Florrie Forde

Florrie Forde (born Flora May Augusta Flannagan; 16 August 187518 April 1940 ) was an Australian-born British vaudevillian performer and popular singer, notable in music hall and pantomime. Another of her earliest vaudeville performances was in February 1892 at Polytechnic Music Hall in Pitt Street.

Success in Britain At the age of 21, in 1897, she left for London. On August Bank Holiday 1897, she made her first appearances in London at three music halls – the South London Palace, the Pavilion and the Oxford – in the course of one evening, and became an immediate star. Forde had a powerful stage presence, and specialised in songs that had memorable choruses in which the audience was encouraged to join. She was soon drawing top billing, singing songs such as "Down at the Old Bull and Bush" and "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?". She appeared in the very first Royal Variety Performance in 1912.

At the height of her popularity during World War I, her songs were some of the best known of the period, including "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag", "It's A Long Way To Tipperary" and "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty". Theatre historian Roy Busby described her as "a fine buxom woman, splendid in feathers, sequins and tights."

She ran her own touring revue company, which provided a platform for new rising stars, the most famous being the singing duo of Flanagan and Allen.

For 36 consecutive years Forde performed for a summer season at Douglas, Isle of Man, where she appeared at the Derby Castle Ballroom and became widely loved for her support of local charities and personal acts on benevolence.

It was during the course of her summer season on the Isle of Man in 1927 that having been made aware of the body of an unknown British sailor who had been washed ashore at Peel in 1918, and who was buried in Kirk Patrick Churchyard, that she paid for a white marble headstone for the grave of the unknown sailor and on which is inscribed:

She continued to appear in London pantomimes as a principal boy into the 1930s, when she was in her sixties, and performed in the 1935 Royal Variety Performance. At the start of the Second World War, she planned to continue to entertain the troops.

She collapsed and died from a cerebral haemorrhage after singing for troops in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 18 April 1940; she was 64.

National Film and Sound Archive

Florrie Forde's song "Hold Your Hand Out, Naughty Boy" was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia registry in 2013.

Selected songs

"Down at the Old Bull and Bush" "She's a Lassie from Lancashire" "Oh! Oh! Antonio!" "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?" "Flanagan" "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty" "Hold Your Hand Out, Naughty Boy" "Good-bye-ee!" "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" "Daisy Bell" "I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside" "Now I Have to Call him Father" "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag" "It's a Long Way to Tipperary"

Selected filmography My Old Dutch (1934) Say It with Flowers (1934)