Watercolour and gouache portrait of the music hall performer Wilkie Bard (1870-1944), 1900-1920, by George Cooke.

Pen, ink, watercolour and bodycolour full-length portrait of the music hall performer Wilkie Bard, on pink paper stuck on to blue paper and in turn on to a green page of the album. He is standing with his hands clasped in front of him, wearing a beige collarless jacket with large buttons and jodhpur-style trousers. He wears a bald wig with hair by his ears and his make-up features a pink section around the mouth and nose, and black dots above and below the eyes.

Wilkie Bard , actor and music hall performer, was known as the 'costers' laureate' because of his songs in cockney dialect on London common life. An actor from 1877, he made his music-hall debut in 1891 at the London Pavillion, where he was an immediate hit, singing such songs as 'The Coster's Serenade' and 'It's the Nasty Way 'E Sez It.' Some of his songs had tongue-twisting choruses that lent themselves to pantomime as well as music hall. Among his famous songs were 'She sells sea Shells', 'The Leith Police Dismisseth us' and his famous Opera Sketch 'I want to Sing in Opera'. He incorporated his hit song 'She Sells Sea Shells' into Dick Whittington in Drury Lane in 1908. The verse and chorus went:

I’ve just had a letter to say I’m engaged
To appear in the pantomime:
The part I’ve to play is the Principal Boy,
So I’m in for a beautiful time.
The panto’s Dick Whittington- I’m dirty Dick,
The fellow who once rode to York.
The manager says I must get a good song
About which the public will talk.
I’ve commissioned some authors to write me a song:
A very fine chorus they’ve sent me along!

She sells sea shells on the sea shore,
The shells she sells are sea shells, I’m sure,
For if she sells sea shells on the sea shore,
Then I’m sure she sells sea-shore shells!

In 1909 Wilkie Bard appeared as Widow Twankey in the Drury Lane pantomime and continued continued to appear on the stage until he retired, shortly before his death in 1944 aged seventy.

This caricature of William Mollison is from the fourth album that the commercial artist George Cooke used for his caricatures of music hall and variety performers. It contains caricatures drawn from 1910 to 1919. Originally from Yorkshire, George Cooke specialised in designing illustrated publicity material for performers. These included flyers, letterheads, posters and newspaper advertisements. He was based at the Grand Theatre for several years. The theatre was designed by Frank Matcham and opened in 1894. Cooke later moved to Blackpool, where he drew performers at the Palace Theatre.

By 1917 Cooke appears to have moved to London, where he established Cooke’s Publicity Agency at 453 The Strand. We know that he had considered a move to London for some time, since in May 1906, when he was still in Hanley, a note from him was printed in the variety artistes’ magazine The Performer. It read:

Phil Ray says my work’s too good for Hanley; I ought to be in London. But I want money to start with. Who’ll give me some! Griff can’t afford now he’s two families to keep. But he wishes me luck. Many thanks, old friend. GEORGE COOKE, Caricaturist, Hanley.

Phil Ray and Griff were both performers whose caricatures feature in Cooke’s albums.

S.395:55-2002