Artistes of the Golden Age of Music Hall
Mabel Chapman
Mabel was born in 1885
Here is Mabel with the Chapmans, sitting just in front of Pip on the right.
The photo was taken by Pip who has a remote trigger in his hands.
A drink of stout, as is being served below, was still favoured by Mabel and Lilian when I knew them.
Here, Mabel is sitting next to her mother, with daughter Louie and son Sam.
More photos taken in Littlehampton with Frances Esther Chapman (Mabel's and Lilian's mother).
Mabel's first daughter Doris is recognisable thanks to her distinctive features and dark hair. She looks about 2, which would date the photos to 1910.
In the photo below, Mabel is on the left with her daughter Louie, with Lilian's children Zanetto ('Dick'), Albert and Lily, and a rather forbidding looking Frances Esther Chapman.
The photo below of Mabel dressed as a sailor in front of the American flag must have been taken at about the same time as the one of The Royal Zanettos in the same costume, dated 1908 in "America".
Lilian told me that her sister Mabel had worked as an assistant for Houdini, and The Zanettos appeared on the bill with Houdini in April 1908, at Keith & Proctor's Fifth Avenue theatre, New York.
But Houdini performed in Europe too, so perhaps Mabel worked for him closer to home. There is no trace so far of her having crossed the Atlantic.
The Royal Zanettos
George, Pip, Arthur, Frank & Albert Bale
Artistes of the Golden Age of Music Hall
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