Stanislaus Calhaen

[DavidOwen]

Not at all, I thought it amusing. I bet Lionel wouldn't have got off so easily!

Lawrence Calhaem's estate 1952 (courtesy FMP)

Brother Horace's MIC details (courtesy FMP) - another reason why I don't think an impersonation by Lionel would be tolerated

Horace died in 1934 - nothing in a probate search.

 

[Gareth Davies]

Yes, I noticed the probate record yesterday.

[DavidOwen]

This is the sort of business Horace (and presumably Stanislaus) were involved in when the above policemen came to call... Daily Mirror 30 July 1907 (courtesy FMP)

[Gareth Davies]

I have made contact with the wife of a Calhaem who is going to speak to her faher in law. Her husband & father in law are very much related to Stanislaus.

[DavidOwen]

On 06/10/2023 at 16:45, Gareth Davies said:

I have made contact with the wife of a Calhaem who is going to speak to her faher in law. Her husband & father in law are very much related to Stanislaus.

Great news Gareth.

[michaelday]

This is a fascinating discussion. I fell down this very same rabbit hole a few years ago when I decided to look up the Private "Calhaen S." named on the Menin Gate Memorial, on the assumption that such an unusual name would make him easy to find in the records that I had access to. How wrong I was!

I soon discovered that "Calhaen" only featured in military records, but also that there was a well-known nineteenth-century actor named Stanlislaus Calhaem - first promoted as an infant prodigy in the 1830s, but who later became a regular on the London and provincial stage. This Stanislaus died in 1901 (The Era, 1 June 1901), so obviously could not have been serving in the Tank Corps in 1917. Stanislaus and his wife Fanny also had a son named Stanislaus Edmund, but he died in 1956 (and I could find no obvious record of war service). I then went through Stanislaus Edmund's brothers, and found that the youngest (Lionel) just sort of disappeared in the early 1900s, only to reappear on that Theatre Royal Drury Lane war memorial. I then found his links with the criminal activities of the coterie that surrounded Alice Ada Fricker / Avis Fitzroy / Lady Gypsy Rodgers / Lady Mercia Somerset / Roma Cholmondeley - and all of her other aliases. That part was a bit like chasing shadows, as names appear and disappear seemingly at random. There is a lot of information on this criminal activity in newspapers, but it is very difficult to condense. I found that Poole blog on Alice Ada Fricker very useful, although there are still many mysteries (and I think that it would drive you mad if you tried to work it all out in detail): https://ww1poole.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/the-astounding-record-of-a-poole-girl/

My personal view is that the military pension records alone are sufficient for us to assume that the real name of the person commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial was Lionel Calhaem, i.e. Lionel Septimus Calhaem, aka Lionel Somerset, etc., i.e. the youngest son of Stanislaus and Fanny Calhaem, born at Lambeth (district) in 1880.

 

[Gareth Davies]

Yes, that's exactly what we have said.

[michaelday]

Thanks for the response. I just wanted to share the fruits of what was the result of many months of research, noting that we had both / all come to the same conclusions.

[DavidOwen]

16 hours ago, michaelday said:

 

My personal view is that the military pension records alone are sufficient for us to assume that the real name of the person commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial was Lionel Calhaem, i.e. Lionel Septimus Calhaem, aka Lionel Somerset, etc., i.e. the youngest son of Stanislaus and Fanny Calhaem, born at Lambeth (district) in 1880.

 

Michael

What are the military pension records you refer to? We have found the soldier's [not]will but not seen as far as I know any pension records.

David

[michaelday]

5 minutes ago, DavidOwen said:

What are the military pension records you refer to? We have found the soldier's [not]will but not seen as far as I know any pension records.

I'll need to go through this thread again and then double-check with my files at home, but I think that I just found the same records that you have discussed here. I saw one of Alice Ada Rogers's many aliases as a next of kin on one document, but I cannot recall which one (probably from Ancestry). I will confirm.

If you are interested, I also managed to track down some of the siblings in the 1921 Census, where FMP transcribes the family name as Calham. They are living at 46 Doughty Street, WC1, the head of household being Edmund Calhaem, aged 47, widower, b. Hampstead, formerly working as a turner for Projectile Ltd. of Battersea, but seemingly out of work. The household also included: Emily, sister, aged 50, widow, b. York, actress, His Majesty's Theatre, Haymarket, agent Oscar Asche; Horace, brother, aged 46, b. Hampstead, working as booking clerk for Yates & Co., of Clerkenwell (process engraving); and Laurance, brother, aged 43 or 45 (corrected in original), b. Lambeth, working as an advertisement manager for Jays Ltd. in Regent St. Apologies if my transcriptions are not 100% correct.

[DavidOwen]

Thanks Michael, yes Gareth had also found that 1921 record as posted previously in the thread. There are also the letters purporting to make a claim on the soldier's will also posted here earlier.

I would suggest the fact that Lionel's name is on the Theatre Royal memorial as under 1918 rather than 1917 is down to the letter the ladies responded to re the will.

