His early performances were in the mould of Thomas D. Rice; he did song-and-dance versions of "Gumbo Chaff" and "Oh Pshaw!

[1] Pelham and Frank Brower, who played the bones, were the first minstrel endmen, and greatly influenced the stereotype.

"[2] Pelham's signature non-musical bit was his "A Brief Battering at the Blues", a comic monologue and prototypical stump speech.

He briefly helped reform the Virginia Minstrels in the spring of 1844 when he met up with Brower and Joel Sweeney in Liverpool.

The trio convinced Dan Emmett to rejoin, and the new ensemble played the Theatre Royal, Dublin, from April 24 to May 7 .

Pablo Fanque, one of Victorian England's most celebrated circus proprietors (later immortalized in The Beatles song "Being for the Benefit of Mr.

in which an actor portrays "the character of a Negro engaged to collect tickets at a bal masque with express instructions to allow no one to pass without, but who by his blundering allows all to enter without that requisite."

[3] The huge success of a recent British tour by the African-American Master Juba may have adversely affected Pelham's career there as his performance suffered in comparison.