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Little Tich (21 July 1867 – 10 February 1928), born Harry Relph, was a diminutive English music hall comedian and dancer during the late Victorian era. He was best known for his acrobatic and comedic "big boot dance" for which he wore twenty-eight inch boots. He created many comic characters including The Spanish Señora, The Gendarme and The Tax Collector, and was a popular performer in the annual Christmas pantomimes at London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane from 1888.

Born in Cudham, Kent, Little Tich began performing aged ten when he developed a dance and tin-whistle act which he showcased at public houses within Sevenoaks. In the 1880s he formed a blackface act and secured engagements at the nearby Rosherville Pleasure Gardens and Barnard's Music Hall in Chatham. The performances were popular and he travelled to London where he appeared at the Foresters Music Hall in 1884. In the later months of that year, he adopted the stage name "Little Tich", which he based on his childhood nickname of "Tichborne" due to his diminutive stature.

Little Tich's act matured during a tour of America between 1887 and 1889, where he established the "big boot dance" which impressed audiences due to his ability to stand on the tips of the shoes and to lean at extraordinary angles. In the 1890s he developed the "Serpentine dance" and had a major success with the Christmas pantomime Babes in the Wood in Manchester during 1889–90. His success in this production led to a series of London pantomime engagements at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane where he was recruited alongside Dan Leno and Marie Lloyd by the impresario Augustus Harris.

Between 1896 and 1902 Little Tich performed in his own musical theatre company, and spent much of his time in Paris, where he became a popular variety artist. For his music hall acts, he created characters based on everyday observations. Among the songs in which the characterisations featured were The Gas Inspector, The Spanish Señora and The Waiter, all of which he later recorded onto shellac discs, producing around twenty in total. He had a much publicised private life, marrying three times and fathering two children. In 1927 he suffered a stroke, caused by a blow to the head which he had accidentally received during an evenings performance. Having never fully recovered from the injury, he died the following year at his house in Hendon, and was buried in Marylebone cemetery, London.

Biography

Family background and early life

Little Tich was born Harry Relph in Cudham, Kent (now in the London Borough of Bromley). He was one of eight children and 16 step-children to Richard Relph (1790–1881) a farmer and publican and his wife Mary, née Moorefield (1835–1893). The Relph family were close and lived in relative affluence. Richard Relph was a committed family-man and was known in the village for his acute business acumen. One of four brothers, Richard Relph initially made enough money from horse-trading, which enabled him to purchase his first public house The Rising Sun in Fawkham. In 1818 he married Sarah Ashenden and they had eight children before her death in 1845. In 1851—at the age of 60—he moved to Cudham, bought The Blacksmith's Arms and an adjoining farm, and started a new family with the 32 year-old Mary Moorefield, a nurse-maid governess from Dublin, who bore him a further eight children, including Little Tich.

Little Titch was the youngest of the Relph children; he was born with an extra digit on both hands which were webbed from the little finger to the center joint. He also experienced stunted growth when he was aged 10, growing to 4 feet 6 inches, a height he retained for the remainder of his life. His physical differences, compared to other children, caused him to become socially withdrawn and lonely. Nevertheless, his disabilities earned him infamy from an early age and were an asset to his parents business. Patrons would travel from neighbouring counties to witness Little Tich's peculiarities, and the youngster marvelled in the attention, dancing comically on the saloon bar to curious guests.

Little Tich was educated in Knockholt, a three mile walk from Cudham. From an early age, school teachers noted him for his academic abilities, excelling particularly in art; by the time Little Tich was five, his drawings were being sold to patrons of The Blacksmiths Arms by his father. By now, Little Tich was becoming a valuable asset to his family and his parents became very protective of him. He became interested in the travelling performers whom his father often employed to entertain guests at the inn. Little Tich would mimic the dancers, singers and conjurors, causing much amusement to both his family and patrons. So good were Little Tich's impersonations that his siblings frequently took him to neighbouring public houses where they would get him to perform in exchange for money. Unbeknown to him at the time, these experiences prepared Little Tich for his future career and he, like his father, became a strict teetotaller in later years, showing a deep loathing towards boisterous and intoxicated people. Little Tich rellished in his local infamy, however the older he got the more self conscious he became and wrongly interpreted the audiences laughter as being aimed more at his disabilities rather than his comical performances.

Move to Gravesend and early performances

Richard Relph sold The Blacksmith's Arms and the adjoining farm in 1875 and moved his family to Gravesend. The socially withdrawn Little Tich was forced to adapt to a much busier surroundings; day-trippers, holidaymakers and fishermen often frequented the streets and occupied the plethora of public houses which adorned the port and neighbouring roads. Much to his delight was the prospect of resuming his education and he was enrolled at Christ Church School where he spent the next three years. In 1878 the headmaster deemed him too educationally advanced for the school, so Richard Relph was advised to seek his young son a watchmaking apprenticeship instead; Relph ignored the advice. At the end of term, the headmaster paid tribute to Little Tich in a school assembly, praising the schoolboy for his academic abilities despite his physical deformities. The young Tich felt honoured at such a tribute and relished in the rapturous applause bestowed upon him by his fellow classmates. He returned home that afternoon where his parents informed him of their decision not to financially provide for him any further as money was running out. Little Tich empathised with them and agreed to seek full-time employment.

