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  • Metropolital Police Mistrels (Recovered)

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    Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Forums > Ripper Discussions > Police and Officials > Individual Police Officials > Littlechild, Chief Inspector John George > Metropolitan Police Minstrels

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    Grey Hunter
    5th January 2008, 10:13 AM
    I see over on jtrforums that A. P. Wolf has made the startling 'discovery' that Littlechild was a member of the Metropolitan Police Minstrels. This, of course, is a well known fact. A. P. also reproduces an illustration of Littlechild from Moonshine which he doesn't think has been seen before. This illustration of Littlechild in Moonshine was discovered some ten years ago by Nick Connell and Nick and I use it in our book The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper, 2000, as plate 13. Here is an 1882 Police flyer showing Littlechild as a member of 'The Minstrels' -

    10067

    apwolf
    5th January 2008, 10:51 AM
    Thanks for that original, Grey.
    You know you should really make sure those grapes are ripe before you have 'em for tea.

    I expressed 'suprise' at Littlechild's antics in blacking himself up as a minstrel, social suprise that was; and I thought it highly relevant that such information about the character and imagination of a senior police officer from the LVP would be useful to students who wanted to investigate the man further.
    Of course as we now know that Littlechild was not directly involved in the investigations into the Whitechapel Murders it's a bit of a moot point.

    My suggestion that the 'Moonshine' image may not have been seen before was a tentative one, of course, but as you know I like to see such images widely available to the maximum audience at no cost to themselves, rather than squirreled away in some obscure rag or book that will cost the audience hard cash to view.
    We move and operate in a different fashion, Grey, our audience best left to judge our motives and ambitions.

    Grey Hunter
    5th January 2008, 11:32 AM
    Thanks for that original, Grey.
    You know you should really make sure those grapes are ripe before you have 'em for tea...
    My suggestion that the 'Moonshine' image may not have been seen before was a tentative one, of course, but as you know I like to see such images widely available to the maximum audience at no cost to themselves, rather than squirreled away in some obscure rag or book that will cost the audience hard cash to view.
    We move and operate in a different fashion, Grey, our audience best left to judge our motives and ambitions.

    And a happy New Year to you too Mr. Wolf. On the contrary, the sourness seems to be on your part rather than mine.

    As a published author your comments are often surprising. Your above statement with regard to the way 'we move and operate' and 'our motives and ambitions' are astonishing. The amount of material that I have freely shared, helped others with and indeed published on these boards makes a nonsense of what you appear to be suggesting.

    As usual you, rather than any grapes, have left a sour taste in my mouth.

    Grey Hunter
    5th January 2008, 12:05 PM
    Research in the computer age is now very easy when compared with the old-fashioned version that required much legwork and expense. As we see with A.P., searching old newspaper archives is now simple with the newspapers being digitalized and word-searchable.

    As regards researching the character of a police officer such as Littlechild there is quite a bit easily available (and now being found by A.P.) as well as Littlechild's own book The Reminiscences of Chief Inspector Littlechild. So the keen researcher wishing to know more about him should have no problem, despite the machinations of the likes of me having 'squirreled' away the material.

    Here is an extract from an interview about Littlechild's recollections that shows that he actually founded the police minstrel troupe and took great pleasure in raising money for the Police Orphanage. He was also a lover of opera.

    10068

    robert
    5th January 2008, 12:14 PM
    Grey, he reminded me there very much of Anderson.

    Grey Hunter
    5th January 2008, 12:22 PM
    Grey, he reminded me there very much of Anderson.

    Hi Robert, yes I had noted that some time ago, but it was (and is) a fairly common trait amongst police officers that they know the identity of the authors of certain crimes but lack the legal proof to do anything about it.

