Referring to Ted’s sons reminds me that before we get to the next group, we need to discuss the next generation of Pooles who entered the family entertainment business.
Richard Edward (Ted) Poole married Olive Hampstead on May 20, 1872. Together they produced the following seven children:
Flora Poole, born 1872
Thomas Henry Poole, born 1877
Charlotte Beatrice (“Lottie”) Poole, born 1878
Robert James Poole, born 1880
Sarah Olive Poole, born March, 1882
Ada Poole, born 1883
Hette Poole, born June, 1889
We also know that there was another boy, called, Richard Edward Poole, but he died in 1885, age 3 and a half. Although the death of such a young child is always sad, it must be remembered that mortality rates in Victorian times, particularly for children, were shocking compared to today. In the 1890’s, before public sanitation, antibiotics and vaccinations, diseases such as cholera, diphtheria, measles, and whooping cough killed many thousands every year.
Okay, on with the narrative!
The Poole Minstrels
As early as April of June of 1885 we see Ted (presumably Richard Edward) performing an acrobatic clog dancing act on his own. Then in September of 1887, the “Poole Minstrels (5 in Number)” placed an advertisement seeking work. By December of that year they were working regularly, spending a number of months in Dublin. They always identified themselves as being five in number, possibly to avoid confusion with another group with a similar name, and frequently specified that they were Ted, Olive, Tom, Flora and Lottie, probably for the same reason. Initially their act seemed to concentrate on things such as clog dancing and acrobatics, but later they seemed to include singing and comedy. Reading the reviews and advertisements, you can actually get a sense of the act, and presumably the people, evolving over the years.
We can see that the Poole Minstrels were popular and worked a great deal around the country. Between 1887 and 1897 we can see them travelling frequently to places such as Manchester, Brighton, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin, in addition to appearing in various London theatres.
The question for us of course is: Who were these people? How certain can we be sure that they were related to us?
I think we can be quite certain that these are “our” Pooles, because, as I noted above, in 1889 the Poole Minstrels were identified as returning to their home town of Halifax. It took a lot of research and piecing together various facts, but I am now confident that the Poole Minstrels were Ted and Olive and their three oldest children: Flora, Thomas Henry and Beatrice Charlotte, who were ages 15, 10 and 9 respectively when the troupe began performing. Don’t be dissuaded by the young ages of the Poole children when the act began in 1887. This was a time of weak child labour laws and young children often worked very hard, and in quite dangerous conditions. Remember that the Poole Minstrels began performing before the Jack the Ripper murders occurred in London, walking distance from where they lived. Think about the scary movies you’ve seen about those murders – that’s the time and place our family lived. Remember too, that our own grandfather, Thomas Poole, went off to fight in the trenches of World War I when he was just 15. Later on, I’ll relate an incident when one of our Pooles came up against the child labour laws.
The most important evidence for why I am convinced that the Poole Minstrels consisted of Ted, Olive and their children is that when Florence “Florrie” Poole died on New Year’s Day, 1896, she was identified in newspaper death notices as the daughter of “Ted and Olive of the Poole Minstrels”. For a long time, however, the duplication of the various names in the family made the identities of the others harder to ascertain with any certainty. In addition, in January of 1896, just a couple of weeks after Flora’s death, Lottie Poole took out an ad in the Era, which stated, "Lottie Poole, late Sisters Poole, (another group I will discuss shortly) will join her brother and be known as the Poole's (Tom and Lottie) Variety Entertainers and Acrobatic Dancers. Inquiries Ted Poole, Hull”.
Despite the advertisement, I have found no evidence that Lottie and Tom actually began performing together. They took out newspaper advertisements which stated their intentions, but no ads actually seeking work have been found. Instead, it seems as though the Poole Minstrels resumed performing after Flora’s death in 1896. Perhaps they continued as a quartet; perhaps the youngest, Ada, born in 1883 joined them; it wouldn’t have been surprising if she had already been doing so for some time.
I think it likely that Flora’s death precipitated the breakup of the Poole Minstrels. Although they apparently resumed performing for a while, the mentions in the newspapers became fewer and fewer, until by the end of 1898, they are no longer seen.
Before moving on, I should mention something about Beatrice Charlotte (Lottie) Poole. She led us on quite a merry chase – mostly because Ted Poole didn’t include her middle name (a shortened form of which she actually went by) in the census of 1881 – which meant that we didn’t know for a long time who “Lottie” was. We made a lengthy series of logical inferences which led us to the conclusion that she had to be Beatrice, which I spent about ten paragraphs explaining in an earlier draft of this epistle, but suddenly Leonard was able to find a reference to her middle name, and all was solved. I’ll talk much more about Lottie a little later.
Okay, on with the narrative!
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