Towards the end of the 1870s, Little Tich secured a job as a lather boy in a barbers shop in Gravesend. One evening, together with a freind whose brother was appearing in a talent contest, Little Tich visited a music hall for the first time and quickly became "hooked" on the idea of also being able to perform. Thanks largely to his local celebrity status of being a "freak", he was welcomed into the many public houses which catered for soldiers, sailors, merchant seamen and day-trippers from London. By 1878, he had saved enough money to buy himself a tin whistle which he used to "...amuse self by playing all the jolly and sentimental pantomime songs of the day." To earn money from this, he frequently busked to local theatre goers who were waiting in the outside queues. On the way home from his busking performances, he devised eccentric dances, much to the amusement of his onlooking neighbours.

Little Tich made his stage debut as Harry Relph at the age of 12 in 1879. The venue—although unknown—was described by his daughter Mary as being a "back-street, free-and-easy" where the acts were predominantly made up of amateurs and beginners. The audiences were often harsh and they would display their displeasure by throwing objects onto the stage. One evening, having exhausted the list of amateur talent, the compere volunteered Little Tich and his tin-whistle to take up the next turn. The performance was a success and Little Tich returned every night, often accompanying his tin-whistle piece with impromptu dance routines. News of his performances travelled, and he was soon signed up by the proprietor of the neighbouring Royal Exchange music hall, who bought his new signing a pair of cloggs. Little Titch became a star turn at the hall and often sung thirty songs a night. It was here that he discovered the art of blackface, a type of entertainment which was widely performed around the British Isles.

1880s

Early London engagements

At the start of the 1880s, Little Tich assumed the stage name The Infant Mackney and graduated to the open air theatre. He took up a residency at the Rosherville Pleasure Gardens, along with a group of other blackface performers who together, were described by the local historian J.R.S. Clifford as being "a band of minstrel darkies of a superior type". Little Tich's transition from amateur to professional performer came when he was offered the opportunity to appear weekly at Barnard's Music Hall in Chatham. Lew Barnard, the hall's proprietor, offered Little Tich 35 shillings a week. Thrilled at the prospect of appearing in a proper music hall, Little Tich changed his name from The Infant Mackney to Young Tichborne, a nickname he had gained while living in Cudham years earlier. Little Tich enjoyed the success at Barnards, but audience numbers soon diminished and his pay was reduced to 15 shillings per week as a result. To supplement his income, he resumed his position in the barber's shop and took on a string of menial jobs which lasted six months. Over the next four years, Little Tich appeared in small engagements across the United Kingdom. In 1881 he left home with his sister Agnes who, under the instructions of Richard Relph, would chaperone her young brother around the music halls and variety clubs throughout England. By now, Little Tich had upgraded from the tin whistle and had bought a picco pipe which he used to accompany his clog dancing routine. He despised the experience of provincial touring as he was often forced to sleep in dosshouses with very little money or food. To survive, he would often return to busking outside music halls to the waiting audiences.

In the early months of 1884, he secured an engagement at a rundown public house called The Dolphin in Kidderminster where he was paid £2 a week. That year, he hired his first agent who, unbeknown to Little Tich, had advertised him as a "freak" and a "six-fingered novelty". Little Tich was furious with the description and quickly dispensed with the agent's services having found out about it during a tour of Leeds. By the summer ofthat year, engagements were infrequent and Little Tich used the the long periods of unemployment constructively. He learned how to read and write music and taught himself how to play various musical instruments including the piano, fiddle and cello. He also mastered how to dance in big boots.

In November 1884 he changed his stage name for the third time to Little Titch (with a second "t"). His reasoning for this was to capitalise on the release of the Tichbourn claimant fraudster Arthur Orton who was then touring the British Isles in the hope of reopening the case. The change of moniker also coincided with the signing of a new agent who was known in London for being "one of the brightest and youngest in business". The agent, Edward Colley (1859–1889), was equally thrilled with the acquisition of a new star and secured him a double engagement at the Marylebone Music Hall where he appeared as "Little Titch, The Most Curious Comique in Creation" and immediately after at the Foresters Music Hall, where he was billed as "Little Titch, the Funny Little Nigger". A reporter for The Era predicted "We shall probably hear a great deal more about Little Titch, as he seems to be one of the few that can invest the business of the Negro comedian with any humour."

By Christmas 1884, Little Tich was a resident performer in four London music halls: the Middlesex Music Hall where he had an 8pm billing; the Marylebone (at 9pm); the Star Palace of Varieties in Bermondsey (at 10pm); and Crowders Music Hall in Mile End (at 11pm). Out of the four halls, it was at the Marylebone where he had the most success and fulfilled a ten-week run. A critic for The Era who witnessed Little Tich perform at the Marylebone thought that he was "a curious comic" and that "his antics, his sayings and his business generally very amusing, and he will doubtless improve in his singing, which is weak at present, even for a Negro delineator." The newspaper further noted that "he appear to be quite a young man at present; but his dancing is peculiarly funny, though his dress in one of his characters is vulgar and suggestive; this should be altered." Having been a success in London for nearly a year, Little Tich travelled to Scotland to appear in pantomime for the first time during the 1885–6 Christmas season. Robinson Crusoe opened at the The Royal Princess Theatre in Glasgow and he appeared in the small role of Chillingowadaborie, a black faced attendant for one of the main characters King Tum-tum. The following Christmas, Little Tich starred for a second time in pantomime, this time at the Whitechapel Pavilion in a production of Cinderella in which he played "King Mischief".