    That said, Littlechild worked with Anderson for many years and was one of the Chief Inspector departmental heads at Scotland Yard from 1883-1893. He was thus at the Yard with Anderson from the latter's appointment in 1888 until Littlechild's retirement in 1893. He would have also been involved in working with Anderson prior to 1888 as Anderson was involved the Secret Service and anti-Fenian work. However, we know that Littlechild did not appear to agree with Anderson's Ripper theory.

    katbradshaw
    5th January 2008, 03:25 PM
    I don't think that in this case it is refering to Black and White minstrels type minstrels. The term has been used since the middle ages to describe a group of singers and musicians. Medieval banquets often had minstrels playing. So I don't think we should assume Littlechild was some sort of racist yet.

    m_w_r
    5th January 2008, 04:09 PM
    I don't think that in this case it is refering to Black and White minstrels type minstrels. The term has been used since the middle ages to describe a group of singers and musicians. Medieval banquets often had minstrels playing. So I don't think we should assume Littlechild was some sort of racist yet.

    Hi Kat,

    Nick Tosches, in his book Where Dead Voices Gather, finds that minstrelsy - in the sense of the Black and White Minstrels to whom you refer - emerged in the USA in the first half of the nineteenth century, tracing its roots from linked genres such as comic opera and caricature. Following the rise to popularity of the Virginia Minstrels, in the early 1840s (Tosches refers to a performance in New York in 1843 for which the advertising referred to them as "the novel, grotesque, original and supassingly melodious Ethiopian Band"), the term "minstrel" became attached to all "blackface" performers.

    Tosches notes that "like most subsequent emanations of American culture, [minstrelsy's] vogue soon spread abroad to England". He describes the popularity of minstrelsy in England as "immediate and great", and notes that "blackface" performing survived in England "long after it had been suppressed and forsaken in its native America".

    Since it goes outside his main purpose, Tosches doesn't provide any more information regarding minstrelsy in the UK. Still, however, we can assume that, if the "minstrel" tag got generally attached to "blackface" performers in or around the 1840s, then this antedates the early popularity of the genre: minstrelsy, under its previous sobriquet[s], could have been in existence as a popular performance genre in London from the 1830s, if not before. By 1882, perhaps forty or fifty years after minstrelsy arrived in the UK to "immediate and great" public enthusiasm, I would suggest that no theatre-goer who saw that "minstrels" were listed on the bill could possibly have expected anything other than "blackface" performers. The use of the term would have been, by then, quite specific and unambiguous.

    Regards,

    Mark Ripper

    m_w_r
    5th January 2008, 04:24 PM
    Further to the above, the Metropolitan Police Minstrels are also discussed on p.275 of Martin Fido and Keith Skinner's The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard. They remark that the Minstrels, founded in 1872, "performed instrumental solos and ensembles and sang negro spirituals, popular ballads and songs" in "evening dress and black-face make-up". The troupe was wound up in 1933.

    Mark Ripper

    robert
    5th January 2008, 04:48 PM
    "Pick-Me-Up" May 25th 1889

    Sam Flynn
    5th January 2008, 04:57 PM
    This from "Observations of an Orderly: Some glimpses of life and work in an English War Hospital", by Lance Corporal Ward Muir, published 1917. Public domain text, courtesy of Project Gutenberg. I make no apologies for the "quaint" expressions that were in use at the time.

    CHAPTER XI - THE RECREATION ROOMS

    Yesterday, a ****** troupe visited the hospital. To be exact, they were the Metropolitan Police Minstrels ("By Permission of Sir E.R. Henry, G.C.V.O., K.C.B., C.S.I., Commissioner"); but no member of the audience, I imagine, could picture those jocose blackamoors, with their tambourines and bones, as really being anything so serious as traffic-controlling constables. That their comic songs were accompanied by a faultless orchestra was understandable enough. One can believe in a police band. One is not surprised that the police band is a good band.

