Gillie Potter

Hugh William Peel (14 September 1887 – 4 March 1975), better known as Gillie Potter, was an English comedian and broadcaster.

Life He was born in Bedford to Brignal Peel (died 1933), a Wesleyan minister, and Elizabeth Stimson. He was educated at Bedford Modern School and for a time at Worcester College, Oxford.

Potter first performed in Edwin Milton Royle's The White Man at the Lyric Theatre in London before touring. In 1915 he was George Robey's understudy at the Alhambra. He returned to music hall after the war. He cultivated an individual style and persona, wearing a straw boater, wide grey flannel trousers (he claimed he invented the Oxford bags style at the London Coliseum in 1920), and an "Old Borstolian" blazer, and carried a notebook with a rolled umbrella. James Agate described him as "that sham Harrovian who bears upon his blazer the broad arrows of a blameful life".

Potter spoke to his audience in "deadpan tones on unlikely and esoteric themes peppered with literary, historical, and linguistic allusion. Though a classical education was needed fully to appreciate his act, it was widely popular: in 1930 he appeared in the Royal Variety Performance, and made at least one radio broadcast (on 1 May). He became one of the most popular radio entertainers in Britain, with his famous opening lines: "Good evening England. This is Gillie Potter speaking to you in English". Potter's humour had echoes of Punch and 'Beachcomber' and various times included the adventures of "my brother who was educated at Borstal", burlesques of "society snippets", and parodies of Who's Who entries. His most famous turns were his tales of the mythical English village of Hogsnorton, named after the Oxfordshire village where "pigs play on the organ".

The combination of "mock erudition, absurdity, and nostalgia struck a chord with inter-war audiences and made him a household name".

He continued to broadcast through the war but his style went out of fashion in the post-war years. His last radio series was broadcast in 1952, titled Mr. Gillie Potter and his last broadcasts as a comedian on radio were for Coronation at Hogsnorton in 1953. That year he also appeared on television for A Little of What you Fancy. His last broadcast appearance was in the panel game Sounds Familiar in 1970.

He deplored what he believed were the BBC's decline in moral standards and so became a spokesman for the Popular Television Association which campaigned in the early 1950s for a commercial television station as an alternative to the BBC. He also thought of standing for election to the House of Commons as an independent candidate on the platform of "England for the English", specifically in relation to theatre.

Other than comedy, Englishness was the abiding passion for Potter, being an authority on heraldry, genealogy, and church history, a Knight Templar, a member of the Middle Temple and the Society of Genealogists, a vice-president of the Royal Society of St George and the Society of King Charles the Martyr, as well as for many years parish clerk of the church of St Botolph's Aldgate, London.

Family Potter married Beatrice Fanny Scott. They had a son and a daughter. The son, J. H. B. Peel, became a Daily Telegraph writer on country matters.