American success

The American impresario Tony Pastor came to England in 1886 and signed Little Tich up for a tour of the United States. Pastor had seen the comedian perform at a small music hall called Gatti's-in-the-Road near to Westminster Bridge and was recruiting for his Gaiety Theatre Company. Little Tich left for America in the early months of 1887 and assumed his first role for Pastor in a burlesque version of the The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in which Little Tich played the leading role for a fee of £10 a week. Later, after a successful run in a burlesque version of La Esmeralda in which he wowed audiences with his "Big Boot Dance", Pastor engaged his new star for a further two seasons in the opera which lasted a total run of nine months. To show his appreciation for the record profits and huge audience attendances, Pastor presented Little Tich with a gold medal and a rare white Bohemian Shepherd who the comedian called Cheri.

Little Tich's success under Pastor had also bought him to the attention of the Chicago State Opera Company, who secured him with a two-year contract for a fee of $150 a week. Before the contract had commenced, he was allowed to travel back to England where he honoured a pantomime commitment by appearing in Dick Whittington at the Theatre Royal in Brighton. In the piece he took the billing of "Tiny Titch" (an indication that he had still yet to establish himself in England) and played the Emperor Muley.In June 1888 Little Tich starred in The Crystal Slipper a burlesque loosely based on Cinderella; the production was a hit for the comedian and completed a run of over ten months at the Chicago Opera House. The Era described him as "the quaint little Negro comedian" and called his American engagement "brilliantly successful". During The Crystal Slipper, Little Tich met the English dancer Laurie Brooks who he married in Cook County, Illinois on 20 January 1889. That year marked the end of Little Tich's "blacking up" routine, which he had performed in between his commitments for the Chicago State Opera Company. He was told by a producer that the American audiences would find the black face and English accent too much of a contrast and opined "...a deaf mute with one eye could see you aint a coon." Little Tich initially became worried at the prospect of appearing on stage without make-up, but found that the audience approved of the change.

As the months progressed, the tour matured and news of his performances travelled across America. To compensate for the loss of his blackface act, Little Tich perfected his "Big Boot Dance" instead. He had progressed from using boots that were ten inches in length to 28 inches which he found more suitable for his size. It was not infrequent for him to suddenly rush off stage to conduct a quick change into the boots, a transition he could perform in minutes. However, one stage director became concerned that the pause was too long for the audience to wait, so the officious manager threw the boots onto the stage causing the star to run back out in front of the waiting audience to put the boots in front of them. Whilst he did this, the orchestra provided an accompaniment of "till ready" music, before the change over was complete. For the audience, this provided much hilarity and assumed that this was part of the act. The unintentional sketch was "an instant hit" and the comedian incorporated this into his future "Big Boot Dance" routine.

In April 1889 Little Tich briefly returned to London to star at the Empire Theatre in Leicester Square but he was poorly received by audiences. The manager of the theatre reduced the comedian's pay to £6 a week wage. Little Tich was also billed as "Little Titch" (with the second "t") which he had omitted from the spelling a year earlier, and appeared as second on the bill. The experience left him bitter towards the English entertainments industry and he returned to America to appear in a new production for the Chicago State Opera. Bluebeard Junior was not as successful as its predecessor, but it toured for seven months. Despite his bad reviews back in England, Little Tich began to feel homesick and he was allowed to return home a few months short of his contract expiration. He returned home to London with his wife and they set up home at 182 Kennington Road, Lambeth; Laurie later gave birth to the couple's son Paul on 7 November 1889.

1890s

Return to London and West End debut

Little Tich returned to London shortly before the birth of his son Paul, and secured an engagement at the London Pavilion in Piccadilly. This time, Little Tich found his English critics to be more than complimentary about his talent, which was largely due to his success in America, but the praise annoyed him greatly which he thought as hypocritical. Nevertheless, within six months of his return, he was considered by theatre critics to be a leading London music hall performer. News of his much-improved performances travelled throughout the country and he was visited by Thomas W. Charles, manager of Manchester's Prince's Theatre. Charles offered Little Tich a leading role in his establishments forthcoming pantomime Babes in the Wood. The 1889–90 production was a huge success for the comedian and his performance earned him "the heartiest applause of the evening". Hearing of Little Tich's reviews, Augustus Harris, the influential manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, travelled to Manchester to look for new talent for his theatre's upcoming 1890–91 pantomime. Harris was impressed, but Little Tich was contracted to Charles for a further year, so Harris signed the comedian for a two year contract starting the following year. The deal would see Little Tich star in two pantomimes and on a wage of £36 a week.

