Images Dated 12th December 2016

George H. Chirgwin know as the White-Eyed Kaffir

George H. Chirgwin (14 December 1854 17 November 1922) was a popular British music hall star billed as "the White-Eyed Kaffir", a black face minstrel act. He adopted the white diamond on his blacked up face as a trade mark after it came about by accident. Chirgwin appeared in the first Royal Variety Command Performance in 1912. This striking image is one by Alick P.F. Ritchie (1868-1938) in a series of music hall personalities. Date: 1800s, 1900s?

© The Michael Diamond Collection / Mary Evans Picture Library

Dick Turpin, with R. A. Roberts

Dick Turpin, starring R.A. Roberts (born Richard Arthur Roberts, 1870) in which he played five different characters, including two women. This version of the famous story was a music hall sketch. The illustration on a playbill for the Sheffield Empire on 2nd April 1906, featuring Roberts, shows Turpin on Black Bess, probably by the same artist. Date: 1906

© The Michael Diamond Collection / Mary Evans Picture Library

The Devils Disciple by George Bernard Shaw

The Devils Disciple by George Bernard Shaw. It was first produced at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York, on 4th October 1897, then in England at the Princess of Wales Theatre, Kennington on 26th September 1899 and at the Savoy Theatre on 14th October 1907, from where it transferred to the Queens Theatre. This flyer is for the Shaw season running concurrently at the Savoy Theatre and the Queens Theatre in Shaftebury Avenue, London. Dick Dudgeon, threatened with hanging by British soldiers, looks up at the noose. Date: 1907

© The Michael Diamond Collection / Mary Evans Picture Library