Postcard of the week ending
Saturday, 26 March 2005

Herbert Campbell (1846-1904)
English music hall and pantomime comedian and singer
'Up I Came With My Little Lot'

Herbert Campbell as he sang 'Up I Came with My Little Lot'

(photo: unknown, probably London, circa 1900)

Herbert Campbell, one of the great comic geniuses of the English music hall stage, was born in the Lambeth area of London in 1846. After an early stint as a nigger minstrel with two others styling themselves Harman, Campbell and Elston, he made his first solo appearances in 1868 at the Alhambra music hall in Shoreditch, and at the better known Collins's music hall on Islington Green, both in London. From then until his death on 19 July 1904 he was in constant demand, a firm favourite wherever he appeared. Our real photograph postcard this week shows Campbell as he sang one of his successes, 'Up I Came with My Little Lot,' which he recorded for the Gramophone & Typewriter Co Ltd (GC2-2859) in London on 30 April 1903. The postcard itself was published at about the same time by the Rotophot Co of Berlin (no.8152) whose work was distributed in England by Giesen Brothers & Co of Monkwell Street, London. * * * * * * * * '… I have mentioned the burly music hall comic, Herbert Campbell, the monumental foil to little Dan Leno [1860-1904] at the Lane [the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane]. [Augustus] Harris's pantomimes [there], when they were successful, and even when they were not, owed a vast amount to Campbell's pantomime experience, which dated back to pantomimes at the Grecian in the 1870s. At the Grecian, Herbert hit on a happy line of comedy duets with Harry Nicholls [1852-1926], and Harris secured the pair for the Lane. 'Nicholls was a successful song writer for the [music] halls, his clients including James Fawn [1849-1923] and Arthur Roberts [1852-1933]. Applying his gift to pantomime, he and Campbell made a speciality of topical duets that became a principal attraction of Harris's shows… Nicholls used to write fresh topical verses from items in the evening papers in his dressing-room every night… 'One of Campbell's brain-waves at the Lane was to appear as Edna May singing her Salvation Army song, 'Follow On,' from The Belle of New York [produced at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London, 12 April 1898, 693 performances]. The laughter - can you imagine it?' (Archibald Haddon, The Story of Music Hall, Fleetway Press (1930) Ltd, London, 1935, p.124) * * * * * * * *

Return to home page

© John Culme, 2005