In 1890, Little Tich continued to impress his London music hall audiences and appeared on the front covers of both the Entr'acte and the Music Hall magazine, a weekly supplement which was widely available in the majority of London music hall auditoriums. Following on from his success in Babes in the Wood, the theatre manager Rollo Balmain cast him as Quasimodo in a production of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, with a burlesque center piece which required Little Tich to dress as a ballerina. The show gave the comedian the opportunity to perform two of his earliest songs, "Smiles" and "I could do, could do, could do with a bit", both written for him by Walter Tilbury. During the later months of 1890, Little Tich appeared at the opening of the Tivoli Music Hall, before returning to Manchester at Christmas to fulfil the second of his two pantomimes for Thomas Charles in Little Bo-peep, in which he played the role of Toddlekins. The following year he reprised his role of Quasimodo and toured the provinces in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame with Balmain's company.

Life at Drury Lane

The year 1891 signalled a new era in the career of Little Tich. The Drury Lane pantomimes were known for their extravagance and splendour and featured lavish sets, ambitious scripts and big budgets. Each production had a cast of over a hundred performers including, ballet dancers, acrobats, and marionettes, and included an elaborate transformation scene and an energetic harlequinade. The shows were frequently co-written by Harris, with main writing duties being undertook by Edward Blanchard up until his death in 1889. Harris, who was responsible for casting each production, favoured the use of music hall performers to play the principal boy and dame roles, but Blanchard disagreed, preferring instead to use seasoned actors. Commenting in 1885 Blanchard confessed, "My smooth and pointed lines are turned into ragged prose and arrant nonsense. Hardly anything done as I intended or spoken as I had written, the music hall element is crushing the rest and the good old fairy tales never to be again illustrated as they should be."

The first of the Drury Lane pantomimes in which Little Tich appeared was Humpty Dumpty in 1891. The production, which also starred Drury Lane regulars Marie Lloyd, Dan Leno and Herbert Campbell, saw Little Tich play both the title role and the minor part of the Yellow Dwarf in the harlequinade. It was during the latter characterisation that he introduced his big boot dance which was a hit with audiences. The following Christmas, he equalled this success with his second pantomime Little Bo Peep in which he played the part of Hop of my Thumb. As well as Leno, Lloyd and Campbell, Harris recruited the singers Ada Blanche and Cecilia Loftus as principal boy and girl respectively. Harris was thrilled with Little Tich and signed him for the 1893–94 pantomime Robinson Crusoe in which he played Man Friday. Despite a budget of £30,000, the production did not equal the success of the previous two shows which caused Harris to rethink his cast. Unaware of Harris' plans, Little Tich approached the manager with a view to gain a pay rise; the proposition angered the manager and not only was his request refused, but he was also snubbed from any future production.

New theatrical ventures and international engagements

In the early months of 1891, Little Tich completed a tour of Germany and became known by the German theatrical press as the first comedian to ever appear in two music halls a night. In 1893 he developed the character Miss Turpentine for his self-choreographed sketch The Serpentine Dance which he performed over the next three years during tours of Rotterdam, Nice, Brussels, Monte Carlo, Hamburg, Lausanne, Barcelona, Budapest and Seville; the tour also enabled him to become fluent in French, German, Italian and Spanish. He portrayed Miss Turpentine as an eccentric ballerina who wore an ill-fitting tutu. The dance was a comic variation of the popular skirt dance belonging to Loie Fuller which had been popular in France years earlier. Another popular characterisation was that of an eccentric Spanish dancer, which Little Tich also devised while touring Europe. Like The Serpentine Dance, the sketch relied heavily on acrobatic choreography and comic miming rather than eccentric singing and joke reciting. In 1894 and free from the contractual obligations at Drury Lane, he took a three year break from the English music hall scene and travelled to France to fulfil a number of engagements; over the next ten years, he divided his time between there and England. In the early months of 1895, he moved from music hall to variety theatre, which many of his contemporaries had already successfully achieved. He also formed his own theatre company in mid-1895, and produced his first show called Lord Tom Noddy in which he also starred. He commissioned the dramatist George Dance to write the piece and made him a partner in the company.

Lord Tom Noddy debuted in London in September 1896 and appeared at the Garrick Theatre for a two month run, before touring the provinces. The show provided Little Tich with the chance of being able to promote himself as a serious actor and to seperate himself from the reputation of simply being the "deformed dwarf from the music hall." A critic from the Edinburgh Evening News thought that Little Titch was "the life and soul of the sketch" whose singing was "fairly good while dancing was smart. The audience were described as being "very large" and whose "bursts of laughter w frequent and loud", while the critic William Archer dismissed Little Tich as being the "...Quasimodo of the music halls, whose talent lies in a grotesque combination of agility with deformity." On 11 December 1896, Little Tich was invited to appear at the Folies Bergère in France where he starred in a short piece as Miss Turpentine and performed the Big Boot Dance. One journalist for the Sunday Referee claimed that "...no artist since Loie Fuller, four years earlier, had scored such a success", and as a result, he signed a two year contract at the music hall.

Little Tich returned to England in the later months of 1897 where he self-produced the second of his company's two shows, a musical comedy called Billy. The show enjoyed a healthy provincial tour after opening in Newcastle with one reporter writing that "it ha not very much to recommend it", but thought that Little Tich gave "some excellent fooling" and that it " impossible not to laugh at some of the eccentricities". However, the farce failed to make it to the West End of London which Little Tich saw as a snub and refused to perform in the capital again. Instead, he travelled to South Shields where he appeared briefly in a successful short play called Giddy Ostend before retreating to France. In 1898 he broke the Folies contract shortly before its expiry after being scouted by Joseph Oller who engaged him at the Olympia Music Hall. The breach of contract at the Folies spurred the manager Édouard Marchand into taking legal action against the comedian. In the final years of the century, he shunned the English variety theatre scene altogether and returned to the less-popular music halls where he remained intermittently for the remainder of his career.

