This caricature is of William Bankier, who was promoting Yukio Tani at the Grand Theatre of Varieties, Hanley, when Tani topped the bill during the week of 14 November 1904. It is one of the many superb caricatures of Edwardian music hall performers that were drawn by the artist George Cooke when he was based at the Grand Theatre. He compiled them in a series of albums. He also drew Yukio Tani.

Bankier, born in 1870, was better known on the music hall stage as the strongman ‘Apollo the Scottish Hercules’. He was a wrestling promoter who founded the British Society of Jiu-Jitsu with Yukio Tani, for whose variety appearances he acted as agent. Bankier was a great strength athlete with a genuine act in which he harness-lifted an elephant. He demonstrated his versatility by performing a backward somersault over a low chair, carrying a 56-pound weight in each hand. He would jump over a chair carrying a weight of 112 pounds. Standing on two chairs, he would juggle two dinner plates while lifting a man overhead balanced on his right hand. He was one of the outstanding wrestlers of his day and a superb showman. The Variety Artistes’ Federation appointed him ‘King Rat’ in 1912.