Is this Fancy Dress?

[pride of our alley]

Please could anyone let me know if this is just costume fancy dress?...I believe this is my husbands Grandfather from the early 1900s..he was in the Grenadier Guards and was a police sergeant..Thankyou in advance..Bee..x

[Old Owl]

Most probably fancy dress. The sword appears to be British but the costume is neither Grenadier Guards or Police--could be French or Austrian--possibly?

Looks like the photographer is from Shrewsbury.

To be quite honest I'm not certain at all--but hopefully someone will have a better answer for you soon.

Robert

[Kate Wills]

Any idea of the precise date of the photo?

If it is a costume, I have an idea of what he might be performing.

Was he a singer?

[FROGSMILE]

It is a rather good costume and has the look of something worn in an Opera. The style is Franco/Belgian.

[centurion]

My first thought was GBS's The Chocolate Soldier

[Kate Wills]

The Chocolate Soldier operetta is by Oscar Straus, but that is what I was thinking, and why I asked if pride of our alley has a precise date for the photo.

[centurion]

The Chocolate Soldier operetta is by Oscar Straus, but that is what I was thinking, and why I asked if pride of our alley has a precise date for the photo.

Yes getting mixed up with Arms and the Man which is basically the same plot and upon which the Chocolate Soldier was based (Like Pygmalion and My Fair Lady) Shaw detested The Chocolate Soldier and greatly regretted permitting the adaptation

[Stoppage Drill]

Is the cap badge a Kiku ? (Japanese stylised chrysanthemum)

[pride of our alley]

Thanks to everyone for your comments and interest...as far as I know the photograph is from around 1910...we never knew of Grandad Griffiths being a singer, but surprises quite often happen in family history research!...the uniform is quite something and he must have looked good in real life in it as he was an over 6 footer!!!....I tried to research the hand written name at the bottom of the photograph but had no luck..I am presuming it was the photographer W,Geo. McConnell Shrewsbury....X

[HERITAGE PLUS]

W. George McConnell was indeed a photographer with a studio in Shrewsbury. For a small fee you can obtain details of the address and the years that he worked here;

george mcconnell photographer shrewsbury

Dave

[Kate Wills]

pride of our alley,

My guess is the chap in the photo is singing one of the two tenor roles in Oscar Starus's The Chocolate Soldier; written in 1908, and first performed in England in 1910. It quickly became very popular.

The two tenor roles are Alexis (a Bulgarian hussar officer) and Bumerli (the Swiss mercenary serving with the Serbian Army).

Both characters were often clad in similar style to the one in your photo. Of course this is only a guess, and could be another play or musical, or even a fancy dress or carnival entry.

Does his moustache look right? Would he be wearing spurs if he was a real officer?

[centurion]

Or he was in an amateur dramatic production of Arms and the Man (it was a popular comedy for such productions and had the same characters) which if he was not known as a singer is more likely

[centurion]

Looking further the Chocolate Soldier first opened in Britain at the Lyric Theatre in 1910 where it ran as a professional (and exceedingly popular and profitable) show almost up to the beginning of the war. Parallel productions in Berlin and New York ran almost as long. It would seem unlikely that an amateur license of the work would be available at this time. The show was revived in 1921 and it appears to have been at the height of its popularity as an amateur production in the early 1930s. Unless your man was a professional performer of light opera or the photo is inter war I'd think it unlikely that he is in the musical but as I said he could be in the original play

[Kate Wills]

Bee,

Could you post a scan of the back of the card, and give us Grandad Griffiths dates please? Are you sure it is him?

Also, is McConnell's name printed on the card, and does the family have any Shropshire connections?

[centurion]

Griffiths is a very common name in the Marches

[pride of our alley]

Hello all and many thanks once again for the interesting and quite unusual turn that this photo is taking!!...Frank Vincent Griffiths was born in Hackney Middlesex in 1886 and lived in London and then Wem in Shropshire, (not too far from Shrewsbury,) where he married my husbands Grandmother...He was a police clerk and then police constable and then a police sergeant...During the early years of the 1900s and during WW1 he was in the Grenadier Guards and remained in London as a Foot guard....There is absolutely nothing on the back of the photograph, it is completely blank...The name W.Geo.McConnell.Shrewsbury is handwritten in ink on the bottom right hand side....He always had a moustache the whole of his adult life...It is only a rough guess as to the date, but I do have other photographs of him which cover most periods across the early-mid 1900s and on here he looks quite young compared to others dated at 1920 for example...My husbands Grandmothers brother (Franks brother-in-law) was in an amateur dramatics society in Wem that had some kind of involvement with two famous actors (Peter Jones and Peter Vaughn) but that is at a later date....It could be posssible that he was involved in some kind of amateur production and we never knew about it.(Were the police not given to theatrical performances?)..Whatever happens now, we are always going to refer to this as the "chocolate soldier photo"!!!...Thankyou..Bee

[Ron Clifton]

The uniform has an Austrian or Balkan look to it. I would go along with the possibility of it being from an amateur production of either The Chocolate Soldier or Arms and the Man. Incidentally we did the play at school, and I was Major Petkoff.

Ron

[centurion]

Much depends on dating. The earliest reference I can find to an amateur performance of the Chocolate Soldier is Jan 1925 when according to a Canadian paper the Temple Singers gave the first ever amateur performance. How accurate this is I don't know. I can find reviews of amateur performances of Arms and the Man as far back as 1906 so it depends when the photo was taken.

Interestingly George Bernard Shaw was a frequent visitor to Wem as his wife's family came from Edstaston which is nearby

[Kate Wills]

Bee,

There is at least one wartime military performance of Choc that I know of, but not by the Guards. Are you sure he is granfather Griffiths of the Grenadiers?

Returning to the back of the photo, is there anything to point to its origins? McConnell's signature does not necessarily mean he took the photo.