Treading the boards
Stories of Wilberforce Road: Number 9
Number 9 Wilberforce Road today is part of the Central Park Hotel, and is part of the block which developers want to bulldoze and replace with a 146 bedroom block. Like other houses in this street, No. 9 was part of the development of Brownswood Park intended to rival Kensington as a new desirable suburb of London in the 1870s. It attracted a variety of middle-class families.
In 1901, nearly 30 years after being built, the demographic of the street was beginning to change: there were fewer households with servants, and more houses with lodgers or boarders.
Number 9, on the night of the 1901 census, was occupied by the Payne family, who had taken up residency some time in the previous ten years. The head of the household, 51 year old George Payne, had been a 'china merchant' in Plymouth for some twenty years. Perhaps the move to London was caused by a decline in the market for china, or perhaps the nature of his job still involved the china industry but needed him to be nearer London: in 1901 he stated his occupation as 'commission agent'. (Ten years later, living in a different part of London, George claimed he was a 'slate salesman').
With George in No. 9 were his wife Mary, daughter Ethel, and son Ernest, all born in Plymouth. Mary also listed her own occupation. This was still unusual, in a time when most married women of her class would simply have been listed as 'wife'. Mary's occupation was 'Boarding house keeper', and sure enough two boarders are listed as residents, both young men, from different parts of Britain, but both 'Railway clerks'. The rent paid by the boarders would have helped the Payne family, but like an increasing number of families in the street, the Paynes had no servant.
Of the children, Ernest, who was 14 , was still at school, but his sister Ethel was an earner, albeit in a precarious profession. She listed her occupation as 'Theatrical actress', and on the night of the census she was being visited by another 'theatrical actress' called Violet Springer or Sprenger. I haven't been able to find any other information about Violet, but references to Ethel appear several times in the Edwardian theatrical press.
These notices and reviews indicate that Ethel, like most in her profession, never made top billing and never received anything but passing mention in the reviews.. She worked with some of the many repertory companies touring the country, for example playing one week in Dumfries then the next in Oldham. a typical notice, this one from 1909, indicates that a 'theatrical actress' had to be able to play variety and music hall too.
Increasingly, it seems, Ethel was finding work which exploited her talents as a dancer.
It wasn't a particularly glamorous or attractive lifestyle, and by 1911, she had become a dance teacher, still living with her widowed father George in Bloomsbury. She had premises in Rupert Street in Soho, and eventually, it seems, after the Great War had ended, in Stoke Newington. This advert from The Stage also makes intriguing reference to her successful stint as a Nautch Dancer in a revue.
Nautch dancing was an exotic dance based on traditional Indian dances that was part of an Edwardian craze for exotic and orientalist performance. Maybe this is Ethel?
I can't track how long Ethel lived. There are references to an Ethel Payne living in Islington in 1945, but there is no way of knowing whether she was the Ethel who began her career all those years before, from Number 9 Wilberforce Road.
Number 9 Wilberforce Road today is part of the Central Park Hotel, and is part of the block which developers want to bulldoze and replace with a 146 bedroom block. Like other houses in this street, No. 9 was part of the development of Brownswood Park intended to rival Kensington as a new desirable suburb of London in the 1870s. It attracted a variety of middle-class families.
In 1901, nearly 30 years after being built, the demographic of the street was beginning to change: there were fewer households with servants, and more houses with lodgers or boarders.
Number 9, on the night of the 1901 census, was occupied by the Payne family, who had taken up residency some time in the previous ten years. The head of the household, 51 year old George Payne, had been a 'china merchant' in Plymouth for some twenty years. Perhaps the move to London was caused by a decline in the market for china, or perhaps the nature of his job still involved the china industry but needed him to be nearer London: in 1901 he stated his occupation as 'commission agent'. (Ten years later, living in a different part of London, George claimed he was a 'slate salesman').
With George in No. 9 were his wife Mary, daughter Ethel, and son Ernest, all born in Plymouth. Mary also listed her own occupation. This was still unusual, in a time when most married women of her class would simply have been listed as 'wife'. Mary's occupation was 'Boarding house keeper', and sure enough two boarders are listed as residents, both young men, from different parts of Britain, but both 'Railway clerks'. The rent paid by the boarders would have helped the Payne family, but like an increasing number of families in the street, the Paynes had no servant.
Of the children, Ernest, who was 14 , was still at school, but his sister Ethel was an earner, albeit in a precarious profession. She listed her occupation as 'Theatrical actress', and on the night of the census she was being visited by another 'theatrical actress' called Violet Springer or Sprenger. I haven't been able to find any other information about Violet, but references to Ethel appear several times in the Edwardian theatrical press.
These notices and reviews indicate that Ethel, like most in her profession, never made top billing and never received anything but passing mention in the reviews.. She worked with some of the many repertory companies touring the country, for example playing one week in Dumfries then the next in Oldham. a typical notice, this one from 1909, indicates that a 'theatrical actress' had to be able to play variety and music hall too.
Increasingly, it seems, Ethel was finding work which exploited her talents as a dancer.
It wasn't a particularly glamorous or attractive lifestyle, and by 1911, she had become a dance teacher, still living with her widowed father George in Bloomsbury. She had premises in Rupert Street in Soho, and eventually, it seems, after the Great War had ended, in Stoke Newington. This advert from The Stage also makes intriguing reference to her successful stint as a Nautch Dancer in a revue.
Nautch dancing was an exotic dance based on traditional Indian dances that was part of an Edwardian craze for exotic and orientalist performance. Maybe this is Ethel?
I can't track how long Ethel lived. There are references to an Ethel Payne living in Islington in 1945, but there is no way of knowing whether she was the Ethel who began her career all those years before, from Number 9 Wilberforce Road.
Comments
Post a Comment