G. H. Chirgwin (born George Chirgwin, 13 December 1854 – 14 November 1922) was a British
music hall comedian, singer and instrumentalist, billed as "the White-Eyed Kaffir", a
black face
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-Black people, Black people to portray a caricature of a Black person.
In the United States, the practice became common during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of ...
minstrel
A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer ...
act.
Biography
Born in the
Seven Dials area of London, he was one of four children of a
circus
A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclis ...
clown, of
Cornish descent. He first appeared with other family members in the Chirgwin Family troupe in 1861, when they imitated touring minstrel shows. The family became regular music hall performers, until 1868 when George Chirgwin first appeared as a solo act, singing "
Come Home, Father" in a summer engagement at
Margate
Margate is a seaside town on the north coast of Kent in south-east England. The town is estimated to be 1.5 miles long, north-east of Canterbury and includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay and Westbrook.
The town has been a significan ...
. Born simply George Chirgwin,
[ he took the initials G. H. in his stage name from those of ]G. H. MacDermott
Gilbert Hastings MacDermott (born John Farrell, 27 February 1845 – 8 May 1901) was an English lion comique, who was one of the biggest stars of the Victorian English music hall. He performed under the name of The Great MacDermott, and was wel ...
, but in later life sometimes used the name George Henry Chirgwin.
He worked for a while as a busker, and as a musical instrument salesman, gradually extending the range of instruments on which he performed to include piano, violin, cello, banjo, bagpipes, and one-string "Jap fiddle
The Jap fiddle or Japanese fiddle was a one-stringed bowed instrument used by street performers, music hall performers, and vaudevillians around the start of the 20th century, particularly in the United Kingdom and United States. The instrument ...
". He also sang in a falsetto voice. In the 1870s he toured with his younger brother, Tom, as the Brothers Chirgwin. He made his first solo stage appearances in London in 1877, and was immediately successful.
He was noted for his unusual stage appearance, appearing in a cloak, tightly fitting jumper and tights
Tights are a kind of cloth garment, most often sheathing the body from the waist to the toe tips with a tight fit, hence the name. They come in absolute opaque, opaque, sheer and fishnet styles — or a combination, such as the original concep ...
, and an exaggeratedly tall top hat
A top hat (also called a high hat, a cylinder hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat for men traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditional ...
. Rather than using a fully blacked-up face as other blackface minstrels did, Chirgwin chose to adapt this by making one large white diamond over one eye. This meant that his stage character was only partly inside the blackface minstrel tradition, and was using the tradition in a somewhat ironical manner; and indeed his material included cockney
Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or ...
material as well as straightforward blackface songs and sketches. He said that the make-up originated from an occasion when he was performing in the open air at Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
.A storm got up in the middle of the performance, and a lot of dust was blown into my right eye. The pain was so great that I naturally set to work rubbing my eye and when I faced the audience again there was a shriek of laughter. I had rubbed a patch of the black off round my eye, and the effect was so peculiar that I stuck to it ever since. Though, of course, it was some time before I adopted the diamond shaped patch as a distinctive mark.["The White-Eyed Kaffir: A Chat with Chirgwin"]
'' The Argus'', Melbourne, Australia, 28 November 1896, p. 13d, reprinted at ''Footlight Notes''. Retrieved 24 April 2017
His comic performances included improvised exchanges with audiences, and he was noted for his rapport with working class patrons; one reviewer said that he talked to his audience "as though he were addressing a select circle of old chums".[ He interspersed his routines with topical songs of his own making, and always ended his performances by singing his signature song, "The Blind Boy". He became one of the most popular music hall performers of his day, and was also successful in ]pantomime
Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking ...
. In 1896, he visited Australia, where in an interview he said: have no prepared patter, and I don't adhere to any specified programme. My idea is to come on the stage and have a good time. When I get an audience that I like I go off at score, giving them a melange of songs, dances and instrumental music, and reeling off the dialogue just as it comes into my head.... To show how I vary my entertainment, no one in England has ever been able to mimic me. Many of the best mimics have tried to do so. Perhaps one of them will say, 'Look here, Chirgwin, old man, I'm going to sing that song of yours exactly as you sing it.' Well, that man will come to the halls where I'm singing night after night, and when he thinks he has got me off pat I'll wing it in an entirely different way, so that when he comes on afterwards to mimic me it isn't a bit like, and he gets properly slipped up.
In 1895 he bought Burgh Island
Burgh Island is a tidal island on the coast of South Devon in England near the small seaside village of Bigbury-on-Sea. There are several buildings on the island, the largest being the Art Deco Burgh Island Hotel. The other buildings are thr ...
, off the coast of south Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...
, where he built a wooden house used for weekend parties. After his death, it became the site of the Burgh Island Hotel
The Burgh Island Hotel is a hotel on Burgh Island, Devon in England.
History
In the 1890s, the music hall star George H. Chirgwin built a prefabricated wooden house on the island, which was used by guests for weekend parties. The island was sol ...
.[ In the 1890s, Chirgwin appeared in two ]actuality film
The actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that, like the documentary film, uses footage of real events, places, and things. Unlike the documentaries, actuality films are not structured into a larger argument, picture of the phenomenon or coh ...
s, ''Chirgwin in his Humorous Business'' and ''Chirgwin Plays a Scotch Reel''. He later wrote and acted in a silent drama film called ''The Blind Boy''. A recording was released posthumously on the Edison Bell
Edison Bell was an English company that was the first distributor and an early manufacturer of Phonograph, gramophones and gramophone records. The company survived through several incarnations, becoming a top producer of budget records in Englan ...
record label on a 78 record of "The Blind Boy", with "Asleep in the Deep" on the B side
The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record company ...
.
Chirgwin continued to perform, and appeared in the first Royal Variety Command Performance in 1912."1912 – London Palace Theatre", ''The Royal Variety Charity''
Retrieved 24 April 2017 He retired in 1919 due to ill health, and became the landlord of a pub
A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...
, the Anchor Hotel in Shepperton
Shepperton is an urban village in the Borough of Spelthorne, Surrey, approximately south west of central London. Shepperton is equidistant between the towns of Chertsey and Sunbury-on-Thames. The village is mentioned in a document of 959 AD ...
, Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...
, until his death in 1922 aged 67.
Filmography
*''Chirgwin in his Humorous Business'' (1896)
*''Chirgwin Plays a Scotch Reel'' (1896)
*''The Blind Boy'' (1917)
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
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*
Further reading
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chirgwin, G. H.
1854 births
1922 deaths
People from Covent Garden
Music hall performers
Blackface minstrel performers