinet Minister, who were frequent visitors to see Gwennie whenever she appeared at The Apollo. The honeymoon was spent in Eastbourne; Gwennie then intended to rejoin the Follies for the remainder of the season, before leaving England in October to be with her husband.

The Burkinshaw’s son, John Hugh, was born on 3 September 1913 and baptised in St Paul’s Cathedral in Calcutta. Sadly Gwennie’s health was badly affected by the Indian climate and although sent to recuperate in the cooler and fresher air of hills, she never recovered. She died the following year aged only 33 and was buried in Mussoorie Cemetery, leaving £1,545 in her will. 

John Hugh Burkinshaw was sent back to England to be educated. He became a consultant paediatrician, serving as a surgeon lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve during the Second World War. Later appointed a consultant at St James Hospital in Balham, John wrote academic papers and a popular book called ‘Your Book of the Human Body’ (1961).

What happened to the Follies?

The loss of Gwennie, one of its leading members left a role to be filled in the troupe, which was booked to appear for years ahead. When the Follies opened at the Apollo in August 1911, ‘in some respects not so happily inspired as usual.’ Harry knew he had to wow his public, so he came back with a new programme and a new recruit, Miss Fay Compton, ‘who has a pleasant voice and shows considerable aptitude for mimicry.’ Fay’s brother, Compton Mackenzie (who became a well respected and prolific author) was writing for the troupe.  The review in ‘The Stage’ praised individual performances (including those of Harry and Fay), but criticised some of the material: one skit was described as ‘weak and laboured’ while another was said to be ‘rambling.’ 

In September 1911 Pelissier surprised his fans and fellow performers by getting married. It was surprising because he was regarded as a confirmed bachelor, wedded to his work. ‘He has declared again and again that he would dare all things but one – get married.’

A tireless composer, with sixty-two published songs to his name by 1911, Harry had several pianos in his home, including one at the end of his bed, ‘for fear of loosing a bright musical inspiration before he could reach the instrument.’

Many were also surprised when they found out who the bride was: his new recruit, Fay Compton. They’d been engaged for just seven weeks. One photo appeared with the caption ‘Two Follies married’ and several reports made much of the fact that he was 37 and she just 16, ‘a pretty young lady still in her teens.’

It was a quiet affair and would have been even quieter, had not the press got wind of it the day before, laying siege to Pelissier’s Finchley home. But only one reporter discovered the church, St Peter’s in Great Windmill Street, Soho. The congregation numbered just five, family and close friends. Fay wore a large hat, a cream serge dress and there were no bridesmaids. The couple appeared on stage at the Apollo as usual that day, at both the matinee and evening performances. In honour of the occasion, Harry introduced a few bars of the wedding march in one of his skits while Fay received enthusiastic applause from the audience. Their son Harry Anthony Compton Pelissier was born in July 1912.

Fay and Harry continued performing in the Follies. In April 1913, Harry appeared to good reviews in Manchester and but he was not a well man and hadn’t been for some time. Some thought he’d had a breakdown but it was more serious than that. Uncharacteristically, he missed performances and rehearsals. In July, the Cheltenham local paper reported the Follies were booked to perform there the following month, but Harry was unlikely to appear as he was extremely ill. In fact, all his immediate engagements had been cancelled. A restorative voyage to Madeira and weeks spent convalescing in the seaside resorts of Ramsgate and Hythe had little effect. He returned to London in mid September where he died at his father-in-law’s home on the 25^th. The cause of death was reported as cirrhosis of the liver and heart failure.

Harry’s funeral service took place at Golders Green Crematorium. One of the tributes took the form of a Follies’s skull cap, made of white flowers with black buttons down the side, and dedicated to ‘the great white chief.’ Harry’s ashes were buried in his mother’s grave at St Marylebone Cemetery.

In his will Harry left £13,098, worth over a million pounds today. It was reported that sales of his music had brought in well over £1,000 a year, while for six years his income had topped the £6,000 mark, rising to £12,000 during one particularly profitable year.

There were many obituaries at the time (and later tributes), all praising Harry’s unique talent.

So Pelissier is no more. What a world of wit dies on that phrase! How much laughter will be buried in the grave! Pelissier gave us fun without fatuity. All his humour had an edge but he never cut too deep. He was a master of parody, satire, mimicry, song and everybody knows how cleverly he accompanied himself on the piano.

Shortly before his death, Harry had arranged the Follies should continue under the management of one of the original members, Dan Everard (real name Everard Daniel). He was the only surviving member from the heyday of the Follies.

In November 1913 they opened at the Coliseum. One of the reviews said:

It was – we could not help finding it – in one aspect a melancholy event. Continually one felt one was waiting for something, that the performance had not really begun … only with an effort could one remember that henceforth the Follies could never give us more than the sprit of H.G. Pellissier and echoes of his mirth and music.

In the end, comments were generally favourable with the belief that, ‘when the troupe have put the requisite “snap” into their work, they will have an entertainment that should vie in popularity with the old one.’ 

But sadly, the Follies never recovered their former glory.

Fay Compton

Fay’s full name was Virginia Lilian Emmeline Compton-Mackenzie; her father Edward was a successful actor manager and her mother was an actress. Fay was a versatile and talented actress who appeared on the West End stage in every type of production, ranging from drama and pantomime to comedy to Shakespeare. During her successful career, Fay made over 40 films and also featured in TV and radio productions.

Fay Compton

But she was unlucky so far as her married life was concerned. Her first marriage was cut short by Harry’s untimely demise. Then in June 1914, Fay’s engagement was announced to fellow actor and comedian, Lauri de Frece. They were married on 20 September, a week short of the first anniversary of Harry’s death. In the spring of 1916, Lauri told Fay to he didn’t want to live with her any more but in October the couple reconciled, though they still had problems. He told her to leave for the second time in 1917 and while she wanted the relationship to continue, he flatly refused. De Frece died within months of a court ordering a ‘restitution of conjugal rights’ in May 1921.

The following year Fay married the talented actor Leon Fred Quartermaine and they appeared together in many productions. He was granted a divorce in December 1941 on the grounds that Fay had deserted him for over three years.

Fay’s fourth and last husband was Ralph Champion Shotter, whose stage name was Ralph Michael. This marriage was dissolved in 1946, on the grounds of her husband’s adultery with actress Patricia Roc; Ralph was seventeen years younger than Fay.

Fay died in 1978; there are several silent clips of her on Pathe News and you can hear her singing on YouTube:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XXfU9eWIKY

Walter Sickert's Brighton Pierrots, 1915