1900s

Marriage troubles and first child

Little Tich's wife Laurie left the family home at Rue Lafayette, Paris in 1897 while he was away on a tour of England, Germany and Austria. She eloped to Berlin with the French actor François Marty and left her young son Paul within the care of her husband. Unable to care for Paul, Little Tich sent him to England to live with relatives. That year, Little Tich met the dancer Julia Recio during an engagement at the Olympia Music Hall in Paris and the two began courting. They moved to a flat in Boulevards Poissonnière, Paris and lived together in secret until Laurie Relph's death in 1901. In 1900 Little Tich appeared in the French capital's Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre where he performed the Big Boot Dance which was recorded onto film by the French director Clément-Maurice. The film-maker Jacques Tati called the piece "a foundation for everything that has been realised in comedy on the screen".

In 1902 Little Tich starred in a special, one-off revue with Marie Lloyd at the Tivoli theatre called The Revue which was staged in celebration of the coronation of Edward VII. The following year, Little Tich's performance at the Oxford Music Hall was described as being "...a very droll turn" by a reporter for The Cornishman newspaper, who also called his big boot dance "wonderful". In the later months of that year, Little Tich rented a new house at 1 Teignmouth Road, Kilburn with the sole purpose of escaping life with Julia. He entertained friends at the address and conducted extra marital affairs. Despite their troubles, he married Julia in a descreet London ceremony on 31 March 1904 at St Giles Registry Office and rented a marital home at 44 Bedford Court Mansions in Bloomsbury. Although initially happy, the marriage quickly deteriorated as a result of differing opinions over social activities and money; Julia was a sociable and extravagant person, whilst Little Tich preferred a quieter and thriftier lifestyle. By 1906 the couple had become estranged and Julia moved into a neighbouring flat, bought by her husband. They never publicly announced the separation, and Little Tich would financially support his wife and fund her extravagant lifestyle for the next twenty years. Years later, Paul Relph admitted "Father and Julia never loved one another. Poor, poor father. His life was one long misery through her." Over the next four years, Little Tich continued to perform in both England and France and earned £10,000 a year. In 1905 he appeared in the second of a further three films for the French film industry called Le Raid Paris - Monte-Carlo en Deux Heures, directed by Georges Méliès. This was followed by Little Tich in 1907, and Little Tich, the Tec two years later.

Recording career and new family

In 1910 Little Tich became the adoptive father of Rodolphe Knoepper, an orphan born in 1899 to the brother of the Russian acrobat Harry Alaska. The youngster moved in to the Relph residence in France and was educated in the country. When the boy's aunt died in 1912, he was moved back to London to stay with Julia, who doted on him. In later years Little Tich's daughter Mary admitted that her father treated Knoepper as more of a son that Paul who had become estranged from the family by the 1920s. While in Paris in 1910, Little Tich was made an officer of Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Ministry of Public Instruction for his services to the stage. Towards the end of that year he returned to England to complete a short engagement at the King's Theatre in Dundee. His performance was described by a theatre reviewer for the Evening Telegraph as being "downright genuine fun" which "nearly brought down the house", while the audience "laugh so much that tears ran down their cheeks". The following year Little Tich recorded the first of a selection of his music hall songs onto one-sided shellac discs used in the early acoustic recording process. Songs included "The Gas Inspector", "King Ki-Ki", "The Toreador" and "The Zoo Keeper" and were followed two years later by "The Waiter", "The Weather", "The Don of the Don Juans" and "A Risky Thing to do".

In 1915, Little Tich cut short his engagement at the Golders Green Hippodrome to take up a better offer in Paris. As a result, he was fined £103 for breach of contract in court proceedings brought by the proprietors of the theatre. That year he recorded "The Tallyman", "The Gamekeeper", "The Skylark" and "The Pirate" onto disc before heading to the northern English provinces to prepare for that years Christmas pantomime at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool. It was there that he met Winifred Latimer a singer and actress who had some success on the London stage under Seymour Hicks a few years previously. The pair were both starring in the Christmas pantomime Sinbad the Sailor in which Little Tich played the title role and Latimer supported him as the principal boy. The two grew close and began courting shortly before the pantomime closed in the early months of 1916. Sinbad the Sailor was a huge success and Latimer was widely praised for her performance which she attributed to the guidance from Little Tich. In 1916 Latimer moved to London and rented a flat at 93 Ridgmount Gardens, Camden. The location was chosen deliberately as it was a three minute walk from Little Tich's address in Bedford Square, which enabled him to frequently visit his mistress albeit at night to avoid being recognised.

