Charles Pollard

Young Australians in Canada: A Pollards Lilliputian Opera Company troupe on the steps of the Badminton Hotel, Vancouver, in August 1902.¹  Major Matthews Collection, AM54-S4: Port P1375, City of Vancouver Archives.

Although Pollards Lilliputian Opera Company ² has often been celebrated as an exemplary Australian theatrical institution, it really owed its existence to a business model that the Pollard family stumbled upon and refined in the 1880s and 90s. The Pollards had successfully tapped into existing public enthusiasm for child performance and musical comedy. In this article I explore the work of siblings Charles Alfred Pollard (1858–1942) and Eleanor Jane ‘Nellie’ Chester (1861–1944), who ran a series of highly publicised juvenile troupes—usually entitled Pollards Lilliputian Opera Company or similar—through South Africa, India, Asia and North America, between 1896 and 1922.

The Australasian activities of Charles and Nellie’s brother-in-law, Tom Pollard (born Tom O’Sullivan) were well documented by Peter Downes in The Pollards(2002). Unfortunately, for reasons of space, Downes did not include the Charles Pollard and Nellie Chester troupes. Only recently have writers revisited this extraordinary Australian enterprise and the awkward issue of indentured child performers working for prolonged periods overseas (Arrighi and Emeljanow, 2014, Arrighi 2017, Rice 2021). The Pollards business practices have also tended to be overshadowed by the subsequent success of a handful of their former actors, to the extent we might mistakenly conclude this was the experience for all of them.

Almost all the child performers were from Melbourne’s inner suburbs. A few were only 10 years of age, the majority were girls, and all were apprenticed to the Pollards in a way we would find unthinkable today. The performance tours took these children away for at least twelve months, and on one occasion for 32 months. It was once claimed that thousands of children graduated from the Pollards, but the real figure is probably closer to 100. There was no graduation at a given age really—the Pollards ended their association with children because they had physically developed and no longer looked young enough to be Lilliputians.³

Family patriarch James Joseph Pollard (1833–1884).[Downes dates this photo to 1881.]

May Pollard Collection, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Family members Olive Pollard (1870–1952) and May Pollard (1868–1970) the twelfth and thirteenth children of the Pollard family, were young enough to be performing in the first company tour in Singapore in 1884

May Pollard Collection, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

The background—James Joseph Pollard and his family troupe of 1880–1886

Charles Pollard and Nellie Chester were the fifth and seventh children respectively of James Joseph Pollard (1833–1884) and his first wife Mary Weippert. Peter Downes has described in some detail the vibrant life of the Pollard family in Launceston Tasmania—their 1870s home was a bustling centre of musical activity. There were sixteen living Pollard children by 1882 and although only the males of the family were educated at school (the girls were educated at home), all were expected to take up music.⁴  It was this James Pollard, his children and their extended family who created the model that became the phenomenally successful Pollard Lilliputian Opera Companies, beginning in 1880.

Arrighi and Emeljanow (2014) have found that the ‘line of inheritance’ of child or juvenile performance troupes traces to Richard D’Oyly Carte’s production of HMS Pinafore in London over the Christmas of 1879–1880. It was only six months later, in May 1880, that James Pollard mounted his production of HMS Pinafore in Launceston, Tasmania with many of the leading roles taken by his own children, supplemented by local children. One of the youngest was his own son, Arthur Pollard (1873–1940), aged 7.

Older Pollard siblings—including Charles and Nellie—provided musical accompaniment and helped manage the company. Tom O’Sullivan progressed from playing in the orchestra, to stage management and direction, also adopting the surname Pollard, even before marrying into the family.⁵ The enterprise was a great success, and the Pollards business model evolved as they performed more widely in Australia and New Zealand. In time, other comic operas were added to their repertoire, including Les Cloches de Corneville, The Little Dukeand La Fille De Madame Angot. Importantly however, in mid–1883, while performing in Queensland, James Pollard made the decision to take the troupe overseas to perform in Batavia [now Jakarta], and then via various stops to Calcutta [now Kolkata]. The decision was extraordinary because it was taken without reference to other parents, with whom James Pollard had only a loose agreement. At least some accounts suggest the children did not know where they were going until they were at sea.⁶  On the way, senior members of the troupe, including Tom and Charles Pollard, wrote home to parents to inform them of their new plans. Charles Pollard’s letter to one parent reveals that the adult Pollards knew quite well the liberty they had taken in leaving Australia, and the resulting bad publicity, including accusations of kidnapping, was hardly surprising.

The decision by the Pollards to take children overseas without parental approval attracted widespread criticism. This cartoon from a contemporary Melbourne paper also displays race views typical of the era.

