Wild about Harry: Hungarian-born illusionist Harry Houdini would often perform public stunts to promote his stage shows in America and across Europe
CROYDON CHRONICLES: Croydon’s Music Halls attracted some of the world’s most famous acts in the early 20th Century, including the man reckoned to be the greatest escapologist of all time, as DAVID MORGAN explains
Memory is a wonderful gift. The problem as you get older, though, is that from time to time one’s recollections can become more vague. Instead of recalling the exact name or a place in an instance, you find yourself resorting to a describing the event or occasion, in the hope the other person in the conversation can come up with the name that you are struggling to recall.
If you were asked to remember an event which took place nearly 50 years ago, and you were present at the time, how well would you do?
A scenario like this was played out in a Croydon newspaper in the 1950s.
It was September 1909 when Harry Houdini, the great escapologist and illusionist, brought his stage act to Croydon. The question posed in the paper was which venue did he appear in?
Letters page: how a historian’s enquiry started a newspaper search
Croydon had several theatres which hosted music halls variety shows on a nightly basis, with some of the very best names from this country and beyond entertaining the locals, who supported the variety entertainment in vast numbers.
Harry Lauder, the Scottish comedian and singer, Marie Lloyd, the singer described as the “Queen of the Music Hall”, Vesta Tilley, the leading male impersonator of her day, and the “Chinese” magician Chung Ling Soo, all appeared in Croydon, and more than once, too.
And so did Harry Houdini, who “escaped” in Croydon on two occasions.
It was in 1954 that the arguments about one of Houdini’s visits to the town began. Ronald Bannerman, an historian with a great interest in and knowledge of Croydon, wrote to the Croydon Times about a great Houdini performance that had taken place 45 years earlier. In his 1909 act, Houdini made an amazing escape from a box submerged in a tank of water on a stage in Croydon. It was just that Bannerman couldn’t recall the venue.
A reporter from the paper paid a visit to the newspaper’s archive. The reporter couldn’t find a single reference to Houdini’s performance that year. So he asked two prominent Croydon figures of the day to see if they could help.
The great entertainer: Hungarian-born Harry Houdini thrilled audiences around the world
Kenneth Ryde, the reference librarian, thought that Houdini had appeared during a one-night stand at the Old Public Hall in George Street. Arthur Dixon, the manager of the Eros Cinema, said he thought that Houdini had appeared in his own venue in North End, the Croydon Palace of Varieties, or The Empire, as it was called then.
The reporter must have been pleased with the post bag when readers began writing in with their versions of events.
Sam Ellis had emigrated to Ontario in Canada but still received a copy of the Croydon Times in the post. He wrote in to say that he was present at Houdini’s performance. “A large polished oversize milk churn, wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, was filled with water.
“In full view of the audience, Houdini climbed into the churn. The lid was put on and secured with four padlocks, water overflowing on to the stage. A screen was placed around the churn with two men carrying shiny axes positioned in readiness in case anything should go wrong.
“Of course, Houdini got out in time.”
Ellis went on to say that prior to the escape from the churn, Houdini had performed an escape from a straitjacket. Houdini was secured in the jacket by two assistants from the Cane Hill Hospital in Coulsdon. The great escapologist made light work of this challenge, wriggling free in less than two minutes.
Ellis firmly remembered that the venue was the Croydon Palace of Varieties in North End.
Another letter arrived at the newspaper from a reader who was one of those people who were chosen to be a scrutineer and to check that nothing appeared to be amiss before Houdini attempted his escapes. His account, however, was very different to Ellis’s.
George Clark lived in Davidson Road. In 1909 he was working at Hooker’s Dairy in Park Street (Ward’s 1901 directory for Croydon located the Hooker dairy in Keeley Road, naming it the Whitgift Dairy). A representative of Houdini, he recalled, had gone to the dairy to explain what the great escapologist wanted to do on stage.
