1909 - 1911

The earliest dated entry comes from 18th December 1909, the year she turned nineteen.  Carefully annotated in Gwen's hand are both the year and the names of the two songs she performed, Roses and Island of Dreams.  The venue was not the famous Clifton School in KwaZulu-Natal, which was founded only in 1924.  However, a school catering for pupils in the Clifton area of East London was established in 1905, in the hall of St Albans Church, East London.  I think this must have been the Clifton Public School in the programme below, which appears to relate to a prize-giving concert.  Much later, in 1965, it became the Clifton Park High School, and in 1978 it changed again to the Hudson Park High School.

Next we have a Grand Popular Concert  on 17th March to celebrate St Patrick's Day in 1911, proceeds in aid of the Catholic Church in East London.  Franz Moeller's Music Saloon was selling the tickets and, although the orchestra is anonymous, I would say it would be a good bet that he was conducting it.

Gwen appears in only one item, Love could I only tell Thee, in the second part of the programme.

Although Gwen did not keep any programmes of concerts given by the Choral Society at this time, there are two pages of photographs recording outings relating to the June 1911 series of concerts.  She would have been one of the choristers at this stage in her career.  It is entirely possible that she is in some of the photographs, but it is impossible to identify her.  The first two photographs below were taken at a picnic at Green Point, while the remaining three have a more detailed description which mentions the celebrity singers at the outing.  Ada Crossley is the only one I can identify: she was Australian and moved to London in 1894.  She toured both South Africa and Australia, but did most of her work in England.  The others mentioned by Gwen would have been singers of some note in their day: Stanley Newman, Gregor Chermavski, R.B. Young and Mr Bacton.  Finally below is a photograph of Nahoon Hotel with the years 1902 - 1911 below it.  This probably indicates the years during which it operated as a hotel, and it seems likely in view of the fact that it appears in the Common-Place Book that it was used to accommodate or entertain some of the important guests up to 1911.

Cambridge is a suburb of East London and in 1911 the Cambridge Football Club won the F.F.A. Grand Challenge Cup.  The club no longer exists as an independent entity, but may be a part of the Cambridge Sports Club; the S.A.F.A. had been in operation since 1892 and so what exactly the F.F.A. was remains a mystery, as I can find no references to it elsewhere.  In this Grand Concert of 3rd November 1911, Gwen performed one item, Come to Me.  It is entirely possible that the sketch, Gwendoline's Home-Coming, also referred to Gwen herself.

The next item is a Grand Gala Concert given on 15th December 1911 by Mr Franz Moeller's Orchestra & Pupils (60 performers).  Gwen is given special mention in the arrangements, and, characteristically, it was all in aid of the Christmas Fund of the Frere Hospital, East London.  Gwen performed one item before the interval, In the Great Unknown.  Afterwards she featured in another item, Thora, but here her name was omitted from the programme, so she has added it in pencil.  Clearly this concert was not to be taken as a good old knees-up, as we may gather from the admonitions at the bottom of the third page: "STRICT silence during the performance of each item will greatly oblige," and "THE DOORS will be closed during the performance of each item."  And, as was customary, the evening ended with GOD SAVE THE KING.

When Gwen was not busy rehearsing or performing, she still found time for the theatre, as the busy schedule below of six Shakespeare plays on six consecutive nights in December 1911 shows.  The "English Skakespearean Company" could have done with a better proof reader for their "Seasons' Productions"!  Edward Branscombe was born in London in 1864 and chose a career in singing, but he was also a music director, company owner and manager.  He toured Australia five times and settled there, as can be seen from the annotation on his portrait photograph below.  It was probably in his capacity as a singer that Gwen got to know him, but in the notice below he seems to be exercising his managerial skills in presenting this Shakespeare festival in East London in 1911.  He died in South Africa in 1931.  Mr Henry Herbert was a Shakespearean actor of the time, and he can be seen as Hamlet on a publicity postcard below.

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