Melbourne Punch,3 January 1884, p.5, State Library Victoria

Dear Mrs Salinger,
You will no doubt know before you receive this letter that the company are going to Calcutta for the Exhibition⁷ … Of course you ought to have been informed, but it [the decision] was made so hurriedly that we … [had] no time to write … You have nothing to blame [your children] Herbert or Lena for, so you must blame me. C.A. Pollard.⁸

The apologetic letters home didn’t help, although most parents could do little about it. Under pressure from Victoria’s colonial government, the Pollards made a commitment to be back in Melbourne again by June 1884. The tour may well have been a financial success, as one published account states that it reaped £12,000, ⁹ but in many respects it must also have been chaotic. On arrival in Singapore the troupe was quarantined for two weeks because Cholera was detected.¹⁰ Then in September 1883 James Pollard’s oldest son and the group’s conductor, Jim, died while the troupe was in Rangoon—by his own hand, by accident or deliberately—it no longer seems clear which, while family patriarch James Pollard himself developed dropsy and died soon after the troupe returned to Australia.

Charles and Tom Pollard continued running the troupe in Australia and New Zealand until early 1886, when Charles resigned. A few months later, Tom Pollard wrapped the company up.

It seemed as if the Pollards Lilliputian story was over.

Charles Pollard, Nellie Chester and younger sibling Arthur Pollard. Enlarged, from Major Matthews Collection, AM54-S4: Port P1375, City of Vancouver Archives.

Charles Pollard and Nellie Chester touring the Empire, 1896–1901

It was Tom Pollard who first resuscitated a juvenile troupe in 1891, with encouragement from J.C. Williamson’s. Over the next six years, his company emerged as a leading Australian juvenile troupe, even after 1896 when Lilliputian was dropped from the name on account of the maturing of its members.

In the late 1880s, Charles Pollard and his wife Florence Hedworth (a former Pollard player whose stage name had been Flo De Lorne) had established themselves as musicians and importers of instruments in North Queensland, in the booming mining town of Charters Towers.¹¹  Younger brother Arthur was also living in Charters Towers, with Mary Hall, his new wife, running a music store and a school of music.

At the same time, Nellie Pollard was raising a family in India, having married Daniel Chester, a British civil servant, in September 1884.

While there is no surviving evidence that Charles and Nellie consulted with brother-in-law Tom Pollard in the establishment of a second Pollards company in 1896, it seems likely they did. As later events would show, the Pollards usually kept themselves closely informed about what other members of the family were doing. Equally importantly, Tom’s wife ‘Teny’ Pollard was a close friend of Flo, Charles’ wife.¹² The agreement seems to have been that Tom Pollard’s troupes would work primarily in Australasia, while Charles and Nellie’s would operate outside Australasia—although an exception seems to have been made for Queensland, where Charles and Nellie often tested out their repertoire before leaving Australia.

Studio portrait of Charles Pollard, c.1905

May Pollard Collection, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Nellie Chester, c.1903, surrounded by girls from inner Melbourne, with, from left; May Topping (born 1890), Ivy Trott (born 1887), Alice McNamara (born 1888), Alice Bennetto (born 1885) and Irene Goulding (born 1888)

Pollard Opera Companies Collection, Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne

Charles and Nellie went about setting up their Pollard Lilliputian Opera Company with remarkable speed, approaching juvenile performers who were already making a name for themselves on stage in Melbourne—including Violet and Maggie Martin, Frank and Alf Goulding, Connie and Ina Milne—all children from inner Melbourne aged under 14 years. The new troupe embarked on the SS Argus bound for Calcutta, in late September 1896. This time, parents knew their children were to perform overseas for a prolonged season—there were no more accusations of kidnapping. The repertoire was the familiar list of popular comic operas, including HMS Pinafore,The Pirates of Penzance,La Mascotteand Dorothy.

Some members of the first troupe in 1896. Left to Right: 11-year-old Violet Martin was the daughter of a furniture polisher from Fitzroy. Alf and Frank Goulding were the sons of a shoemaker and sometime actor, also from Fitzroy, aged 11 and 13 respectively. Pollard Opera Companies Collection, Australian Performing Arts Collection, Melbourne.

To Charles and Nellie, the choice of Calcutta as the first city in a performance tour made sense. Of course, they had performed there thirteen years before, but it was also the capital of British India and a vibrant economic centre of the Empire, and the city regularly hosted visiting troupes—including some from Australia’s colonies. Charles and Nellie may not have known that bubonic plague had broken out in Bombay in September 1896, about the time they were to leave for Calcutta. If they did know, they were almost certainly not concerned, as they would have shared the imperial view that this was something that concerned the indigenous population, not Europeans. However, the tragedy was that one member of the troupe did succumb to a contagious disease only weeks after their arrival in Calcutta. 13-year-old Frank Goulding died a hideous death of confluent smallpox on 18 January1897. Determined to protect the Pollard reputation, the story was given out that he had died of pneumonia.

