Arthur Lloyd

Arthur Lloyd (14 May 1839 – 20 July 1904) was a Scottish singer, songwriter, comedian and impresario. Lloyd was the first prolific and successful singer-songwriter for music hall in the United Kingdom. He wrote more than 1,000 songs, many of which were performed by himself and others. One of his compositions, Not for Joseph was the first comic song to sell more than 100,000 copies. He established his own theatre company, opened a theatre in London, performed for royalty and toured extensively, touring North America in 1893–94. Early life Born Arthur Rice Lloyd, he was born into a musical family in Edinburgh. His father was Horatio Lloyd, a comic actor based at the Theatre Royal, and his mother, Eliza Horncastle, was a member of the Pyne and Harrison Opera Company. The family lived at 7 Annandale Street, a large Georgian flat at the top of Leith Walk. From an early age, the young Arthur expressed a desire for a career on the stage, however his father was initially resistant. In 1856 Arthur's father agreed to send his son to the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, where Arthur's uncle, (his father's brother, Fred) was a leading actor. He spent two seasons at the Theatre Royal after which he performed with his father in Scotland. While on a break from the theatre, Arthur tried his hand at the music hall, giving his first appearance at the Minerva Hall in Glasgow. He secured an engagement at Glasgow's Whitebait Music Hall in March 1861 and following a successful season, he headed to London where he gave his debut at the Sun Music Hall in Knightsbridge on 12 October 1862. In the same year, he also performed at the Marylebone Theatre and Philharmonic Music Halls. Career Lloyd achieved success early in his career. In 1863, the Song of Songs became a popular hit with copies of the sheet music being sold in the thousands. He had enormous popular success with Not For Joseph (1868), a tune that was inspired by a chance meeting with a London bus conductor, who spoke about himself in the third person. This became the first comic tune to sell more than 100,000 copies In the 1860s, Lloyd, along with contemporaries Alfred Peck Stevens and George Leybourne, were instrumental in developing a new style of music hall performer, known as the lion comique or swells. In this style, performers relied less on copying burlesque, and instead sought inspiration in their everyday experiences and the colourful characters of daily street life.