Fred Vokes

Frederick Mortimer Vokes was born in Clerkenwell in London in 1846 and was a member of the well-known Vokes family made up of three sisters, a brother and "foster brother" (actually actor Walter Fawdon (1844–1904) who changed his name to Fawdon Vokes and who outlived the rest of his "family") popular in the pantomime theatres of 1870s London and in the United States. Their father, Frederick Strafford Thwaites Vokes (1816–1890), was a theatrical costumier and wigmaker 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. The eldest of the siblings, he was educated for the stage from an early age, being tutored in acting by Mr. Chadwick and in dancing, in which he excelled, by Mr. Flexmore. He made his first appearance at the Surrey Theatre in 1854 aged 8 as the boy in the farce Seeing Wright. The 1861 Census lists the 15 year-old Fred's occupation as "Actor". ==The Vokes Family==

, Rosina, Victoria, Jessie and Fred Vokes With his sisters, Rosina, Victoria and Jessie, and "foster brother" Fawdon, first as the "Vokes Children" and later the "Vokes Family" they began to perform at music halls and at pantomimes, and by their agility and humour made the name well known to English and American theatre-goers. They made their début on Christmas night in 1861 at Howard's Operetta House in Edinburgh and made their London début at the Alhambra Theatre in 1862 when they were billed as 'The Five Little Vokes'. They first appeared in the popular The Belles of the Kitchen on 27 February 1869 at the Standard Theatre in London. Their success was pronounced and continuous. 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. Back in London he 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. ==Theatrical career==

'' (1878) The piece that most successfully carried an audience by storm was The Belles of the Kitchen, in which Fred Vokes played Timotheus Gibbs and in which the Vokes Family made its debut in the United States at the Union Square Theatre in New York on 15 April 1872. The family then embarked on a six-month tour of the United States before returning to Britain where in October 1872 they performed Fun in a Fog. They returned to New York in April 1873 at Niblo's Garden and remained in America for the next year and nine months before returning to England. Their next season in America was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York where they remained for three months. The Vokes Family returned to the USA (without Rosina Vokes who had married in 1877) in April 1881 when they appeared at the Globe Theatre in Boston and returned to England in June 1882 but without Fred Vokes; the family returned to the US in Autumn 1882. as Fatima in Bluebeard - The Illustrated London News 10 January 1880 They made their last appearance in New York at the Mount Morris Theatre in Harlem in January 1883, returning to England (again without brother Fred) in June 1883. The critics were not kind concerning the contribution of the Vokes Family to Cinderella, making such comments as: "They were on stage far too long", "They are sublimely indifferent as to whether the story of Cinderella be a Sanskrit myth or a Greek fable", "If they want to retain their hold on the public, they should get someone to concoct for them new modes". 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. The family returned to Drury Lane in 1879 in the pantomime Bluebeard in which Fred Vokes played the title role. This was to be their last pantomime at Drury Lane as by now the public were wearying of the Vokes Family who had dominated the pantomime at Drury Lane for more than a decade but who had never updated their routines. The new manager Augustus Harris found the Vokes Family to be too demanding, while they considered him a tyrant. For Christmas 1880 the family were at Covent Garden in Valentine and Orson; or, Harlequin and the Magic Shield written by F. C. Burnand. in Little Red Riding Hood at Her Majesty's Theatre (Christmas 1883) Of his appearance and that of his sisters in Tom Thumb at Drury Lane in 1871 the critic of The Times wrote: "The manner in which first the crown and then the wig of Mr Fred Vokes as King Arthur persisted in tumbling off while that monarch indulged in unusual gyrations excited tumultuous laughter, and if there could be anything funnier than Mr Fred Vokes’ 'split' dance it was his step dance, Lancashire clogs, Cornish reels, transatlantic walk-rounds, cellar flaps and breakdowns, college hornpipes and Irish jigs. Nothing in the way of dances came amiss to the airy monarch whose legs and arms seemed to spin round on pivots and who seemed at once to stimulate the actions of the cockchafer and the grasshopper. He was well assisted by Mr. Fawdon Vokes as the court fool who had apparently danced himself out of his mind in his infancy and had lived on tarantula spiders ever since. 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. When they didn’t dance they sang and danced simultaneously and then all the Vokeses jumped on one another's backs and careered – so it seemed - into immeasurable space.’ ==Tumultuous marriage==

'' (1877) On 25 March 1873 at St James' church in Piccadilly in London Vokes married the actress Martha Isabella 'Bella' Moore (1854-1913), the daughter of George Washington Moore of the Moore and Burgess minstrels, with whom he had six children, only one of whom survived into adulthood: Lillian Victoria Vokes (1874–1952); Frederick George Vokes (1876–1876); Frederick Mortimer Vokes (1877–1881), Violet Maud Vokes (1879–1887) and two unknown children. His wife occasionally appeared with the Vokes Family - usually as a replacement for Rosina Vokes after her marriage in 1877 following which she left the troupe. Fred Vokes, for his part, largely denied all his wife's allegations of violence and adultery and counter-petitioned, admitting the adultery with Edith Appleby but claiming that his wife had condoned it. He in turn stated that his wife had committed adultery with a John Wynot, Ashley MacEvoy, a Mr Benson, Samuel Adams, Cyril Ponsonby and other persons known to him. Bella Vokes further denied ever condoning her husband's adulteries and denied ever committing adultery herself. Fred Vokes died before the matter could be settled in Court. ==Death==

, London In 1888 he was forced by illness to cancel his appearances and on 3 June aged 42 he died of paralysis at the house of his sister Victoria Vokes. He was buried in the family plot in Brompton Cemetery. The Vokes family through their mother's brother, actor William F. Wood (1799–1855), were first cousins of American actress Rose Wood Morrison, who was the maternal grandmother of Hollywood starlets Constance Bennett and Joan Bennett. ==References==