This has indeed been a very interesting journey.

[michaelday]

12 minutes ago, DavidOwen said:

Thanks Michael, yes Gareth had also found that 1921 record as posted previously in the thread. There are also the letters purporting to make a claim on the soldier's will also posted here earlier.

Thank you. I had not seen those letters before, so I found them very interesting.

As I said before, I need to go through this thread in detail and compare it with my own notes. There is a lot of information available on the nineteenth-century stage - perhaps too much - so I spent a lot of time going through playbills and reviews, and marveling at just how much hard work it must have been, sometimes even dangerous. For example, Stanislaus senior's brother Frank died in 1860, after having fallen down a trap door in a performance at the Queen's Theatre, Hull (The Era, 9 Dec 1860). There were also some details in the family background that did not always add up. For example, Fanny Calhaem (Lionel's mother) claimed in an Australian interview in 1901 (Table Talk, Melbourne, Vic., 7 Feb 1901) that her father had been the son of an Archdeacon of Bath and Wells, and that he had run away from home in order to go upon the stage, becoming leading man to William Macready. It's a great story, but at that time there was no such post as Archdeacon of Bath and Wells - there being separate archdeaconries for Bath, Wells and Taunton. There is also no evidence of a Hulbert holding any of those posts in the relevant timeframe. While Fanny's father, William Henry Hulbert, does appear to have worked in London as an underwriter, as Fanny claims in that same interview, his own father seems to have been Thomas Smith Hulbert, a linen draper and tailor of Chippenham. However, it may well be that I'm missing some detail somewhere. It is a very interesting interview: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/145856458

Incidentally, Fanny was travelling back from Australia, having cut short her tour, when she received the news that her husband had died: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/114037528

I personally find it intriguing to think that Lionel Calhaem, the child actor who appeared in the first public production of Ibsen's A Doll's House in London (1889), met his end in a tank of "C" Battalion in 1917.

[michaelday]

To reply to Gareth, the record that I was talking about was indeed the entry for "Stanislaus Calhaen" in the UK Army Registers of Soldiers' Effects, 1901-1929 (via Ancestry), which mentions Roma Cholmondeley.

I was especially pleased to see in this thread the extracts from the series of articles published on Ada Alice Fricker (and her many aliases) in The People during early 1913. These were not available in the BNA when I was doing my original research, and my notes contained a reminder for me to call up the relevant issues at the British Library on microfilm. The articles are a bit coy about the identity of the person that Ada married at Barton Regis in 1891. My notes recorded that this was likely to be the Maurice Rodgers who was born at Chatham on the 7th September 1868, the eldest son of Dr. Maxwell Rodgers and Blanche Rodgers (née Reid). Dr. Maxwell Rodgers was a naval surgeon, an officer who at the time of Maurice's birth was serving with the Royal Marine Light Infantry. Blanche was the youngest daughter of Captain Walter Reid of the Royal Navy. It was possible to infer from other sources that Maurice was likely to have been cut off by his family after his marriage to Ada Alice Fricker, and the articles in The People confirm this. In 1891, Maxwell Rodgers was Deputy Inspector General of Hospitals and Fleets, Royal Navy, based at Haslar. I was never really able to find out what happened to Maurice, although probate records suggest that he probably died in Blackburn in 1950 (England & Wales Government Probate Death Index 1858-2019, via FMP)

I was never able to find out whether Maurice served in any capacity during the war (he would have been over 41 at the time conscription was introduced). In 1905, his sister Maude married James Lawrence Smith, a naval surgeon who eventually reached the rank of Rear Admiral: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp77185/james-lawrence-smith

[Gareth Davies]

Thanks Michael. The Rodgers were clearly very much a naval family for at least a couple of generations.

The probate record is interesting. Did you ever look at what happened to Ada? I must admit that I didn't dig that deeply into what happened to her.

[michaelday]

2 hours ago, Gareth Davies said:

The probate record is interesting. Did you ever look at what happened to Ada? I must admit that I didn't dig that deeply into what happened to her.

I've never really been able to establish what happened to Ada. I found her (eventually) in the 1921 Census, lodging in Chelsea with the daughter / accomplice Edna (or Elna) Gordon, but her name had been incorrectly transcribed as Rodfern, or something like that (she also claimed to be a widow and a VAD worker). There are also the criminal records, which I found a bit confusing (and dispiriting). From newspaper reports, Ada's criminal career evidently continued after the war, although not at a level that would particularly interest the tabloids. I may be able to find out a bit more through Ancestry, although there is a lot of misleading information on there as well.

However, almost everything about Ada is difficult to corroborate, and I'm no longer convinced that the Maurice Rodgers in the probate record is the one that was her husband, despite the coincidence of names. The death notice in the Burnley Express and News of the 26 April 1950 (p8) gives his age as 52, which means that it cannot be the same man (via BNA):

My apologies for raising yet another red herring.

[Gareth Davies]

With her having quite so many aliases/pseudonyms, yes, following her movements is a little challenging.