Kate Castleton was an early music hall performer and, as such, her formative years are difficult to trace. She was almost certainly born in 1856 in London and her last name was Freeman. There are varying accounts of her first name, the most common being Jennie, with Jane and May being other possibilities. Before she became a professional performer she said in a newspaper interview she worked in a factory making smoking-caps, was a member of a church choir and sang at temperance meetings. Information about this part of her life is hazy and the truth may have been given up for a story that would sit well with the public.
In 1875 there are accounts of her singing in the newly renovated Deacon’s Music Hall in Finsbury, London. She is described as a serio-comic with one rather patronising reviewer commenting, ‘in time, we should say that she will become popular.’ The trade paper, The Era, tells us Kate is nice-looking, wears good dresses and sings clearly and forcibly. She had been taken in hand by JW Cherry, a music teacher and composer of music hall songs. Mr Cherry was proud of his pupil and in 1876, during her Benefit at the London Alexandra Music Hall in the New Cut, he led her to the footlights where she was greeted with loud and protracted applause. The audience was known to be rowdy in that hall but her song Popsy-Wopsy found special favour and her dancing was said to be excellent. JW Cherry placed adverts in the trade papers offering tuition and boasted of Kate’s immense success everywhere.
However, in 1876 Kate was offered work in the States by Josh Hart who ran the Eagle Theatre in New York. On September 2nd 1876 JW Cherry put an angry notice in the Enr’acte, a trade paper, ending all contracts with Kate Castleton and stating his intention to divide her songs among his other pupils, taking away her right to sing them. She had unfinished business with Cherry and had not re-signed her contract with him. She could no longer sing songs such as Come Along, h’Isabella containing the lyrics ‘Come along h’Isabella, H’under me h’umbrella.’
Kate started out at the Eagle Theatre and was a great success. One of her admirers was Joe Elliott, a forger, who had been in prison in more than one country and had a link with the murder of a fellow forger’s wife. She knew something of his criminal life but married him in the hope he would put it all behind him. The year after their marriage Elliott forged a draft for $64,000 on the New York Life Insurance Company. He was arrested but escaped and went to Boston where he stole $8,000 from a jeweller and was subsequently given a prison sentence of five years. Kate tried to secure his pardon but was unsuccessful. They lived together when Elliott came out of prison but soon divorced. They got back together and married again but in 1884 she was divorced again. Three days after getting this divorce she married Harry Phillips a theatrical manager. Phillips was her manager in the ‘musical plays’ she appeared in. In 1888 she was granted a divorce from Phillips on the grounds of his drunkenness and cruelty.
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Kate had earned a good living in American theatre and bought two adjoining houses in Oakland, California in 1889. Her husband and some of his family lived in the larger house at the time of their divorce. They refused to leave and eventually Kate paid them to go – said to be $4,000. Kate’s family moved in, her sister occupying the smaller house, while Kate lived in a New York flat. In 1892 Kate died and various causes of death were given in newspaper obituaries. She was said to have died from a heart attack, peritonitis and death as the result of blood poisoning from a lotion used to treat sunburn. There is a strange addition to a report in an American newspaper reporting her death. It reads ‘Kate Castleton was never popular with professional people.’
Thanks to British Newspaper Archive, Ancestry, Monomania collection, Newspapers.com
Minnie Cunningham was a music hall singer and dancer, best remembered for featuring in a painting by Walter Sickert. She was born in Birmingham in 1870, the daughter of music hall comic singer Ned Cunningham. He was well-loved and successful, being described by the Birmingham Gazette as the ‘greatest comic singer in the world.’ His daughter started her music hall career after his death when she was ten years old. Minnie Cunningham tells us she began as a male impersonator and sang her father’s songs, although reviews of the time don’t mention male impersonation, only her singing and dancing. She moved from the provincial halls to London where she performed at the principal halls of the day.
painter Walter Sickert by the poet and music hall critic Arthur Symons. Both men were smitten by the popular artiste and Sickert arranged to paint her portrait. The figure of Minnie Cunningham was painted from life in Sickert’s studio in Chelsea in 1892. For this painting she stood on a raised stand as if she were on stage but when asking her to pose for a later painting Sickert writes that he had built a proper stage ‘six foot square, with steps up to it.’ The background is thought to be the Tivoli on the Strand in London where Sickert had seen her perform. The painting was originally entitled, Miss Minnie Cunningham ‘I’m an old hand at love, though I’m young in years.’ This was one of her popular songs at the time and while singing it she dressed as a young girl which made the performance more daring. The painting became known as Minnie Cunningham at the Old Bedford. It was exhibited for the first time at the New English Art Club in 1892 to a mixed reception, with a reviewer in the Pall Mall Gazette writing ‘The red dress of Minnie Cunningham glows with refined richness in its setting, but the proportions of the figure and the feet and hands seem altogether absurd.’ The subject and setting were just too shocking for many at the time and it was said by some to represent degradation and vulgarity.
contract in which she was engaged as principal girl in the Jack and Jill pantomime at £30 a week. She refused to wear the costume for her part saying it was too short and offended her standards of decency. Discussions with management were unsuccessful, often ending in tears. Eventually
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