Eyewitness account: one of the letters in response to Bannerman’s appeal, from George Clark
Houdini often put a local twist on his performances. Sometimes he would go to the police station, ask to be locked in a cell and within minutes would release himself from his confinement. He did this in Liverpool in 1904. Not only did he release himself from the cell he was locked in, he undid the doors of other prisoners and moved them around. It was all good publicity to sell tickets for his show.
On this occasion, he wanted men to be sent to the theatre to challenge him to escape from a churn filled with milk instead of water. Clark said that he was one of four men chosen to go along to the theatre with a churn of Hooker’s milk.
They poured the skimmed milk – Clark remembered it was skimmed – into Houdini’s churn on the stage in full view of the public. After Houdini climbed in, two of the men pushed his head under the milk and then the four padlocks were secured. Clark locked two of them himself.
The four scrutineers then helped put the churn behind a screen. The count had only reached six when a bedraggled Houdini reappeared, soaked but free.
Just as Ellis had recounted, Clark said that the performance took place in the North End Theatre of Varieties. But for one man to remember a water-filled churn and the other to remember it being filled with milk, particularly skimmed milk, seemed strange.
Were they remembering different performances?
On the road: Houdini was the highest-paid Vaudeville performer in the first decade of the 20th Century. Here, he and his touring show’s crew and cast arrive at Charing Cross Station
In fact, Houdini brought his stage show to Croydon twice, in September 1909 and again a year later.
Neither occasion was a one-off performance. A newspaper cutting from September 1910 reported that Houdini was “attracting large audiences”. A cutting from September the previous year stated that, “Houdini’s performance approaches the marvellous.” It was likely that Houdini performed here for one week each time.
During his career, Hungarian-born Houdini was responsible for carrying out some amazing tricks, becoming a global superstar in the early years of the 20th Century.
‘Handcuff’ Houdini: he always escaped
Walking through walls… a metamorphosis involving a positional swap with his wife and assistant, Bess… he even made an elephant disappear. He appeared many times outdoors, often escaping from straitjackets while suspended high in the air from a crane.
Perhaps his most daring trick was the Chinese Water Torture Cell, where he was locked upside down by his ankles in a glass case filled with water.
Houdini never had to be rescued from this trick, although the the 1953 film Houdini, starring Tony Curtis, showed assistants smashing the glass as he struggled to escape.
Houdini’s book, Handcuff Secrets, written in 1909, explained some of the techniques behind his being able to escape so quickly when handcuffed.
For publicity stunts before he appeared at venues in America, he would dive off a bridge into often icy water after being handcuffed. He always escaped the cuffs and surfaced quickly, no matter how cold the water.
Houdini was another of the world-class entertainers in the golden age of Music Hall who came to Croydon. Does anyone have the poster with his name on tucked away in their loft? It would be worth something now, and might settle forever the mystery of where the great Houdini thrilled the Croydon crowds – and whether he used milk or water.
- David Morgan has been chronicling Croydon’s history for Inside Croydon for more than a decade. Morgan is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Nightwatch’s volunteers remember Jamie Keating every night
- ‘Chinese’ magician who died on stage, shot by his own gun
- Family counts cost of burglary during Croydon’s Walnut Fair
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
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Great article! Thank you.
I am about to publish my new book, Handcuff King: The Conquests of Harry Houdini, 1900–1909, and in the book I cover his 1909 Croydon engagement. It was indeed at the Empire Theatre of Varieties on North End from Sep 6–11, 1909.
Houdini was engaged for the full week and likely did his Milk Can escape (in water) every day. He also often did the escape in milk as a challenge from a local dairy, although I don’t have a record of him doing it this week. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
The milk challenge could also have been his 1910 appearance (same theater, Aug 22–28), but I don’t have any information about that engagement, apart from that it happened and the Milk Can was still very much part of his act at this time. I would love to find some details, as that Croydon appearance will be in my next book.
Keep up the great work!