The troupe was well received in Calcutta, and again when they moved on to Singapore in April, and to Hong Kong in May and Shanghai in July 1897. Expatriate newspaper reviews enthused about the young performers, reflecting the great popularity of talented children performing the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan and George Edwardes. In a final stop again in Calcutta in November 1897, (and despite the further spread of bubonic plague through Indian cities) the company presented their new opera Paul Jones. Calcutta’s Englishmanreported that while the play was recognised as ‘not their best opera’, there was ‘a hearty greeting given to the Pollards’ and the production’s success was unqualified. ‘It seems but yesterday since they were here.’¹³ This was to become a feature of the Pollards touring model—visiting and revisiting locations where they were known and could count on a crowd, bringing back familiar favourites whilst also adding newly acquired comic operas.

On a return to Calcutta in November 1900, reviews were even more enthusiastic.

They are so cheerful, so bright, and do their work with such spirit and go that it is impossible not to like them. We are sincerely glad to see that Mr Pollard’s clever little company are slowly but surely working their way into favour with the public … We strongly advise people to go see the little company. They are well worth a visit.¹⁴

But not all audiences felt comfortable watching children play adult roles in saucy comic operas. One correspondent for the Hong Kong Daily Press reminded readers:

Pollard’s Lilliputians are children, but their performance is anything but childish … That shrimp of a maiden … who portrays a woman many times divorced, how are we to regard her?¹⁵

While touring in the United States, the issue of children performing professionally on stage, and especially in comic opera, would emerge as a significant problem for the company.

The hard lesson the Pollards had learned about bad publicity in 1883–4 in Calcutta had not been forgotten. Having moved on to South Africa in May 1899, Charles and Nellie invited a journalist to interview their child performers. Sydney’s Refereecarried a very long report in July. It was orchestrated, of course—children were named, but gave themselves the wrong ages. They all sounded happy and contented and they spoke warmly of which plays they liked and countries they preferred—South Africa being a favourite.¹⁶  Cynical though we might be today, there is enough in the interview to indicate it was really conducted. The children did call Nellie Chester ‘Aunty Chester’. Irene Goulding (aged 11, not 8 as reported) really had been very ill as the journalist reported. Interviewed 86 years later, Irene recalled she had been so ill she was hallucinating that the Prince of Wales was in the room, but still spoke warmly of Aunty Chester and her large case of medicines.¹⁷

The troupe was still in South Africa in October 1899, when fighting—the Second Boer war—broke out. A year or so later, Arthur Pollard recounted for a US paper what had happened.

After playing … [in Pretoria for] two weeks, some of the Dutch officials gave us a gentle hint to get out … We got our baggage together on four hours’ notice and started for Kimberley … We played from the middle of September to the 10^th of October, when Mr Rhodes gave us [another] hint to get out at once.¹⁸

Charles Pollard was delayed in Kimberley to attend to the troupe’s finances and became trapped in a siege of the town for four months. Although the rest of the adults and children in the Pollard troupe had made it to Queenstown [now Komani], extraordinarily, they continued to perform, and did not leave South Africa until 24 January 1900. This was obviously a commercial decision, and based on the supreme confidence that the Empire would prevail in the South African war.

Hall’s Juvenile Opera Company in South Africa, 1900–1903

Within weeks of their return to Melbourne on the Salamis in February 1900, Charles Pollard and Nellie Chester took some of the adults who accompanied their troupe to court. The issue was that stage manager Harry Hall and Alice Landershut wanted to start their own juvenile troupe, apparently to specialise in South African touring. Pollard and Chester claimed £500 for loss of earnings and alleged that Hall and Landershut wanted to entice children still under contract to them into the new troupe and named children from the Topping, Sheddon and Finlay families as having been approached. But in most of the modern accounts of Hall’s Australian Juveniles, a simple truth is overlooked. Alice Landeshut was Alice Pollard (1863–1950)—a sibling of Charles and Nellie and eighth child of the Pollard family. Alice had been one of supervising adults in South Africa with Charles and Nellie.

