[1][2] He was born in England and eventually went to South Africa where he toured for two years in various stage productions, including The Merry Widow.

[3][4][5][6] He left behind a suicide letter to Charles Dunn, secretary of the Actor's Federation: My dear Old Charlie, When you get this it will be a case of "Alas, poor Yorick", and I want you to do your best for my family, who will be more or less destitute.

That it is the only way I can see clear to enable my children to get a proper education and my darling wife to feel that every postman's knock doesn't contain a summons.

Charles, I have the greatest wife and children a man could wish for, so you can guess with what heart yearnings I am leaving all I love best, but I cannot get decent work: I have done 28 weeks in two years, and then I got 'scaled' for £70 in a pantomime.

So long, Old Pal, if I have helped to make things easier for the profession, then I am glad, although I believe I have suffered in consequence.