Victoria 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.

Their mother Sarah Jane Biddulph née Godden (1818-1897) was the daughter of Welsh-born strolling player Will Wood and his actress wife.

[6] They appeared at the Lyceum Theatre in London on 26 December 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.

[11][12] For about ten years (with the exception of 1873, when they were touring abroad) the Vokes Family 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.

[16] In Little Red Riding Hood at Her Majesty's Theatre at Christmas 1883 Victoria Vokes was described as, "the very life and soul, the central figure of the pantomime, the moving spirit of all.