    To believe that the ebony-visaged person with the huge red indiarubber-flexible mouth who sings "Under the archway, Archibald," and follows this amorous ditty with a clog dance is - in his washed moments - the terror of burglars, requires unthinkable flights of imagination. As I gazed at this singular resurrection of Moore and Burgess and breathless childhood's afternoons at the St. James's Hall - the half circle of inanely alert faces the colour of fresh polished boots - the preposterous uniforms and expansive shirt-fronts - the "******" dialect which this strange convention demands but which cannot be said to resemble the speech of any African tribe yet discovered - I found that by no effort of faith or credulity could I pierce the disguise and perceive policemen.

    It is at least twenty years since I met a ****** minstrel in the flesh. Vague ghosts of bygone persons and of piquant anachronisms seemed to float approvingly in the air: the Prince Consort, bustles, the high bicycle, sherry, Moody and Sankey, the Crystal Palace, Labouchere, "Pigs in Clover," Lottie Collins, Evolution, Bimetallism: hosts of forgotten images, names and shibboleths came popping out from the brain's dusty pigeon-holes, magically released by the spectacle of the ****** troupe.

    Yes, I was indeed switched into the past by Mr. Bones, Massa Jawns'n and the rest. And yet the present might have seemed more emphatic and more poignant. One felt, rather than saw, an audience of several hundred persons in the dim rows of chairs. And laughing at the broad witticisms of the ******s, or enjoying their choruses and orchestral accompaniments, one forgot just what that half-glimpsed audience consisted of; what it meant, and how it came to be here assembled.

    Of course when the lights were turned up in the interval, one beheld the usual spectacle: stretchers, wheeled chairs, crutches, bandaged heads, arms in splints, blind men, men with one arm, men with one leg: rank on rank of war's flotsam and jetsam, British, Australians, New Zealanders, Newfoundlanders, Canadians, come to make merry over the minstrels: in the front row the Colonel and the Matron, with officer patients; here and there an orderly or a V.A.D.; here and there a Sister with her "boys." It was a family gathering. I descried no strangers, and no one not in uniform--unless you count the men too ill to don their blue slops: these had been brought in dressing-gowns or wrapped in blankets. No mere haphazard audience, this, of anybody and everybody who chooses to pay at a turnstile! Entrance to this hall is free ... but the price is beyond money, all the same.

    A family party it was, decidedly. Thick fumes of tobacco smoke uprose from it. (Shall we ever abandon the cigarette habit, now?) Orderlies continued to arrive and stow themselves discreetly in corners: by some strange providence each orderly had found that for a while he could be spared from ward or office. Staff-Sergeants, Sergeants, Corporals - mysteriously they made time to leave their various departments. Even a bevy of masseuses (those experts eternally on the rush from ward to ward) had peeped in to see the ****** minstrels. And everybody was pleased: every jest and every conundrum got its laugh, every ballad its applause. Not that we ever "give the bird" to those who come to amuse us. Offer us skill in any shape or form - pierrots, ******s, pianist, violinist, conjurer, ventriloquist, dancer, reciter: any or all of these will be appreciated warmly.

    Yesterday, for the ****** minstrels, there were no empty chairs. Until, in the midst of Part II ("A Laughable Sketch" - vide the programme - wherein female roles were doubly coy by reason of the masculinity of their falsetto dialogue and remarkable ankles) a messenger stole hither and thither, whispering to the orderlies, who promptly tiptoed from the room.

    A convoy of new arrivals demanded our presence.

    The silent ambulances were gliding up to the entrance of the hospital. Orderlies, fetched from their jobs and from the entertainment, lined up in the rain to take their places in the quartettes of bearers who lifted out the stretchers. The Assistant Matron, standing in the shelter of the door, checked her list; the Medical Officer handed out the ward tickets; the lady clerks from the Admission and Discharge Office took the patients' particulars. And the bathroom became very busy.

    As I started to wheel a much-bandaged warrior to his ward, the recreation-room door opened and a burst of music-cum-essence-of-****** emerged on his astonished ears. I was a little doubtful as to whether our new guest would not think his reception somewhat flippant in key. The poor fellow was visibly suffering, and the sound of tambourines and comedians' guffaws seemed a scarcely proper comment on his condition. I might have spared myself these misgivings.

