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Music Hall Artiste - Rose Vernon

Lady Penelope

Lady Penelope

master brummie
I spent a long time deciding which thread to post this on and I'm still not sure if I'm where I ought to be. Please feel free to move to a more suitable place.

The lady in the photographs is my friend's grandmother. She was 'on the halls' in Birmingham at the turn of the 19th/20th Century. She was, as you can see,scan0001.jpg a male impersonator and was said to be a friend of Vesta Tilley and Marie Lloyd. Her stage name was Rose Vernon and her birth name was Rose Elton. As far as I can tell she married a man named (James) Charles Jones, known as Charles in 1907. We believe he died in about 1910. She had two daughters, Lily b.1904 before she married Charles, and Phyllis b.1908, my friends mother.

Any information would be most welcome, especially about her stage career.

Thanks for any help.
 
Lady P,

This is where the British Libraruy Newspaper Archive is your best friend as all issues of the two main theatre newspapers are there in total. Rose Vernon has a total of 139 entries in The Era and a total of 48 entries in The Stage, far too many for me to extract and post here. Many will be reviews of performances when she was touring, but well worth a short term subscription.

Maurice :cool:
 
pen its £12.95 for a months subs...plenty of other things you may want to search for as well...those are lovely photos you posted

lyn
 
Lady P,

A further bit of information - the earliest entry is in 1867 in The Era, and the latest 1912 in The Stage. Hacking around the web, you may well find additional photographs inthe form of visiting cards - most touring artists had them done and quite often at a photographic studio when they they had an idle moment whilst on tour. Remeber to put "Rose Vernon" in quotes on your search and and the word theatre or photograph as well. And I'm not guaranteeing that all these relate to your Rose Vernon :)

Maurice :cool:
 
Yes - I'm conscious that there could be more than one Rose Vernon. Worth the subscription to try to sort them out as Sospiri suggests.

One last question please: This is a photograph believed to be Rose and Charles on their wedding day. I believe this was in 1907 but I'm not certain that it is them. Any ideas please? Do the fashions seem right and does this look like the barman? (I'm aware that in every photo I've ever had taken I seem to look different to the last!)

I could only find the civil record for the marriage, not a church entry which I had hoped would give me a little more to go on.
scan0002.jpg
 
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In post 6 MWS finds that Rose Elton was born around 1872. In the 1881 census she is shown as 8 years old, and in 1891 as 18. She is with her uncle at Lord Street and down as a Steel pen looker over.

A marriage can be found to a Chas Jones in 1907, but in the 1911 census she is down as widow and caretaker water works, S Staffs. 26A Paradise Street,

She dies in 1912.
 
If the death is Mar 1912, Aston then it's not her that is a Rose Edith Jones.

Possible but wasn't certain it was her in 1911.
 
Pedro,

Yes, I spotted the Rose Vernon-Paget and without going through every single entry in The Era, I've no idea how many are legit. But it looks as though she had a relatively short theatrical career compared with many who perform right up until their dying day!

MWS

On the 1939 Register gives her birth date as 17 October 1873 and is down as a widow. Possibly a child in 1908 terminated her theatrical career, but many go ahead carting several kids around or leaving them with minders.

Maurice :cool:
 
Her daughter Phyllis is with her aunt in 1911, so if the census Pedro found earlier is not the right Rose she could have been off performng somewhere. Not sure where her elder daughter is.
 
sospiri said:
Pedro,

Yes, I spotted the Rose Vernon-Paget and without going through every single entry in The Era, I've no idea how many are legit. But it looks as though she had a relatively short theatrical career compared with many who perform right up until their dying day!

MWS

On the 1939 Register gives her birth date as 17 October 1873 and is down as a widow. Possibly a child in 1908 terminated her theatrical career, but many go ahead carting several kids around or leaving them with minders.

Maurice :cool:
Click to expand...

Looking again at the 1911 census. The Mrs Rose Jones that I came across is down as 38 years old, a widow, and a caretaker at Paradise Street. This would fit her birth in 1873, and the loss of her husband.

