Miner On 8 January 1910, the
Glasgow Evening Times reported that Lauder had told the
New York World that, during his mining career: I was entombed once for 6 long hours. It seemed like 6 years. There were no visible means of getting out either – we had just to wait. I was once right next to a cave-in when my fire boss was buried alive. As we were working and chatting a big stone twice as big as a trunk came tumbling down on my mate from overhead, doubling him like a jack-knife. It squeezed his face right down on the floor. God knows I wasn't strong enough to lift that rock alone, but by superhuman efforts I did. This gave him a chance to breathe and then I shouted. Some men 70 yards away heard me and came and got him out alive. A chap who worked beside me was
killed along with 71 others at Udston, and all they could identify him with was his pin leg. I wasn't there that day. :— Harry Lauder Lauder said he was "proud to be old coal-miner" and in 1911, became an outspoken advocate, "pleading the cause of the poor
pit ponies" to
Winston Churchill, when introduced to him at the
House of Commons and later reported to the
Tamworth Herald that he "could talk for hours about my wee four-footed friends of the mine. But I think I convinced that the time has now arrived when something should be done by the law of the land to improve the lot and working conditions of the patient, equine slaves who assist so materially in carrying on the great mining industry of this country."
Performer Lauder often sang to the miners in Hamilton, who encouraged him to perform in local
music halls. While singing in nearby
Larkhall, he received 5 shillings—the first time he was paid for singing. He received further engagements including a weekly "go-as-you please" night held by Mrs. Christina Baylis at her Scotia Music Hall/Metropole Theatre in Glasgow. She advised him to gain experience by touring music halls around the country with a concert party, which he did. The tour allowed him to quit the coal mines and become a professional singer. Lauder concentrated his repertoire on comedic routines and songs of Scotland and Ireland. By 1894, Lauder had turned professional and performed local characterisations at small, Scottish and northern English music halls but had ceased the repertoire by 1900. In March of that year, Lauder travelled to London and reduced the heavy dialect of his act which according to a biographer, Dave Russell, "handicapped Scottish performers in the metropolis". He was an immediate success at the
Charing Cross Music Hall and the
London Pavilion, venues at which the theatrical paper
The Era reported that he had generated "great furore" among his audiences with three of his self-composed songs. Lauder undertook world tours extensively during his forty-year career, including 22 trips to the United States—for which he had his own railway train, the Harry Lauder Special, and made several trips to Australia, where his brother John had emigrated. Lauder was, at one time, the highest-paid performer in the world, making the equivalent of £12,700 a night plus expenses. He was paid £1125 for an engagement at the Glasgow Pavilion Theatre in 1913 and was later considered by the press to earn one of the highest weekly salaries by a theatrical performer during the prewar period.
First World War , London blue plaque The
First World War broke out while Lauder was visiting Australia. During the war Lauder promoted recruitment into the services and starred in many concerts for troops at home and abroad. Campaigning for the war effort in 1915, he then wrote "I know that I am voicing the sentiment of thousands and thousands of people when I say that we must retaliate in every possible way regardless of cost. If these German savages want savagery, let them have it". Following the December 1916 death of his son on the
Western Front; Lauder led successful charity fundraising efforts, organised a recruitment tour of music halls and entertained troops in France with a piano. He travelled to Canada in 1917 on a fundraising exercise for the war, where, on 17 November he was guest-of-honour and speaker at the
Rotary Club of Toronto Luncheon, when he raised nearly three-quarters of a million dollars' worth of bonds for
Canada's Victory Loan. Through his efforts in organising concerts and fundraising appeals he established the charity, the Harry Lauder Million Pound Fund, for maimed Scottish soldiers and sailors, to help servicemen return to health and civilian life; and he was knighted in May 1919 for Empire service during the War.
Postwar years After the First World War, Lauder continued to tour variety theatre circuits. In January 1918, he famously visited
Charlie Chaplin, and the two leading comedy icons of their time acted in a short film together. His final tour was in North America in 1932. He made plans for a new house at
Strathaven, to be built over the site and ruin of an old manor, called Lauder Ha'. He was semi-retired in the mid-1930s, until his final retirement was announced in 1935. He briefly emerged from retirement to entertain troops during the Second World War and make
wireless broadcasts with the
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
Australia Possibly Lauder's strongest connections were with Australia. Both Lauder, his wife and son, brother Matt and his wife, were all in Australia when
World War I broke out. Their brother John had already emigrated, about 1906, to
Kurri Kurri (and, later,
Newcastle), New South Wales, and Matt's eldest son John would also emigrate there in 1920. Lauder wrote that "every time I return to Australia I am filled with genuine enthusiasm.....it is one of the very greatest countries in the world." Lauder was next in Australia (with his wife and her mother) in 1919, arriving at
Sydney on 1 March on board the
Oceanic Steamship Company's liner S.S.
Ventura, from San Francisco, and he was
in situ at the
Hotel Australia when he was formally notified that he was to be knighted upon his return to Britain. His next visit was in 1923 when his brother John was on hand in Sydney, with their nephew John (Matt's son), to welcome Lauder, his wife and her brother Tom Vallance, after a four-year absence from Australia. He visited and stayed with his brother John in Newcastle on several occasions, two well-known visits being in 1925, when he gave several performances at Newcastle's Victoria Theatre for three weeks commencing on 8 August, and again in 1929 arriving in Newcastle for a brief visit on 25 July. Lauder departed Sydney for the USA on board the liner SS
Ventura on Saturday 27 July 1929, a ship he was familiar with. In 1934–5, his brother John spent 10 months with him in Scotland.
South Africa Sir Harry Lauder's 1925 reception in South Africa has never been equalled in that country. En route to Australia, he and his wife arrived in Cape Town at Easter. Over twenty thousand people had lined the streets for hours beforehand and it was reported that every policeman in the city plus mounted police were required to keep order. All traffic came to a standstill. He played for two weeks at the Opera House to packed audiences every night, figures "which staggered the management". He moved on to Johannesburg where his reception was equally amazing, described by a reporter who said "never, as long as I live, shall I forget it!" ==Works==