Jesse Louise Whittock (3 February 1896 – 1951) was an actress, singer and broadcaster who performed with the

D'Oyly Carte Opera Company The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is a professional British light opera company that, from the 1870s until 1982, staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere. Th ...

in the mid-1920s, appeared in the chorus of an early film version of ''

The Mikado ''The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen Gilbert and Sullivan, operatic collaborations. It opened on 14 March 1885, in London, whe ...

'' and performed in the early years of the

2LO 2LO was the second radio station to regularly broadcast in the United Kingdom (the first was 2MT). It began broadcasting on 11 May 1922, for one hour a day from the seventh floor of Marconi House in London's Strand, opposite Somerset House. H ...

radio station in 1924.

Life and career

Whittock was born in

Midsomer Norton Midsomer Norton is a town near the Mendip Hills in Bath and North East Somerset, England, south-west of Bath, north-east of Wells, north-west of Frome, west of Trowbridge and south-east of Bristol. It has a population of around 13,000. ...

, Somerset, on 3 February 1896. She performed as a singer in the very early days of radio in 1924 on the

radio station, just two years after it started broadcasting. She made her first London stage appearance as Sally Besom in the

ballad opera The ballad opera is a genre of English stage entertainment that originated in the early 18th century, and continued to develop over the following century and later. Like the earlier '' comédie en vaudeville'' and the later ''Singspiel'', its disti ...

''Kate; or, Love Will Find Out the Way'' at the Kingsway Theatre in 1924. She joined the

in 1925, playing Kate in ''

The Yeomen of the Guard ''The Yeomen of the Guard; or, The Merryman and His Maid'', is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888 and ran for 423 performances. This was the eleventh ...

'' and Fiametta in ''

The Gondoliers ''The Gondoliers; or, The King of Barataria'' is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 7 December 1889 and ran for a very successful 554 performances (at that time the ...

''. In 1926 she also played the roles of Plaintiff in ''

Trial by Jury A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a legal proceeding in which a jury makes a decision or findings of fact. It is distinguished from a bench trial in which a judge or panel of judges makes all decisions. Jury trials are used in a significant ...

'', Celia in ''

Iolanthe ''Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri'' () is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, first performed in 1882. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh of fourteen operatic collaborations by Gilbert ...

'', and Lady Psyche in ''

Princess Ida ''Princess Ida; or, Castle Adamant'' is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was their eighth operatic collaboration of fourteen. ''Princess Ida'' opened at the Savoy Theatre on 5 January 1884, for a ru ...

''. She left D'Oyly Carte in 1927. She appeared in the chorus of an early film version of the

Gilbert and Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which ...

opera, ''

'' in 1926. In 1931 ''

The Stage ''The Stage'' is a British weekly newspaper and website covering the entertainment industry and particularly theatre. It was founded in 1880. It contains news, reviews, opinion, features, and recruitment advertising, mainly directed at those wh ...

'' reported her appearance in ''The Gondoliers''. She died in 1951 in

Esher Esher ( ) is a town in Surrey, England, to the east of the River Mole. Esher is an outlying suburb of London near the London-Surrey Border, and with Esher Commons at its southern end, the town marks one limit of the Greater London Built-Up Ar ...

, Surrey, England.

References

External links

Louise Whittock
at IMDB {{DEFAULTSORT:Whittock, Louise 1896 births 1951 deaths 20th-century British women opera singers Actresses from Somerset Musicians from Somerset People from Midsomer Norton Television personalities from Somerset