Little Tich recorded the final two songs from his repertoire onto shellac disc in 1917 called "Tally-Ho!" and "The Best Man". That year Latimer fell pregnant which ended her career on the stage, a situation which pleased Little Tich immeasurably. For Latimer, the good news was not shared for she had been ostracised by her family and now had to contend to life as an unmarried mother with no career and no chances of ever relinquishing her remaining theatrical ambitions. On 23 February 1918, while Little Tich was performing in Brighton, she gave birth to a daughter whom she named Mary. Soon after the birth, Latimer contracted Pleurisy, gave Mary to a relative to look after and moved to the Sussex countryside to recuperate. After a few weeks she returned to London and secured a room at a rundown boarding house; she was later reunited with Mary and they moved into a flat at 64 Gloucester Place in Marylebone.

Last years and death (1920–1928)

By 1920 relations between Little Tich and Latimer's parents had improved and they welcomed him into the family fold. The comedian rented a new, six-room flat in Marylebone for his daughter and mistress and hired the services of a governess, whose primary role was to act as company for Latimer while Little Tich was away working. By 1925 the number of his financial dependants had dwindled; Harry Alaska, Roudy Knoepper and two of his step-siblings had all died, and his biological son Paul had disappeared. The years of being generous had depleted his savings and he was now finding it increasingly difficult to support Latimer, Mary and Julia on his earnings. His annual wage in 1921 and 1922 had topped £9,750 but had dropped to £3,743 by 1923. In 1925 he earned £6,300 but this fell the following year to just £2,100. Worried by the drastic reduction in pay, Little Tich reduced Julia's payments, which angered her family. Another money-saving plan was to stop renting properties in London and secure a mortgage on a small house instead. A property was sought in Hendon, North-West London at 93 Shirehall Park for £1,475, and the family took up residence in September 1925. Immediately after moving in, Little Tich went on a successful tour of Europe which culminated at Christmas the same year.

On the morning of 7 January 1926, Julia Relph died of a cerebral hemorrhage in the flat which Little Tich had rented for her. Despite their estrangement, the comedian was distraught at her death and spent two nights at the apartment with her corpse. A few days later, he moved in with Latimer where he arranged his wife's funeral, staying in the spare bedroom as a "house guest". He made frequent visits to Bedford Court Mansions to organise Julia's paperwork and discovered to his horror that his wife had been having an affair with his friend Emile Footgers; that she was actually ten years older than she had led her husband to believe; that she had bought a house in Golders Green for his granddaughter Constance without his knowing, and found that she had participated in a secret scam to blackmail him out of money. Despite the revelations Little Tich mourned deeply for his wife and spoke fondly of her for the rest of his life.

On 10 April 1926, Little Tich married Winifred Latimer at Caxton Hall, Westminster in a small and intimate ceremony. Later that evening, he appeared at the Camberwell Palace in a short, but popular engagement, while his new wife returned to Hendon. For the honeymoon, the family travelled to Bristol where Little Tich appeared on stage with Mistinguett who presented the comedian with a tributary gold statue of him wearing big boots. At the end of that year, the family paid a working visit to Australia where Little Tich toured the Sydney theatres for a fee of £300 a week; he received a lukewarm reception from audiences. The following March, they returned to England and Little Tich made only one appearance on stage that year, in November, when he introduced a new song called "The Charlady at the House of Commons". For the characters appearance he wore a ripped and dirty frock, a scrag wig and carried an old mop and bucket. The act required him to flip the mop up into the air by standing on the fringed top and grabbed the handle before carrying on singing. During one performance at the Alhambra Theatre, the trick went wrong and he received a blow to his head from the mop. Despite the pain, he continued with the piece and refused to seek medical treatment for the resulting bump and intense headache which followed.

One December morning in 1927, whilst getting ready for a family day out, Little Tich was conversing with his wife in separate rooms upstairs at Shirehall Park. The comedian repeatedly failed to answer a simple question from his wife who then walked into the room where she found him slumped and apparently lifeless in a chair. He was taken to hospital where doctors diagnosed a stroke and he lived in a paralysed state for three months. He became mute and lost all feeling on the right side of his body, but was discharged from hospital and returned home to Hendon. He was frequently visited by Sir Alfred Fripp who made a secondary diagnosis of Pernicious anemia which he established played an instrumental part in the comedians seizure.

In the morning of 10 February 1928, Little Tich died at his home in Shirehall Park, Hendon aged 59.

The author and theatre critic Walter MacQueen-Pope predicted that Little Tich would be remembered for his "physical peculiarity and the expression 'tichy', meaning small".

