"Lottie" Poole - Actress, Dancer, Comedian

As I promised twice before, here is what we have found out about Lottie Poole. I should repeat that this lady led us a merry chase, and down several blind alleys before we reached the conclusion we did.

We first meet Lottie Poole as a member of the Poole Minstrels in the mid 1890’s, and again, briefly and temptingly, as a member of the Sisters Poole. We know therefore that she is one of “our” Pooles. But unlike the rest of the family, however, her career mostly develops not only as part of a family act, but as an individual actress and performer. Generally her work became comedic and musical in nature, but she seems not to have lost her roots in the family tradition of clog dancing, acrobatics and dancing. "Miss Lottie Poole received an encore for her clog dance." (The Stage, March 3, 1903.) She is also referred to as a singer, "Miss Lottie Poole makes a lively and vivacious Frowsy Fritters, and also contributes one or two good songs" (the Stage, January 12, 1899). Note that in this last review, she wasn’t part of a team, but was playing a role in a play.

There is a wedding announcement in May of 1896, when Lottie would have been about 18, in which she is said to have married Fred Villiers in Liverpool. Interestingly, not a single family member is included in the newspaper list of attendees. However, we could not find a formal record of a wedding between a Villiers and a Poole. The search should have been quite easy, since I had a specific date from the newspaper clipping.

The show reviews indicated that Lottie Poole was associated with two leading men. Between 1896 and 1900, she performs extensively (but not exclusively) with her husband, Fred Villiers. Suddenly, after the turn of the century, she ceases (with one exception) performing with Fred Villiers and begins extensively, but again not exclusively, performing with a man named Frank Weir. We also begin to see a Lottie Weir appear and begin performing, again almost exclusively with Frank Weir. Lottie Weir and Lottie Poole never perform in the same show.

There was also one very puzzling references which started me thinking, a 1903 review of a play in which the description is, “Miss L. Poole Weir gives an exhibition of neat clog-dancing". It’s clog dancing, so its probably our mysterious Lottie Poole, but what’s with “L. Poole Weir”? Did she marry her leading man? What happened to Fred Villiers? Thinking that perhaps Lottie Weir had been widowed and remarried, we looked for a death of a Frederick Villiers, but couldn’t find one.

I started searching for “Lottie Weir”, and found numerous references to a Lottie Weir appearing in circumstances similar to “Lottie Poole”, and including, “Miss Lottie Weir is very vivacious as Pollio Perkins, her dancing being particularly smart". The very first reference to Lottie Weir I have found is this October, 1900 announcement:

This was the only announcement of this type I had seen in all the time I had spent reading these old newspapers. What exactly were they announcing?

Lottie Poole, however, continued to be seen to perform, often in the same shows as Frank Weir. I also found (but did not understand the significance at the time) the following reference: "The following artists were due to sail yesterday (Wednesday) for South Africa, per the s.s. “Galway Castle" to fulfil engagements with the African Theatres Trust, Limited, Johannesburg, booked by the I.V.T.A.:- Frank Willats and Lottie Poole…"

Much later, I found the following very strange advertisement from 1921, “Frank Weir and Lottie Poole Thank H. Blackmore, Esq. for Offers. Sailing for Australia, Sept. 17, per S.S. Ceramic, From Liverpool" Comm., Opera House, Sydney". So, it looks like our Lottie has ditched Fred Villiers and taken up with Frank Weir, in an age when that kind of thing just wasn’t done, at least not so publicly.

Then another thought occurred to me: the name Frederick Villiers just might have sounded very foreign at a time of international tensions and a xenophobic England. Could Fred Villiers have simply changed his name? Could Lottie Poole and Lottie Weir be the same person?

I began to search for Fred Villiers. It turns out he was a comedian in a pairing called Villiers and Harman. In June of 1895, Fred Villiers’ mother, Mrs. F. Willats died. Remember who accompanied Lottie on the trip to South Africa three paragraphs up? Then Leonard began to search again for Lottie’s wedding, this time looking for a wedding between a Willats and a Poole. And there it was: Frederick Weir Willats married Charlotte Poole, in Liverpool. The witnesses included William Harman, Frederick Villiers’ partner. The bride’s father as shown on the marriage license? “Richard Edward Poole, Music Hall Artist”.

So, it looks like at the beginning of his career Frederick Willats used the stage name Villiers, and then for whatever reason began to use his middle name (Weir) instead, and changed his first name from Fred to Frank (perhaps he didn’t want to get new monogrammed towels).

We cannot find them in the 1901 census, but in 1911 Lottie and Fred Weir were living in Stoke Newington (an area of London) with their brand new, two month old son, Frederick. Don’t you just love it when things work out? They have apparently had three other children who were still alive, but they did not stay with their parents on the night of the census, so at first we couldn’t find out much about them; Ultimately Leonard’s diligent searching found a daughter. Her name? Olive. If you’re counting by the way, that’s Olive Number 3 - I told you our family had no imagination when it came to names.

I continued to search The Stage and other sources for mentions of both Lottie Weir and Lottie Poole and I was able to follow her well into the 20^th Century. I’ll tell you about that just a little bit later.