Keep the home fires burning
Past display archive
1 July 2014 - 15 February 2015
Room 31: case display
Free
Vesta Tilley
published by The Philco Publishing Co
1900s
NPG x138214
Gwendoline Brogden as Signora Maria Gesticulata in 'The Girl on the Film'
by Foulsham & Banfield, published by Rotary Photographic Co Ltd
1913
NPG Ax160364
The patriotic song ‘Till the boys come home’ (‘Keep the home fires burning’), to words by American poet Lena Guilbert Ford, was composed by Ivor Novello in 1914. It quickly established itself as a favourite during the First World War and made a name for its young composer. Novello was one of the many people working in the theatre who provided entertainment in the music halls, revues and musical comedies that dominated the stage during the years of conflict and this display, drawing on the Gallery’s vast photographic collections, recalls some of the most popular stars of the day.
During the early years of the war traditional music hall still enjoyed success and its singers and comedians rallied to support the war effort by singing patriotic and sentimental songs to boost morale and, in the years before conscription, to promote recruitment. The greatest male impersonator of the halls, Vesta Tilley, became known as Britain's Best Recruiting Sergeant for the many enlistments she enticed from the stage. Songs such as ‘I'll make a man of you’, performed by Gwendoline Brogden in The Passing Show in the summer of 1914, played to the manhood of young men; while the redoubtable Marie Lloyd's ‘Boys in khaki boys in blue’, dedicated to the army and navy, appealed to their patriotism. However, as the war dragged on, there began to emerge a note of cynicism, brought home from the front, for example, in the trench songs performed by Hetty King, and most notoriously expressed in 1917 by Ella Shields's ‘Oh! It’s a lovely war’.
These were also years of change as revues and musical comedies began to take the place of the mixed bills offered by the music halls. The Bing Boys Are Here was the first of a series of revues that played at the Alhambra Theatre in London during the last two years of the war. It opened in 1916, starring music hall comedian and singer George Robey and Violet Loraine, who introduced the song ‘If you were the only girl in the world’, and it became one of the most important musical hits during the war. In the same year, Oscar Asche produced and starred in the exotic musical comedy Chu Chin Chow (based on the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves) at His Majesty’s Theatre in London, which ran for five years and a total of 2,238 performances. By 1917 Siegfried Sassoon's "silly patriotic music halls" and the stars they produced were gradually being eclipsed by a new generation of popular actors and singers who provided the necessary escape from the harsh reality of warfare.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Related resources
Related portraits
- Sir Harry Lauder (NPG P494)
- Marie Lloyd (NPG x27492)
- Alfred Lester (NPG x9099)
- Lily Brayton (NPG x6416)
- Vesta Tilley (NPG x138214)
- Arthur Bourchier (NPG x6414)
- Harry Tate (Ronald McDonald Hutchison) (NPG Ax160431)
- (Thomas Stange Heiss) Oscar Asche (NPG x13200)
- Vesta Tilley (NPG x26907)
- Mark Sheridan (NPG Ax160026)
- Clarice Mayne (NPG Ax160284)
- Hetty King (Winifred Emms) (NPG x160520)
- Harry Tate (Ronald McDonald Hutchison) (NPG x160588)
- Florrie Forde (née Florence Flanagan) (NPG x138279)
- George Grossmith Jr (NPG x85669)
- John Francis McCormack (NPG x19032)
- Gwendoline Brogden as Signora Maria Gesticulata in 'The Girl on the Film' (NPG Ax160364)
- José Collins (NPG x135825)
- Gina Palerme (NPG x135874)
- Basil Hallam (NPG Ax160184)
- Gertie Millar as Jumping Jack with her dog 'Chum' in 'On The Tiles' a sketch from 'Bric-à-Brac' (NPG x68979)
- Violet Loraine in 'The Bing Boys Are Here' (NPG Ax160131)
- George Robey; Violet Loraine and Alfred Lester in 'The Bing Boys Are Here' (NPG x160579)
- Ivor Novello; Clara Novello Davies (NPG x17128)
- George Robey (NPG x160584)
- Elsie Janis in 'Hullo, America' (NPG Ax160125)
- Ella Shields (NPG x46682)
- Fred Barnes (NPG D42966)
- Dorothy Ward (NPG D42968)
Related sitters
- (Thomas Stange Heiss) Oscar Asche
- Frederick Jester Barnes
- Arthur Bourchier
- Lily Brayton
- Gwendoline Brogden
- Josephine Charlotte ('José') Collins
- Clara Novello Davies
- Florrie Forde (née Florence Flanagan)
- George Grossmith Jr
- Basil Hallam
- Elsie Janis
- Hetty King (Winifred Emms)
- Sir Harry Lauder
- Alfred Lester
- Marie Lloyd (Matilda Alice Victoria Wood)
- Violet Loraine
- John Francis McCormack
- Clarice Mayne
- Gertie Millar (Gertrude Ward, (née Millar, later Monckton), Countess of Dudley)
- Ivor Novello
- Gina Palerme
- Sir George Robey (George Edward Wade)
- Mark Sheridan
- Ella Shields
- Harry Tate (Ronald McDonald Hutchison)
- Vesta Tilley (Matilda Alice (née Powles), Lady de Frece)
- Dorothy Ward
Related artists
- Art Photogravure Co Ltd
- J.P. Bamber Studios of Blackpool
- Bassano Ltd
- J. Beagles & Co
- James & Bushnell
- Lallie Charles (née Charlotte Elizabeth Martin)
- Alfred Ellis & Walery
- Fielding of Leeds
- Foulsham & Banfield
- Claude Harris
- Ernest Walter Histed
- Frank Howard
- London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company
- Rita Martin
- Cavendish Morton
- The Philco Publishing Co
- Carl Gottlieb Röder Ltd
- Rotary Photographic Co Ltd
- The Star Music Publishing Company Ltd
- Unknown photographer
- Wrather & Buys