DESCRIPTION:
G. H. Chirgwin sings his song "London" - announced as "London Town" - accompanied by an unknown pianist on Edison Bell cylinder number 6868, recorded c. March 1906 in London.

This 'two-minute cylinder' recording has been transferred via a specially built electrical reproducer using a high quality moving magnet cartridge and an 8 mil sapphire stylus. The transfer was then further cleaned-up using sound restoration software, being careful to retain the original ambience.


About G H. Chirgwin

George H. Chirgwin (14 December 1854 - 17 November 1922) was a British music hall star, billed as "the White-Eyed Kaffir", who had a career in British music-halls lasting over fifty years. His performances were partly based in the Minstrel tradition, but rather than using a fully blacked-up face, Chirgwin chose to paint one large white diamond over his right eye. He occasionally reversed this unique make-up style, with stark white make-up and a black diamond over the eye! To add to this typically eccentric Music Hall presence, he wore leotard skins and leggings, or zebra-striped fleshings, finished off with an exaggeratedly tall bell-topper hat!

Chirgwin was once asked about the origin of "The White-Eyed Kaffir", to which he replied: "Oh, that was a pure accident. I had gone up to perform at an open-air fete at Gloucester. A storm got up in the middle of the performance, and a lot of dust was blown into my right eye. The pain was so great that I naturally set to work rubbing my eye and when I faced the audience again there was a shriek of laughter. I had rubbed a patch of the black off round my eye, and the effect was so peculiar that I stuck to it ever since. Though, of course, it was some time before I adopted the diamond shaped patch as a distinctive mark." The story may be apocryphal, though stranger things happened in the Music Hall world!

Chirgwin's material extended beyond the minstrel tradition to include other types of sentimental songs, as well as wisecracking comedy routines (often cockney) and similar material, as can be heard on this rare Edison Bell cylinder recording from c March 1906. He was an adept musician, often accompanying himself on violin or the one-string "Japanese fiddle", a bowed mono-chord instrument. Chirgwin also played piano, violin, cello, mandolin, guitar, banjo, phono-fiddle, harp, dulcimer, euphonium, concertina, xylophone, sleigh bells, harmonica, bassoon, bagpipes and kettledrums! He claimed to have invented the "Bombass" Made out of a long bit of wood, a bit of old rope, a pig's bladder and a shark's jawbone for a bow, Chirgwin often played the Bombass during his Music Hall appearances, and on such occasions he would dress in a bizarre Indian-style outfit of his own design!

In the 1890s, he appeared in two films, 'Chirgwin in his Humorous Business' and 'Chirgwin Plays a Scotch Reel'. He also appeared in the first Royal Variety Command Performance, in 1912.

Chirgwin's best known recording was "The Blind Boy", which he sang in a falsetto voice with genuine pathos.

In later life, Chirgwin ran a pub in Shepperton, Surrey. He died in 1922 and is buried alongside his wife and four of their children (all of whom died in infancy) at Barnes Common Cemetery in South West London (now known as Barnes Old Cemetery). Chirgwin is not named in the list of "Notable internments" at the cemetery and I could not find his grave during a recent visit - many of the graves are completely overgrown.

This extraordinary and unique performer deserves wider recognition; sadly, aside from music hall aficionados, he is all but forgotten.