R. P. Weston

Robert Patrick Weston ( Harris; 7 March 1878 – 6 November 1936) was an English songwriter. He was responsible for many successful songs and comic monologues between the 1900s and 1930s, mostly written in collaboration with other writers, notably Fred J. Barnes and Bert Lee, and performed successfully by Harry Champion, Stanley Holloway, and Gracie Fields, among others.

Biography Early life and career Robert Patrick Harris was born on 7 March 1878 in Kingsbury Road, Islington, close to Dalston Junction in London. His father ran a grocery shop and the family lived over it. Harris initially worked for an engineering company, from which he was dismissed for spending time writing verses on the back of scraps of emery paper. He married Maud Barker in 1900 and became a railway clerk, living in Hemmingford Road, Islington with his wife, but took up performing and songwriting. For his wife's health, they moved to Weston-super-Mare, where Harris joined a concert party, took the stage name Weston, and became half of a double act, Conway and Weston.

He sold his first song, "Boys of the Chelsea School", to the publishing firm of Francis, Day and Hunter in 1902; it was popularised on stage by George Leyton. Weston continued to write songs himself, and in collaboration with other songwriters. Among the most successful and lasting songs from the early part of his career were "What a Mouth", sung by Harry Champion in 1906 and successfully revived in 1960 by Tommy Steele; and "I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am", written with Fred Murray in 1910 and also popularised and first recorded by Champion, As well as songs for revues, notably those produced by Lupino Lane, they wrote sketches for such stars as Fred Karno, Robb Wilton and Wee Georgie Wood. they wrote Holloway's 1934 monologue "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm", about the ghost of Anne Boleyn haunting the Tower of London, seeking revenge on Henry VIII for having her beheaded. Father and son also collaborated on Gracie Fields' 1933 song "Heaven Will Protect an Honest Girl", and on "Harmonica Dan" in 1936.

Weston was also a talented amateur artist, whose paintings reflect his London background and include a watercolour of Houndsditch Market painted in 1916.

He died from a brain tumour in London in 1936, aged 58.

Legacy and influence After Weston's death, his house was occupied by his two daughters who lived there into old age, with Weston and Lee's papers sitting untouched and unlooked-at. Their present whereabouts are mostly unknown though several items have appeared on eBay, including Weston and Lee's three-volume workbook, containing manuscript versions of many, if not all, their songs, which it is now known is in the hands of a collector of music hall memorabilia. In 1985, the entertainer Roy Hudd created a stage show based on the songs of Weston and Lee, Just a Verse and a Chorus, 1915 '"Cassidy – Private Micheal Cassidy" with Jack Norworth 1915 "Lloyd George's Beer Song" with Bert Lee 1916 "Blighty, the Soldier's Home Sweet Home" with Bert Lee 1917 "Good-bye-ee!", with Bert Lee 1919 "It's Hard to Settle Down to Civilian Life Once More" (m: Bert Lee)