Celebrity for the week ending
Saturday, 23 November 2002

Harry Paulton (1842-1917)
English actor and dramatic author

Harry Paulton

(photo: unknown, probably London, circa 1878)

‘PAULTON, HARRY, was born in Wolverhampton, and first appeared on any stage, in that town, in 1861. Subsequently, for several years he acted there, and at Wakefield, Derby, Northampton, Leeds, York, &c. Having adopted "low comedy" in 1864, Mr. Paulton was in the year following engaged for three seasons at the theatre Royal, Glasgow, where he became exceedingly popular; afterwards joining the company of the Theatre Royal, Birmingham; and, at the termination of that engagement, the company of the Princes of Wales’s Theatre, Liverpool. He made his début on the London stage June 23, 1867 (appearing for one night only), at the Surrey Theatre, as Wormwood in The Lottery Ticket, acquitting himself in a creditable manner. Mr. Paulton’s connection with the London stage may be said to have begun in 1870 with his engagement at the Strand Theatre, where he first appeared as Blueskin in the burlesque of The Idle ’Prentice. He there became favourably known to the London public as a burlesque actor of considerable quaintness, enlarging his dramatic reputation by an admirable rendering of the part of Uncle Sedley in a comedy by Arthur Sketchley entitled Up in the World, first performed at the Strand in February 1871. In April 1872 he joined the company of the Alhambra Theatre, of which he remained a member for five years, appearing during that period for the most part in opera bouffe - King Carrot, The Black Crook, Don Juan, La Belle Hélène, &c., &c.’ (Charles E. Pascoe, editor, The Dramatic List, David Bogue, London, 1880, pp.278 and 279) * * * * * * * * ‘Paulton, Harry. – This experienced low comedian was born at Wolverhampton in 1842, and made his first appearance as an amateur in that town when about nineteen. Some three or four years later he joined the stage for good, and soon established himself as a great favourite in the provinces, but was not seen on the London boards, except for a single performance, till 1870, when he was engaged to play Blueskin in The Idle ’Prentice at the Strand, and made at once a very decided success. But it was more as a comedian than as a burlesque actor that he became established there, appearing in a comedy of Arthur Sketchley’s. and in Zekiel Homespun and plays of that type. These early efforts were forgotten by most of the critics, who were surprised to find him an actor and not a buffoon when he again appeared in a true comedy part, in [a revival of] The Parvenu at the Globe in 1891. In 1872 he became a member of the Alhambra, and made a very notable success by his acting in the title rôles of King Carrot and The Black Crook - of which latter extravaganza (with a brother [Joseph] now dead) he was the joint author. Here he remained five years, playing chiefly in Opera Bouffe. In 1883 his play Cymbria was produced at the Strand, and in the following year The Babes; or, W(h)ines from the Wood, also from his pen, which ran for over a hundred nights at Toole’s Theatre, and brought Miss Alice Atherton into great prominence. In 1885 appeared Ermine, which he wrote in collaboration with Claxson Bellamy, in which the thieves Ravennes and Cadeau were inimitably acted by Frank Wyatt and himself. From 1888 to 1890 Mr. Paulton was not seen in London, and was part of that time in America. In 1891 he re-appeared on the London stage as Bender in All the Comforts of Home and in The Parvenu at the Globe, and later played the title rôle there, when Mr. Pigott revived the Bookmaker. More recently [4 July 1891] he appeared in The Mischief Maker at the Vaudeville. Mr. Paulton is married and has two sons already in the profession, besides a young one still at school, and a daughter. His brother, Mr. Tom Paulton, is also an immense favourite and a very clever character-comedian.’ (Erskine Reid and Herbert Compton, The Dramatic Peerage, Raithby, Lawrence & Co Ltd, London, 1892, pp.166 and 167) * * * * * * * * The Bronze Horse, Alhambra, London, 4 July 1881. ‘… Mr. Paulton is deservedly popular, for he is an artist, let people say what they like, and possesses an inimitable fund of dry and pungent humour. Of all the skits on the aesthetic craze few have been funnier than Mr. Paulton, in white ballet skirts decorated alone with a sunflower "glory" about the head and armed with a white lily wand. And then Mr. Paulton as the Japanese idol. Who but an artist cold convey that stolidity, heaviness, and woodenness of an inanimate figure? It is the misfortune of Mr. Paulton to be continually embarrassed by an over-lengthy book, but his humour is self-evident, and his imperturbability splendid...’ (The Theatre, London, 1 August 1881, p.107)

Harry Paulton as Blueskin singing his ‘Great Nonsense Song’ in the burlesque by H.B. Farnie,
The Idle ’Prentice, A Tyburnian Idyll of High Low Jack and His Little Game,
Strand Theatre, London, 10 September 1870.

(song sheet cover with lithograph by R. Childs, printed by L’Enfant & White,
and published by H. D’Alcorn & Co, London, 1870)

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© John Culme, 2002