Only a few weeks after the matter was listed, on 28 March 1900, Alice Landeshut and Harry Hall’s troupe, aka Hall’s Australian Juvenile Company, departed on the SS Persic for Cape Town, with the Sheddon and Finlay children aboard, suggesting that the Pollards had reached some sort of understanding with each other. As later accounts would note, Alice Landeshut was actually the troupe’s sole proprietor and was also conductor, while Harry Hall was director.¹⁹ It was in fact—a thoroughly Pollard family affair. William Pollard (1871–1944 and 14^th child of the family) was the machinist while May Pollard (1868–1970 and 12^th child of the family) was stage manager.²⁰

Alice Landeshut nee Pollard, c.1905

May Pollard Collection, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Charles Pollard (undated)

May Pollard Collection, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Harry Hall was on record as indignantly denying that the company was composed of ‘Pollard remnants’, but the very close connections—through memberships of the Pollard family and by performers appearing in both Halls and Pollards, are impossible to ignore.²¹

The fighting in South Africa seems to have had no impact on the company’s commitment to perform, and they travelled on regardless. Harry Hall died unexpectedly in South Africa in late October 1903 and the juveniles returned to Australia sometime in early 1904. A few, like Roy Smith, May and Harold Fraser (who became Snub Pollard in Hollywood years later) simply moved across to Charles Pollard and Nellie Chester’s troupe and joined their long 1904–1907 tour of the US. Alice remarried in South Africa, returned to Australia and pursued other interests.

To be continued

Endnotes

1. Vancouver Daily World, 19 August 1902, p.2

2. I have followed Peter Downes style, generally using the title word Pollards, although Pollard’s was also used at the time. Liliputian was the spelling preferred by Tom Pollard, while Lilliputian (with three Ls) was used by Charles and Nellie.

3. Gillian Arrighi and Victor Emeljanow, 2014, cover the issue of what legally and socially constituted childhood.

4. Downes, 2002, p.14

5. Downes, 2002, pp.12–19

6. Downes, 2002, pp.60–63

7. The Calcutta International Exhibition was held between December 1883 and March 1884

8. The Times of India, 24 January, 1884, p.6

9. One of many celebratory accounts about the Pollards, written with a mix of intimate knowledge and wild inaccuracy. The Daily Post (Hobart), 30 March 1909, p.6.

10. Downes,2002, p.56

11. The Northern Miner (Charter’s Towers) 3 September 1896, p.2

12. Downes, 2002, p.66

13. The Englishman (Calcutta), 4 November 1897, p.13

14. The Englishman (Calcutta), 29 November 1900, p.16

15. The Hong Kong Daily Press, 27 December 1907, p.17

16. The Referee (Sydney), 5 July 1899, p.10

17. Irene Smith interview (1985)

18. The Minneapolis Journal, 21 March 1902, p.8

19. The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 1 March 1902 p.6

20. The Newsletter: An Australian Paper for Australian People (Sydney), 9 March 1901, p.7

21. Further confusing the historical record is the fact Tom Pollard also took his troupe to South Africa in 1903

Thanks

I am grateful to the families of Pollards Lilliputians, who have shared their family stories, especially:

Catherine Crocker regarding Midas Martyn,

Robert Maynard regarding Willie and Emma Thomas,

Brenda Young regarding Elsie Morris,

John and Joan Grant regarding Leah Leichner,

and the descendants of the Heintz, Goulding and Thompson families.

References

John Andrews & Deborah Towns, ‘A Secondary Education for All’? A History of State Secondary Schooling in Victoria, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2017

Gillian Arrighi, ’The Controversial “Case of the Opera Children in the east”: Political Conflict between Popular Demand for Child Actors and Modernizing Cultural Policy on the Child’, Theatre Journal, 69, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017, pp.153–173

Gillian Arrighi and Victor Emeljanow (eds), Entertaining Children: The Participation of Youth in the Entertainment Industry, Palgrove MacMillan, New York, 2014. Chapter 3. ‘Children and Youth of the Empire: Tales of Transgression and Accommodation’, pp.51-71

Roger L. Bedard, ‘Is it a skip or a dance?: Elbridge T. Gerry’s campaign against child actors’, Youth Theatre Journal, 11:1,1997, pp.15–24

Peter Downes, The Pollards. A family and its child and adult opera companies in New Zealand and Australia 1880–1910, Steele Roberts, Aotearoa, New Zealand, 2002

Marah Gubar, ‘Who Watched the Children’s Pinafore? Age Transvestism on the nineteenth-century stage.’ Victorian Studies, Vol 54, No 3, Spring 2012

Sally Howes, Irene Smith interview, Cassette 616, Australian Performing Arts Collection, Art Centre Melbourne, 1985

Benjamin McArthur, ‘“Forbid them not”: Child Labor laws and political activism in the Theatre’, Theatre Survey, 36:2 November 1995, pp.63–80

Kirsty Murray, India Dark, Allen and Unwin, 2010

Kate Rice, Performing the Past podcast; Episode 4: So and So and Such and Such, Arts Centre, Melbourne, 2021, https://soundcloud.com/arts-centre-melbourne/performing-the-past-episode-3-so-and-so-and-such-and-such