    "Say, chum," he interrogated me feebly, "what's that noise?"
    "****** minstrels, old man."
    "Golly! Have I got to go straight to my bed?"

    Alas, he had to. It would be long before he could be well enough to be taken to one of our entertainments. But, had he been given his way, he would have gone direct from his fatiguing overseas journey into the Old Rec. to join the family party and chuckle at Mr. Bones and Massa Jawns'n.... No doubts assailed his mind as to whether it was right to "waste bed-space" on mere frivolities. A ****** minstrel show was to him a deal more important, in fact, than his wound. And perhaps, in instinct, he was not far wrong.


    (Full text here (http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenb...655/17655.htm). It seems an interesting read.)

    Simon Wood
    5th January 2008, 05:06 PM
    Hi All,

    Can anyone confirm that Minstrel Inspector H. R. Willson was the Robert Willson whose son, Robert William Willson, married Gertrude Frances, Littlechild's youngest daughter?

    Regards,

    Simon

  • #2
    katbradshaw
    5th January 2008, 05:11 PM
    Ah well I stand most roundly corrected!

    No wonder many believe that racism in the police in institutionalised.

    Grey Hunter
    5th January 2008, 05:22 PM
    Ah well I stand most roundly corrected!
    No wonder many believe that racism in the police in institutionalised.

    Whatever may be considered unacceptable in these politically enlightened days cannot really be compared with what was the accepted norm in Victorian times.

    What was considered socially acceptable entertainment by the Victorians did not mean that each and every person was a racially motivated bigot. These sort of minstrels were to be seen right up to the BBC Television's Black and White Minstrel Show which ran until 1978 and which most of the populace regarded as great entertainment. Must say, though, it's not my sort of entertainment.

    Sam Flynn
    5th January 2008, 05:27 PM
    So I don't think we should assume Littlechild was some sort of racist yet.I don't think that Victorian/Edwardian "black & white minstrelsy" can be described as truly "racist", Kat - anymore than Littlechild would have derived any "supremacist" pleasure if he ever donned a kimono and clowned about as Koko of Titipu. It was just entertainment, albeit in another world, another time...

    (Our posts crossed, Grey!)

    katbradshaw
    5th January 2008, 05:42 PM
    No but if institutions like this are well established then their ideas continue through time.

    Sam Flynn
    5th January 2008, 06:05 PM
    No but if institutions like this are well established then their ideas continue through time.The minstrel shows were innocuous fun, and indeed it might be argued that they paved the way for the later acceptance of black performers anyway. It's a fact that some of the highest paid entertainers in the first decade of the 20th Century were, convolutedly, black gentlemen who had joined minstrel troupes. It was a start, and at least minstrel routines portrayed black people in a largely positive light - and people got to like music they might never have heard before. Surely, such an institution had a number of points in its favour compared to the racist rap "artists" of today.

    Grey Hunter
    5th January 2008, 06:07 PM
    No but if institutions like this are well established then their ideas continue through time.

    I must say that as a serving police officer from 1969 up until almost the end of the 20th century I find such ideas of 'institutionalised racism' as endemic in the police service rather insulting. Speaking from experience quite the opposite was true and we went out of our way to be fair with all races, classes and creeds. Indeed, the snooty, 'upper-class twit' sort of typical Englishman was far more likely to get short shrift from a police officer. It is far more to do with personalities and backgrounds rather than a whole public institution. No wonder there are accusations that this nation has gone 'PC mad.'

    katbradshaw
    5th January 2008, 06:12 PM
    I didn't say that the Police were institutionally racist. I said that I could see how they were percieved as so.

    Grey Hunter
    5th January 2008, 06:25 PM
    I didn't say that the Police were institutionally racist. I said that I could see how they were percieved as so.

    Re-read my post - did I say that you did?

