Lloyd's husband Percy Courtenay became jealous of his wife's close relationship with her young protégée, a contributing factor along with various others to the eventual breakdown of their marriage.

[3] Dick Burge quickly found himself in financial difficulties and to remedy this he made the mistake of joining the Liverpool Bank Fraud, a scheme which involved using the cash obtained from forged cheques to make high-stake bets at racecourses.

[4][5] The fraudulent scheme was quickly uncovered by the authorities, and having only been married for three weeks Dick Burge was arrested in October 1901 for his part in the fraud and received a sentence of 10 years with hard labour.

Bella Burge returned to her former career in the music halls, appearing as Ella Lane, performing and saving as much of her salary as she could until her husband was released from prison in 1909.

[2] In 1914 Bella Burge became the first woman to break the taboo of women attending boxing matches and soon her friend Marie Lloyd and other actresses became regular attendees at bouts.

At first she worked with Ted Pritchard, her late husband’s business partner, and after his death in 1925 she appointed Dan Sullivan as general manager, a boxing promoter with links to the London-based mobster Charles Sabini.

Among the studio guests was Marie Lloyd Jr.[1][citation needed] Her biography, Bella of Blackfriars by Leslie Bell, was published by Odhams Press, London in 1961.