| Solo Male Artists | Chirgwin 1854 - 1922 |
| The Negro Delineators |
Kilgarriff list fourty five sings for his repertoire in Sing us one of the old Songs
Many writers on the Music Hall include G. H. Chirgwin, I have included Wilson Disher in full. Chance Newton is too wordy for such treatment and is condensed. Frederick DennyNo other music hall singer excited such wild outbursts of applause as Chirgwin did, and no song was ever demanded more insistently than "Blind Boy." There was a night at the London Pavilion when he declined. "Blind Boy," shouted the gallery. Chirgwin came back to explain that he was due at the Temple, Hammersmith. "Blind Boy," shouted the gallery. "If you can’t be quiet I’ll. have you all turned out," said the manager. "Blind Boy!" shouted the gallery. They were all turned out, still shouting for it.
Year after year he had to sing it whether he wanted to or no. "Blind Boy? Yes, I was last night!" he often replied in his thin, piping voice. How the widely credited story got about that the song was inspired by the blindness of a son of his own he never knew. Whether there was any more truth in the legend that he first wore his diamond - shaped "white eye" through the accident of rubbing the burnt cork away on a hot night cannot be said for sure. He was billed as "The White-Eyed Kaffir" in 1877, and before that he was " The White-Eyed Musical Moke," which takes us back to the days when he was one of the Brothers Chirgwin. He began as one of the Chirgwin Family at Swallow Rooms, Piccadilly, in 1861
In the eighties he played kings at Sara Lane’s pantomimes at the "Old Brit," Hoxton. " King Trickee" or Harlequin, the Beetle, the Sporting Duchess and the Golden Casket was one, and " King Kookoo; or, Harlequin Bon-Bon and the Golden Serpent" another.
His jubilee was celebrated at the Oxford in 1911 the next year he appeared at the Palace in the first Royal Variety Performance. Only Marie Lloyd was better loved.
From Romance of the Music Hall by M.Wilson Disher
Chance Newton lays great claim to being the friend and confident to many of whom he writes. Such is the case with Chirgwin in 'Idols of the Halls'. Starting with the well known story of how the white diamond shape first occurs and its reception, he writes that "He soon took for his billing matter, the name of 'The White-Eyed' although (as I often heard him say) he didn't Kaffir it."Newton gives a brief history of the start of the career "....with his brother Jack and a boy friend-all three being known as the 'Brothers Chirgwin. What is more, they started as buskers on any street corner or on the sands at certain seaside resorts, wherever they could find or were allowed a pitch. These halls, or singsongs, included such places as the Swallow Street Hall off Regent Street,... Deacons, on the New River bank at Islington; and even the Cosmetheka. Later the Old Mo or Middlesex Music-Hall (now the beautiful Winter Garden Theatre), and eventually the Oxford."
At the Oxford his salary was four pounds but before he left he was getting seven pounds per week for seven performances. In his later days as much as £100 per week!
"It is not generally known that one of Chirgwin's early successes was as a kiddie trying to get his father home from a public-house. This was in a kind of living picture arrangement of the famous temperance and tear-extracting ballad, 'Father Dear Father Come Home'"
Initially his was profligate with his earnings but later began to take more care. "In due course he began to dabble in house property, eventually in public house property ... became Mine Host of that popular old truly-rural hotel, the Anchor at Shepperton."
"For about thirty years Chirgwin’s hold over his audiences was really phenomenal, not only in the music-halls but also in the regular theatres. He appeared in six pantomimes at the Britannia (or " Brit.') alone, for Mrs. Sara Lane. The leading characters played by Chirgwin in these pantomimes included Daddy Longlegs, Idle Jack in "Whittington" and Svengali, in which he gave a funny burlesque of Beerbohm Tree!"
"In "The Blind Boy" and "My Fiddle is my Sweetheart" Chirgwin used a remarkable falsetto voice. This voice he acquired by accident in his youth, through having suddenly to understudy a real and well-known falsetto singer."
"'The Blind Boy' with its really pathetic words and air used to arouse considerable interest in more ways than one. Some people were wont to assert that he wrote and composed it himself. As a matter of fact Chirgwin bought the words and melody from Pony Moore. Another extraordinary point of interest regarding " The Blind Boy" was that for some time it was widely rumoured and believed by many, that he sang it because he had a blind son of his own!"
Newton concludes his piece "I think I might well add that we could well do with another such always vivacious and ever-versatile entertainer on our halls and variety theatres nowadays."
Condensed from H. Chance Newton, 'Idols of the Halls'.