The first step when searching for information on any subject, whether it be how to boil an egg or how often great-aunt Nellie played the Empire, is to surf the internet. At present I would recommend Google, though if you draw a blank try the other Search Engines, especially Altavista's UK button.

Having exhausted the electronic possibilities you will need to have recourse to the printed page. The catalogues of local libraries, including reference libraries, should be scoured for books on Music Hall and Variety (Dewey Classification 792.7); their indexes will offer a useful starting point for uncovering the life and career of your subject. Michael Kilgarriff’s books Sing Us One of the Old Songs (Oxford University Press 1999) and Grace, Beauty & Banjos (Oberon 1999), for instance, give birth and death years for hundreds of performers; these can lead you to obituaries in local and national newspapers, and especially in trade papers such as The Era, The Stage and The Performer. If you live within easy contact of London, full runs of these publications are kept on microfilm at Westminster Reference Library, 35 St Martin’s Street, just off the south side of Leicester Square, W1.

There is also, of course, a full run of these and all other national and provincial newspapers at the British Library’s Newspaper Library in north London’s Colindale Avenue opposite the tube station. A British Library reader’s ticket is not needed. A ticket for the British Library book and music collections at 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, is required however—ring Reader Admissions Office on (020) 7412 7677.

Letters requesting information may be sent to The Editor, The Stage, 43 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3XT (email: newsdesk@thestage.co.uk) and The Editor, Call Boy, 45 Kingscourt Road, London SW16 1JA (Call Boy is the quarterly magazine of the British Music Hall Society). The official historian of the British Music Hall Society, Max Tyler, is always ready and willing to help in these matters; his email address is max@maxtyler.orangehome.co.uk

The collection of books, programmes, reviews and memorabilia belonging to the Theatre Museum is, due to rebuilding work at its Covent Garden premises, now located in Blythe House, Blythe Road, London W14 0QX. The collection concentrates on legitimate theatre, opera and ballet though there is some Music Hall/Variety material available. Appointments must be made well in advance, so in the first instance ring The Study Room on (020) 7943 4727 (Wednesday-Friday mornings only) to check whether the collection has any material likely to be significant.

The Mander & Mitchenson Theatre Collection has a much greater concentration on the ‘illegitimate’ stage; this magnificent archive is now in its new premises at Greenwich—ring Richard Mangan (020) 8305 3893.

And at some stage you are almost certainly going to need to visit The Family Records Centre at 1 Myddleton Street, London EC1. The phone number is 01704 569824 and the centre is about ten minutes’ walk from the Angel Islington. Here are kept records of the nation’s births, marriages and deaths, of which certificated copies of entry may be obtained. But you must do the initial searching in the registers yourself, and having found the relevant details fill out the application form. A difficulty, which very often arises, is that the professional names of artistes were not their legal ones, and you will only find the legal name in the registers. A further complication is that married women were—and still are—registered at death under their husbands’ surnames.

Colin Charman has collated all his records for the two years 1911 and 1918 on to a database. For 1911 there are details of 290 bills, ranging from the London Hippodrome to Pentre Workmans’s Hall. For 1918 there are 11 bills only, almost all for Moss Empires’ Halls. The archive includes local press advertisements, previews and reviews from The Era, The Stage, and The Music Hall and Theatre Review, plus rehearsal calls from The Era and The Stage. Colin is always happy to run a name-check, and may be emailed on charmancolin@hotmail.com.

The John Johnson playbill collection at the Bodleian Library in Oxford is currently being prepared for on-line access.

The London Music Hall Database

Jacky Bratton is the custodian of a database at the Royal Holloway which includes all London Music Hall advertisements in The Era for the first week of each month of every fifth year from 1865 to 1890. Some data for 1866/7 is also included. Details of artistes by name and type, also managers, prices, times, and practices of one hundred and twenty-three Halls are included. Drawbacks are that only London venues are covered, and that ‘the five-yearly snapshot must miss many short-lived but possibly significant performances, and does not offer enough information about the trajectories of either acts or halls in a volatile and rapidly-changing industry’. Nevertheless Prof Bratton tells me that one query in three makes a hit. Write to her at: Drama and Theatre, RHUL, Egham, Surrey TW20 OEX, or preferably email her on: j.bratton@rhul.ac.uk.

Other useful notes….

If you do seek out any information from other sources, it always helps your search if you can enclose a stamped, self addressed envelope or, if you are writing from outside the UK, International Reply coupons to the value of approx. two pounds UK sterling.

In your own interests, please don’t forward any unsolicited material (e.g. for provenance / verification) to any of the sources or experts listed without obtaining their prior consent to send such material.

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