Florrie Forde

Florrie Forde (born Flora May Augusta Flannagan;16 August 1875 – 18 April 1940[1]) was an Australian-born British vaudevillian performer and popular singer, notable in music hall and pantomime.

[1] From 1897 she lived and worked in the United Kingdom, where she found her greatest success, as one of the most popular stars of the early 20th century as a music hall entertainer and recording artist.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald's reviewer, at one of her earliest vaudeville performances in January 1892, "[i]n the first part the vocalists were all well received, and several had to respond to encores.

At the height of her popularity during World War I, her songs were some of the best known of the period, including "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag", "It's A Long Way To Tipperary" and "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty".

[1] On 22 November 1905 at the register office, Paddington, London, as Flora Augusta Flanagan, spinster, she married Laurence Barnett (d. 1934), an art dealer.

The Anglo-Irish poet Louis MacNeice left a tribute to her in a poem, 'Death of an Actress', recalling how:With an elephantine shimmy and a sugared winkShe threw a trellis of Dorothy Perkins rosesAround an audience come from slum and suburbAnd weary of the tea-leaves in the sink.

"Hold your hand out, naughty boy" by Florrie Forde in 1913
"'Tis a faded picture" sung by Florrie Forde in 1910