But at 38 would it be a bit late to take up acting ? Maybe she started in the theatre a little after 1891, as you say she gave up some time before 1911, this would still give her around 20 years.
 
I found your post really interesting as I have a photo, of two members of my birth family, two ladies dressed as men. One was a Rose too and I think the other was Kitty, two sisters. When mum was on the boards, one of her troupe Doris sang Berlington Bertie dressed as a 'Gentleman', Top hat etc, and she had some sheet music of hers with the artist as Ella Shields.
 
Nico,

Ella Shields (1870-1952) was actually born in Maryland USA, and with Vesta Tilley, was one of those responsible for making that song popular.

Maurice :cool:
 
sospiri said:
Nico,

Ella Shields (1870-1952) was actually born in Maryland USA, and with Vesta Tilley, was one of those responsible for making that song popular.

Maurice :cool:
Click to expand...
I know about 4 verses, pieces of verses. Bertie sings about Temple Bar and the races. Buckingham Palace etc. And the King and the Prince of Wales and Rothschild. It brings me back to our back room and mum coaching Doris, "walk like a man!" I remember a lady dressed as a man singing I'm Following me father's footsteps, I'm Following me dear old dad!"
 
After her resounding performance as Bertie, Doris was labelled Berlington Bertie, "here er comes'" it was better than Lavendar Britches as my Nan called her as she sang Lavendar Trousers before that.
 
Getting back to the original post, I have just scanned all 48 entries in The Stage, and the vast majority of them relate to Rose Vernon Paget. Certainly there is nothing after 1903 which could conceivably relate to Lady P's Rose Vernon.

EDIT: Scanning some of The Era entries, the first appearance of a Rose Vernon, serio-comic, appears at Cheltenham in 1891, and the first appearance of Rose Vernon-Paget is in 1894. This was long before the start of Equity (1930), which enforced the unique name rule, so the possibility of two or more people using the stage name Rose Vernon leads to a bit of a problem when scanning papers like The Era and The Stage. Of one thing we can be reasonably sure is that her theatrical career was of little more than ten years.

Maurice :cool:
 
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There's a death registered for a James Charles Jones 1910 (date mentioned in original post) Aston. This gives his ages as 30 but even if this is him he'd be difficult to find without further info.
 
The only newspaper entry for James Charles Jones at this time relates to the transfer of the licence of the Bell Inn, Littledean, GLS from James Charles Jones to a Hubert Hancock.

Maurice :cool:
 
I'm inclined to think that she performed in the Midlands only, i.e. never travelled far from home, as it was only a short career. I've researched a number of theatricals including Birmingham's own Marie Longmore and she performed the length & breadth of the country, including Dublin, as well as America, and was still performing until shortly before she died.

Maurice :cool:
 
pjmburns said:
Not sure how relevant this is but Rose was a witness in 1893 at the wedding of her sister Lilian to James Broomhall. It is Lilian who is looking after Phyllis on the 1911 census.
Click to expand...

If we look at the 1901 census for James Broomhall. His wife is Lillian and staying with them is his wife’s sister Rose who is a pen maker. There appears to be what could be E after her name. (Elizabeth ?)

[Edit...Rose’s age is 28 which would give an 1873 birth]
 
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Pedro,

A penworker in 1901 - long hours & poor pay - barely makes even a semi-professional career possible, and by then she was 28. My guess would be that her stage career would be more or less over by then. Marie Lloyd, for instance, was three years older than Rose and by 1920 (and she was a big star), her career was in decline. Most of these girls started in provincial theatres by the age of 15 or 16, and their careers had peaked by their mid-20s, so we should be concentrating on the 1890s decade. I'll have a wade though The Era this afternoon.

Maurice :cool:
 
sospiri said:
The only newspaper entry for James Charles Jones at this time relates to the transfer of the licence of the Bell Inn, Littledean, GLS from James Charles Jones to a Hubert Hancock.

Maurice :cool:
Click to expand...

I'm still putting all the information together and thank you for it. However, did you mean 'around this time' to mean the year of his death? I believe he worked in other towns but not sure which ones. Something else to ask when I visit my friend on Sunday.
 
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