Notes and references

Notes

1. Mary's maiden name was recorded as Morphew on Little Tich's birth certificate, but was Moorefield on her death certificate. It is probable that the latter is correct, with his daughter Mary Tich blaming the confusion on her grandmother's broad Irish accent being misheard by the rural Kentish GRO clerk.
2. The Inn and the farm were sold to a daughter from Relph's first marriage.
3. Popular music hall comedians who started their career as blackface artistes include Alfred Vance, George Mozart, Will Evans and Bransby Williams.
4. The name was based on E.W. Mackney (1825–1909) a Morpeth born clog dancer and singer who excelled in the art of blackface.
5. The nickname derives from the Tichborne case of 1854, a legal cause célèbre that captivated Victorian England in the 1860s and 1870s. In 1854 Roger Tichborne, eldest son of the tenth baronet was lost at sea. Arthur Orton, a working-class imposter, tried to claim the estate of the missing heir, but failed to convince the courts. He was later sentenced for fourteen years penal servitude after it was found his claim amounted to perjury. Orton was a short fat man and the name Tichborne was frequently used to describe persons of such stature. Tich fitted that description and he became known as "Young Tichborne".
6. £2 a week equates to (£263 in 2025 adjusted for inflation).
7. The act of dancing in oversized shoes, or "big boots" as they came to be known, originated from clog dancing with the outsized flat shoe being used for comic effect by "nigger" comedians.
8. Although he had only officially changed his stage name three times up until this point, he was unofficially billed with at least five others including: "Young Tichborne, Pocket Mackney"; "Young Tichborne, Little Black Storm"; "Young Tichborne, The Picco Soloist"; or simply "Tiny Tich".
9. The name "Chillingowadaborie" was named after a ditty sung by the lion comique Arthur Lloyd.
10. £10 a week equates to (£1,405 in 2025 adjusted for inflation).
11. $150 a week equates to ($5,087 in 2025 adjusted for inflation).
12. The Crystal Slipper was written by Alfred Thompson, an author and designer for Pastor's Gaiety Company.
13. Laurie Brooks was born in 1866 and lived in Lisson Grove, Marylebone, which at that time was a slum area of central London.
14. The other states and cities within the tour included, New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Baltimore, St Louis, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, and Washington.
15. £6 a week equates to (£838 in 2025 adjusted for inflation).
16. The London Pavilion was built on the site of a former coaching inn and stable yard. Coincidentally, the former road where the buildings once stood was called Tichborne Street.
17. £36 a week equates to (£4,966 in 2025 adjusted for inflation).
18. £30,000 a week equates to (£4,202,855 in 2025 adjusted for inflation).
19. The story involved the juvenile Lord Tom Noddy, an ambitious (but equally poor) aristocrat who falls in love with his nurse in his infancy.
20. The story centred around a character called Billy Vavasour, a member of the sporting aristocracy who pursues the daughter of a strict army general. The show co-starred the Edwardian actress Evie Greene.
21. Paul Relph shunned the idea of becoming a watchmaker which his father had desired for his future career and instead became a performer. He joined Fred Karno in one of his theatre companies and appeared as a key player in Karno's Mumming Birds sketch from 1906 to 1910. After this, his career fell into obscurity and he ended up as a clown in a travelling circus. He died of stomach cancer on the 9 April 1948 aged 58.
22. Julia Recio was born in 1869 in Málaga and was the youngest daughter of a Spanish government official. She was brought up in Paris, and became successful in Spanish dancing, performing in Moulin Rouge.
23. Laurie Relph died in a Berlin clinic and left £2,900 in her will with the majority going to her's and Harry's son Paul. She never made contact with her family again and her cause of death is unknown.
24. £10,000 in 1907 per equates to (£1,336,221 in 2025 adjusted for inflation).
25. Rodolphe Knoepper later joined the British Army but died during active service in April, 1918.
26. Winifred Emma Ivy Latimer was born in Hove, Sussex on 26 February 1892. She was the youngest child and only daughter of James Ivey, a commercial traveller, and his mistress Harriet Latimer who was related to the actor and theatre manager Harley Granville-Barker.
27. £300 a week equates to (£21,994 in 2025 adjusted for inflation).