    What I said was that "I find such ideas of 'institutionalised racism' in the police service rather insulting." And I do. I did not say that you believed it, but you were the one who raised the subject however.

    katbradshaw
    5th January 2008, 06:28 PM
    Yes you are right I did. It was not intended however to insult anyone.

    Grey Hunter
    5th January 2008, 06:30 PM
    Yes you are right I did. It was not intended however to insult anyone.

    Thanks, I am quite sure that you would have no such intention.

    robert
    5th January 2008, 06:38 PM
    Minstrels and cigarettes? Blacked-up policemen and blacked-up lungs? I was so shocked when I read this item that I phoned the PC Samaritans for some emergency brain-wash - I mean, some emergency counselling.

    Grey Hunter
    5th January 2008, 06:40 PM
    Minstrels and cigarettes? Blacked-up policemen and blacked-up lungs? I was so shocked when I read this item that I phoned the PC Samaritans for some emergency brain-wash - I mean, some emergency counselling.

    Robert - You are a one - but I like you. Keep up the good work.

    robert
    5th January 2008, 06:43 PM
    You sounded like D*** Emery there, Grey!

    katbradshaw
    5th January 2008, 06:56 PM
    Of the PC brigrade either. In fact my original post was to say that Littlechild should not be view as some sort of racist because he was in this group. This was in response to an earlier post expressing shock at Littlechild being in this group.

    Anyway I would quite like to see a picture of Abberline in the Mikado. It would be an interesting find I think.

    Grey Hunter
    5th January 2008, 07:25 PM
    Of the PC brigrade either. In fact my original post was to say that Littlechild should not be view as some sort of racist because he was in this group. This was in response to an earlier post expressing shock at Littlechild being in this group.

    Anyway I would quite like to see a picture of Abberline in the Mikado. It would be an interesting find I think.

    I quite agree with you on this!

    m_w_r
    5th January 2008, 07:28 PM
    Actually Kat I had the impression that in your first post you were thinking that Littlechild might have been one of these kinds of minstrels...



    Regards,

    Mark

    katbradshaw
    5th January 2008, 07:28 PM
    I have a lot of respect for your research and posts and it would have greatly upset me to have offended or insulted you!

    apwolf
    5th January 2008, 07:40 PM
    Of course nobody - least of all me - is suggesting that Littlechild was exhibiting some kind of racialist dislike by his dressing up as a black minstrel; on the contrary he was just having a bit of fun and raising money for a worthwhile charity at the same time.
    A harmless bit of buffoonery one imagines.
    However I do believe it was a common trait in the LVP to poke fun at the mannerisms and habits of various races that were either largely unknown or misunderstood by the general population of London, and this certainly figures in the early LVP minstrel shows. I would imagine this attitude was also adopted to the recently arrived Jewish immigrant population, who were a complete and utter mystery even to the Jews who had colonised the East End centuries before them and had been largely absorbed and accepted in the capital.

    No, I'm not having a personal dig at you, Grey, just my usual obstinate and robust self when someone punches me on the nose.

    Grey Hunter
    5th January 2008, 07:53 PM
    No, I'm not having a personal dig at you, Grey, just my usual obstinate and robust self when someone punches me on the nose.

    I hadn't noticed that you had been punched on the nose. The word over-reaction springs to mind.

    Sam Flynn
    5th January 2008, 09:19 PM
    However I do believe it was a common trait in the LVP to poke fun at the mannerisms and habits of various races that were either largely unknown or misunderstood by the general population of London, and this certainly figures in the early LVP minstrel shows.
    Hi AP,

    There is nothing particularly English about minstrel shows which, I believe, were "imported" from America, aside from which blackened-up mummers and Moorish ("Morris") Dancers had featured in British popular entertainment for centuries.

