Marie Lloyd

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Marie Lloyd
Photograph in possession of family
Background information
Birth name:	Matilda Alice Victoria Wood
Date of birth:	February 12, 1870
Birth location:	Hoxton
Date of death:	October 7, 1922
Genres:	Music hall
Spouse(s):	Percy Courtenay 1887–1905 Alexander Hurley 1905 – 1913 Bernard Dillon 1914 – 1922

Matilda Alice Victoria Wood (February 12, 1870 in Hoxton, London – October 7, 1922), was an English music-hall singer.

In her teens she adopted the name Marie Lloyd, and quickly became one of the most famous of English music hall singers and comedians. Her first major success was The Boy I Love is up in the Gallery. She was the eldest of nine siblings, seven of whom had theatrical careers, the most successful being Daisy, Rose, Grace, and Alice. All but Daisy performed under the name Lloyd in honour of their eldest sister, who when they were children had formed them into a group called the Fairy Bells Minstrels.

Lloyd's songs, although perfectly harmless by modern standards, began to gain a reputation for being "racy" and filled with double entendre, largely thanks to the manner in which she sang them, adding winks and gestures, and creating a conspiratorial relationship with her audience. She became the target of Vigilance or "Watch" committees and others opposing music-hall licenses. She liked to claim that any immorality was in the minds of the complainants, and in front of these groups would sing her songs "straight" to show their innocence. In one famous incident, she was summoned before one of these committees and asked to sing her songs. She sang Oh! Mr Porter; and A Little of What you Fancy in such a sweet innocent way that the committee had no reason to find anything amiss. She then rendered the drawing-room ballad Come into the Garden Maud in such an obscene way that the committee was shocked into silence. She did herself no favours.

On another occasion, when the moralists objected to her song "I sits among the cabbages and peas", with its daring - for the context - reference to urinating, she transformed the lyrics, and sang instead "I sits among the cabbages and leeks" to the roars of laughter of her adoring audience.

The following year she made her first visit to the United States. Her "blue" reputation preceded her and she quickly gave an interview to the New York Telegraph newspaper that carried her quote "They don't pay their sixpences and shillings at a music hall to hear the Salvation Army. If I was to try to sing highly moral songs, they would fire ginger beer bottles and beer mugs at me. I can't help it if people want to turn and twist my meanings."

Although popular enough to command her own fees, Lloyd backed and supported the 1907 strike for better terms by music-hall performers. She was picketing one theatre when she recognised someone trying to enter. Lloyd shouted, "Let her through girls, she'll close the music-hall faster than we can." The singer was Belle Elmore, later murdered by her husband, Dr. Crippen.

Marie Lloyd was married three times. Her spouses were:

Percy Courtenay (12 November 1887–1905) (divorced) 1 child (separated 1895)
Alexander Hurley (1905 – 6 December 1913) (his death) (separated 1910)
Bernard Dillon (21 February 1914 – 7 October 1922) (her death)

Grave of Marie Lloyd in North London

Her private life was also controversial. Her first marriage to Percy Courtenay was a stormy one and ended in divorce in 1905. She quickly married Alec Hurley the next year, and in 1910 met Irish jockey Bernard Dillon.

She first appeared in the USA in 1897, but she was refused entry in 1913 for "moral turpitude" when "Mr. and Mrs. Dillon" arrived together, but unmarried. After an enquiry, she was allowed to stay. Alec Hurley died two months later, and Marie and Dillon were married at the British Consulate in Portland, Oregon, on 21 February 1914.

During World War I, like most Music Hall artists, she enthusiastically supported recruitment for the army. The recruitment went on in the music halls themselves, often in the tone "Two shillings for the first man to sign up tonight". In particular she sang the song "I didn't like you much before you joined the army, John, but I do like you, cockie, now you've got your khaki on." She also sang in many free concerts for the masses of wounded returning from the trenches.

Dillon began drinking heavily and abusing Marie and she began drinking as her own escape. In 1920, they separated. From then on, Marie Lloyd went downhill and although she still worked, it became more and more difficult to get her on to the stage in time. Her voice became weaker and her act shorter. On October 4, 1922 she was appearing at Edmonton, London. During the last song in her act I'm One of the Ruins That Cromwell Knocked About a Bit, she staggered about on the stage. The audience laughed delightedly when she fell, thinking it was all part of the act. However, she was desperately ill, and died three days later on October 7.

On October 12, 1922, over one hundred thousand people attended her funeral at Hampstead. In the funeral procession, there were twelve cars full of flowers and on top of the hearse was the long ebony cane with the sparkling top hat that she had used in her act. The theatrical newspaper, The Era dubbed the cortege a "Royal Progress". Her daughter by Courtenay, Marie (1888-1967) took the stage name Marie Lloyd Jr., appeared in a short musical film in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process made in 1926, and performed in music hall for many years.

Marie Lloyd was buried in Hampstead Cemetery, Fortune Green Road, with her parents, Matilda and John Wood. On her death, in 1967, Marie Lloyd Jr, was also buried there.^[1]