Jessie Vokes

Their father, Frederick Strafford Thwaites Vokes (1816–1890), was a theatrical costumier and wigmaker[4] who owned a shop at 19 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden.

When she was only 4 years old she appeared at the Surrey Theatre, where later she played in children’s characters including as Teddy in Dred, or, The Dismal Swamp and Florence in The Dumb Savoyard.

[6] They appeared at the Lyceum Theatre in London on 26 December 26, 1868 in the pantomime Humpty Dumpty written by Edward Litt Laman Blanchard, and they traveled through a great part of the civilized world.

They made their Paris debut in August 1870 at the Théâtre du Châtelet where they were an immediate success, but with the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War it became unsafe to remain and they left the city with just a few hours notice.

[9] Back in London she appeared with the rest of the Vokes Family in Tom Thumb the Great; or, Harlequin King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in their début performance at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in Christmas 1871.

She attracted special notice first as one of the children in Charles Reade and Tom Taylor’s comedy Masks and Faces, dancing, with her sister, a jig, in which Benjamin Nottingham Webster played Triplet at the London Standard Theatre.

[11][12] For about ten years (with the exception of 1873, when they were touring abroad) they were regulars in the annual Christmas pantomime at Drury Lane, including Humpty Dumpty (1868); Beauty and the Beast!

Not being the draw they had once been, the Vokes Family discovered the pantomime was in debt and refused to drop their salaries which F. B. Chatterton the manager could not meet, and the production closed owing £36,000 in February 1879 putting all involved out of work.

All the Misses Vokes (Victoria, Jessie and Rosina), fascinated in their attire, ravishing as to their back hair and amazing in their agility, were fully equal to the occasion.