To mark forthcoming International Women’s Day, and as a nod to my friends at Folk the Patriarchy, here is the first in what might become an occasional series on “Women of the Halls.”
Music Hall allowed a very small number of working class men and women to escape the relative drudgery of their lives and become independently wealthy. It was one of the few ways in which Victorian women from a poor background could achieve any degree of wealth and independence. But life in the halls was not all sweetness and light, and by the early 20th century there were thousands of Halls operating in an increasingly exploitative way.
The industrialisation of the halls led to the formation of a trade union, the Variety Artists Federation, which took its first industrial action in 1906. Managers tried to ban the union, but there was a major strike in 1907. Many of the great women stars of the day were active supporters of the strike. Marie Lloyd explained why they supported the strike:
“We the stars can dictate our own terms. We are fighting not for ourselves, but for the poorer members of the profession, earning thirty shillings to £3 a week. For this they have to do double turns, and now matinées have been added as well. These poor things have been compelled to submit to unfair terms of employment, and I mean to back up the federation in whatever steps are taken.”
The strike lasted two weeks, and ended when the management caved and agreed a minimum wage and a maximum working week. The victory of the strike was in no small part due to the activity of Marie Lloyd and the other women in the union.
On a different note, women had to be tough to work the Halls, and I can’t resist the story of Bessie Bellwood and how she dealt with hecklers…
Bessie Bellwood (1856 to 1896), born in Ireland, described as a strict Catholic, worked as a rabbit skinner as a child. At first her repertoire in the Halls consisted of serious ballads, but she quickly switched to comic material. Her most famous song was “What cheer ‘Ria” but she was perhaps more famous for her way of dealing with hecklers.
Her first appearance at the Star Bermondsey was recorded by comic writer Jerome K Jerome. I think it’s a wonderful piece of writing in its own right: it gives a beautiful picture of Bessie dealing with an aggressive heckler, winning over the audience, and destroying the man who was tormenting her. It’s a famous incident, and a number of books about Music Hall quote the article very selectively, but I think it’s worth quoting at some length. One thing I would say: the author’s obsession with Bessie’s tongue seems a bit strange to the modern reader (or to me at least!)
Bessie got her chance to debut at the Star due to the nonappearance of a popular local act. She was singing in character as the zither-playing Signorina Ballatino, and we pick up the story after the audience has spent several minutes expressing their disquiet at the absence of the local favourite. The master of ceremonies had completely failed to calm the crowd, and when Bessie finally stepped forward to play she:
.... was most un-gallantly greeted with a storm of groans and hisses. Her beloved instrument was unfairly alluded to as a pie-dish, and she was advised to take it back and get the penny on it. The chairman, addressed by his Christian name of “Jimmy” was told to lie down and let us sing him to sleep. Every time she attempted to start playing, shouts were raised for Joss. At length the chairman, overcoming his evident disinclination to take any sort of hand whatever in the game, rose and gently hinted at the desirability of silence. The suggestion not to meeting with any support, he proceeded to adopt sterner measures. He addressed himself personally to the ringleader of the rioters, the man who had first championed the cause of the absent Joss. This person was a brawny individual, who judging from appearance, followed in his business hours the calling of Coalheaver. “Yes, sir,” said the chairman, pointing a finger towards him, where he sat in the front row of the gallery; “You sir, in the flannel shirt. I can see you. Will you allow this lady to give her entertainment?” “No,” answered he of the coal heaving profession, in stentorian tones. “Then sir,” said the little chairman, working himself up into a state suggestive of Jove about to launch a thunderbolt “then sir all I can say is that you are no gentlemen.” This was a little too much, or rather a good deal too little, for the Signorina Ballatino. She had hitherto been standing in a meek attitude of pathetic appeal, wearing a fixed smile of ineffable sweetness; but she evidently felt that she could go a bit farther than that herself, even if she was a lady. Calling the chairman “an old messer” and telling him for……… sake to shut up if that was all he could do for his living, she came down to the front, and took the case into her own hands. She did not waste time and the rest of the audience. She went direct for that coalheaver, and thereupon ensued a slanging match the memory of which sends a thrill of admiration through me even to this day. It was a battle worthy of the gods. He was a heaver of coals, quick and ready beyond his kind. During many years sojourn East and South, in the course of many wanderings from Billingsgate to Limehouse Hole, from Petticoat Lane to Whitechapel Road; out of eel pie shop and penny gaffs; out of tavern and street, and court and doss-house, he had gathered together slang words and terms and phrases, and they came back to him now and he stood up against her manfully. But as well might the lamb stand up against the eagle, when the shadow of its wings falls across the green pastures, and the wind flies before it’s dark oncoming. At the end of two minutes he lay gasping, dazed and speechless. Then she began. She announced her intention of “wiping down the bloomin’ ‘all” with him and making it respectable; and, metaphorically speaking, that is what she did. Her tongue hit him between the eyes, and knocked him down and trampled on him. It curled round and round him like a whip, and then it uncurled and wound the other way. It seized him by the scruff of the neck, and tossed him up into the air, and caught him as he descended, and flung him to the ground, and rolled him on it. It played around him like forked lightning, and blinded him. It danced and shrieked about him like a host of whirling fiends, and he tried to remember a prayer, and could not. It touched him lightly on the sole of his foot and the crown of his head, and his hair stood up straight and his limbs grew stiff. The people sitting near him drew away, not feeling it safe to be near, and left him alone, surrounded by space and language. It was the most artistic piece of work of its kind that I have ever heard. Every phrase she flung at him seemed to have been woven on purpose to entangle him and to embrace in its choking folds his people and his gods, to strangle with its threads his every hope, ambition, and belief. Each term she put upon him clung to him like a garment, and fitted him without a crease. The last name she called him one felt to be, until one heard the next, the one name that he ought to have been christened by. For five and three quarter minutes by the clock she spoke, and never for one instant did she pause or falter…. At the end, she gathered herself together for one supreme effort, and hurled at him and insult so bitter with scorn, so sharp with insight into his career and character, so heavy with prophetic curse, that strong men drew and held their breath while it passed over them, and women hid their faces and shivered. Then she folded her arms, and stood silent; and the house, from floor-to-ceiling, rose and cheered her until there was no more breath in its lungs.
Jerome, K Jerome.The Idler ; an illustrated magazine, Feb. 1892-Jan. 1899; London (Mar 1892): [119]-135.
Last Updated on May 31, 2020 by John Baxter | Published: March 2, 2020