    It's an interesting thought, but I don't recall reading about any great sending-up of Jews, outside "serious" theatre/literature - The Jew of Malta, The Merchant of Venice, Oliver Twist and so forth - which is perhaps a testimony to the successful alignment of Jewish and British society. Let's not forget that some important politicians of the LVP were Jewish, as were theatre-owners and popular performers of the day. No doubt the latter weren't averse to sending themselves up in line with the great tradition of self-deprecating Jewish humour.

    If the Late Victorians had it in for anybody, it was the stereotypical "Drunken Irishman" beloved of the Music Hall, or the "Irish Troublemaker" beloved of the Government and the Police.

    apwolf
    5th January 2008, 09:44 PM
    'If the Late Victorians had it in for anybody, it was the stereotypical "Drunken Irishman" beloved of the Music Hall, or the "Irish Troublemaker" beloved of the Government and the Police.'

    Got to disagree with you there, Sam, for it seems to me that the Late Victorians had a down on policemen and politicians.
    We musn't forget that there were two battles of Trafalgar.

    Sam Flynn
    5th January 2008, 09:53 PM
    'If the Late Victorians had it in for anybody, it was the stereotypical "Drunken Irishman" beloved of the Music Hall, or the "Irish Troublemaker" beloved of the Government and the Police.'

    Got to disagree with you there, Sam, for it seems to me that the Late Victorians had a down on policemen and politicians.
    I was unaware that police and politicians formed distinct ethnic groups, AP, which is what this conversation was all about, methought!
    We musn't forget that there were two battles of Trafalgar.Succinctly put.

    katbradshaw
    5th January 2008, 10:37 PM
    I read an interesting document once that was put out by the Jewish Council in the East End to all new imigrant Jews. It said that they should learn English as quickly as possible and try to assimilate as much as their religion would allow. In turn they said that the people in the area would reward this with tollerance.
    An interesting point put forward there. I think the document was released in 1905. I will look at see if I can find it.

    Have discovered that the document was released as reaction to the Aliens Act of 1905.

    Natalie Severn
    5th January 2008, 11:10 PM
    Hi AP,

    There is nothing particularly English about minstrel shows which, I believe, were "imported" from America, aside from which blackened-up mummers and Moorish ("Morris") Dancers had featured in British popular entertainment for centuries.

    It's an interesting thought, but I don't recall reading about any great sending-up of Jews, outside "serious" theatre/literature - The Jew of Malta, The Merchant of Venice, Oliver Twist and so forth - which is perhaps a testimony to the successful alignment of Jewish and British society. Let's not forget that some important politicians of the LVP were Jewish, as were theatre-owners and popular performers of the day. No doubt the latter weren't averse to sending themselves up in line with the great tradition of self-deprecating Jewish humour.

    If the Late Victorians had it in for anybody, it was the stereotypical "Drunken Irishman" beloved of the Music Hall, or the "Irish Troublemaker" beloved of the Government and the Police.


    Enuff of this me laddo !
    You be Fluellan Welshman now and do us a turn with a leek behind your ear!



    supe
    5th January 2008, 11:55 PM
    A.P.,

    However I do believe it was a common trait in the LVP to poke fun at the mannerisms and habits of various races that were either largely unknown or misunderstood by the general population of London

    And also a trait of most every other time and culture since one tribe first became aware of another on the opposite side of the ridge. I presume you are awate of the derivation of the word barbarian? One need hardly excoriate the folks of the LVP for this very human practice.

    Don.

    Sam Flynn
    6th January 2008, 12:17 AM
    Enuff of this me laddo !
    You be Fluellan Welshman now and do us a turn with a leek behind your ear!
    ...look you, my lady, lightly we escaped the derision of our oppressors, now isn't it, compared to our prethren in Erin and Scotland? I'faith - most crateful we are that we did.

    Natalie Severn
    6th January 2008, 12:34 AM
    Wonderful Sam,on form as always!!!
    I must admit I love these jests of the Bard"s because today even though they are a bit outrageous they are still hugely funny----especially when Fluellan strides on in millitary fashion with that enormous leek behind his ear!
    Nats
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