References

1. ^ Russell, Dave."Relph, Harry (1867–1928)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, online edition, January 2011, accessed 1 August 2013 (subscription required)
2. ^ Tich, p. 9
3. ^ Tich, p. 12
4. ^ Tich, p. 10
5. Tich, p. 11
6. ^ Tich, p. 14
7. ^ Tich, p. 15
8. ^ Tich, p. 16
9. Tich, p. 18
10. Described as such by the author; Tich, p. 19
11. Described as such by the author; Tich, p. 11
12. Tich, pp. 18–19
13. ^ Tich, p. 19
14. Tich, p. 20
15. Tich, pp. 20–21
16. ^ Tich, p. 21
17. Tich, p. 22
18. Rohmer, pp. 54–55
19. Quoted from historian J.R.S. Clifford; Tich, p. 22
20. Tich, pp. 22–23
21. Tich, p. 23
22. Tich, pp. 23–24
23. Tich, p. 24
24. Tich, p. 25
25. Tich, p. 26
26. ^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved May 7, 2024.
27. Tich, p. 27
28. ^ Tich, p. 28
29. ^ Tich, p. 31
30. Short, p. 61
31. Opinion of the author Richard Findlater; Tich, p. 31
32. Holloway and Richards, pp. 248–249
33. Tich, pp. 31–32
34. Rohmer, p. 21
35. "The London Music Halls", The Era, 29 November 1884, p. 18
36. Tich, pp. 32–33
37. "The Marylebone", The Era, 10 January 1885, p. 10
38. ^ Tich, p. 34
39. ^ Tich, p. 36
40. ^ Tich, p. 35
41. Rohmer, p. 34
42. Rohmer, p. 48
43. ^ Tich, p. 37
44. 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
45. ^ Tich, p. 97
46. ^ Rohmer, p. 19
47. "Music Hall Gossip", The Era, 4 May 1889, p. 15
48. Tich, p. 96
49. Tich, p. 38
50. Rohmer, p. 23
51. Tich, pp. 38–39
52. Quoted from the author; Tich, p. 39
53. ^ Tich, p. 39
54. ^ Tich, p. 40
55. Tich, p. 108
56. Rohmer, p. 54
57. Tich, p. 41
58. Tich, p. 42
59. Tich, p. 43
60. Tich, p. 45
61. Tich, pp. 42–43
62. Tich, p. 46
63. "Mr. Pitcher's Art", Obituary, The Times, 3 March 1925
64. Anthony, p. 87
65. "Victorian Pantomime", Victoria and Albert Museum (online), accessed 15 August 2013
66. MacQueen-Pope, p. 86
67. Tich, p. 47
68. Rohmer, p. 79
69. ^ Tich, pp. 49–50
70. Macqueen-Pope, p. 87
71. Tich, p. 48
72. MacQueen-Pope, p. 88
73. Tich, pp. 58–59
74. Tich, p. 59
75. Tich, p. 61
76. ^ Tich, p. 52
77. Tich, p. 54
78. "Little Tich At The Theatre Royal", Edinburgh Evening News, 19 October 1897, p. 2
79. Quoted by the author; Tich, p. 54
80. Quote taken from Tich, p. 62
81. ^ Tich, p. 62
82. Rohmer, p. 80
83. ^ Tich, p. 56
84. "Little Tich at the Lyceum Theatre", Edinburgh Evening News, 17 May 1898, p. 2
85. "Little Tich in Paris", Aberdeen Evening Express, 12 April 1899, p. 3
86. Tich, p. 57
87. Tich, p. 98
88. Tich, p. 100
89. Tich, p. 111
90. Tich, p. 150
91. ^ Tich, p. 102
92. Tich, p. 99
93. ^ Little Tich (Harry Relph), Who's Who of Victorian Cinema (online edition), accessed 9 September 2013
94. MacQueen-Pope, p. 110
95. "Little Tich And His Audience", The Cornishman, 15 January 1903, p. 2
96. ^ Tich, p. 106
97. Tich, p. 103
98. Tich, p. 104
99. Tich, p. 133
100. Quote from Paul Relph; Tich, p. 107
101. Tich, p. 117
102. Tich, pp. 113–115
103. Tich, p 115
104. "Little Tich And French Order", Hull Daily Mail, 24 June 1910, p. 11
105. Rohmer, p. 87
106. "Little Tich at the King's Theatre", Evening Telegraph, 13 December 1910, p. 4
107. ^ Little Tich - WINDYCDR9 - In Other People's Shoes, Musichallcds.co.uk, accessed 9 September 2013
108. "Little Tich To Pay £103 For Breach Of Court", The Western Times, 26 March 1915, p. 12
109. Tich, pp. 119–120
110. Tich, p. 119
111. Tich, p. 121
112. Tich, pp. 122–123
113. ^ Tich, p. 128
114. Tich, pp. 126–127
115. Tich, p. 127
116. Tich, pp. 128–129
117. Tich, p. 131
118. Tich, pp. 132–133
119. Tich, p. 107
120. Tich, pp. 134–135
121. Tich, p. 136
122. Description given by his daughter Mary; Tich, p. 136
123. Tich, pp. 137–138
124. Tich, p. 142
125. Tich, pp. 138–139
126. Tich, p. 139
127. "Little Tich To Marry", The Bath Chronicle and Herald, 10 April 1926, p. 22
128. Tich, p. 144
129. ^ Tich, p. 147
130. ^ Tich, p. 148
131. "Little Tich Critically Ill", Aberdeen Press and Journal, 10 February 1928, p. 7
132. "Little Tich Dead", Western Gazette, 17 February 1928, p. 16
133. MacQueen-Pope, p. 178

Sources

• Anthony, Barry (2010). The King's Jester. London: I. B. Taurus & Co. ISBN 978-1-84885-430-7.
• Holloway, Stanley (1967). Wiv a little bit o' luck: The life story of Stanley Holloway. London: Frewin. OCLC 3647363. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Macqueen-Pope, Walter (2010). Queen of the Music Halls: Being the Dramatized Story of Marie Lloyd. London: Nabu Press. ISBN 978-1-171-60562-1.
• Rohmer, Sax (2007). Little Titch: A Book of Travels and Wanderings. London: A&B Treebooks. ISBN 978-0-97947-980-9.
• Ernest Henry, Short (1938). Ring Up the Curtain: Being a Pageant of English Entertainment covering Half a Century. London: Herbert Jenkins Limited. ISBN 978-0-83695-299-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Tich, Mary (1979). Little Titch: Giant of the Music Hall. London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd. ISBN 978-0-24110-174-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

• Anthony, Barry. Little Tich (Harry Relph)
• Little Tich at IMDb
• Irving, Gordon. Little Tich
• Knapp, Lawrence. (2000) Sax Rohmer and Little Tich
• Blue plaque by the London Borough of Bromley
• Little Tich on YouTube
• Little Tich at Find a Grave
• A collection of Harry Relph (Little Tich) volumes is held by the Victoria and Albert Museum Theatre and Performance Department.

Template:Persondata

• 1867 births
• 1928 deaths
• English male comedians
• Vaudeville performers
• Music hall performers
• Pantomime dames
• Burials at East Finchley Cemetery