Dead Centre of Manly
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Posted: 03 Nov 2014 03:30 PM PST
Two men buried in Manly Cemetery a hundred years ago had strong connections to the world of music hall. The first, Colin Maitland Morton, was born in London in 1865, the third of four children of Charles and Kate Morton. Charles Morton was a theatrical impresario and theatre owner, and more than anyone else is credited with the invention of the term ‘music hall’. He established the Canterbury Music Hall in Lambeth in 1852, the forerunner of many other similar venues, and managed the Alhambra in Leicester Square. He was a friend of all the major stars of the day - Marie Lloyd, George Grossmith, George Robey, Albert Chevalier and many others – and became known as ‘the Father of the Halls’. He would be a good subject for a full biography. Kate, who lived to the age of 99, was his third wife. Their son Colin came out to Australia some time in the 1880s, for unknown reasons – family conflict? Colin married Louisa Altham in Victoria in 1890, and they came to Manly in 1901, where they lived at Maranoa, West Promenade. Colin Morton appears to have been of independent means, and died, aged 49, in 1914. He was buried in plot A.063 of Manly Cemetery, and his headstone says that he was known to his friends as ‘Mait’.
A few graves along, the unmarked plot A.078 is that of George Lincoln King, who came to a sad end. King was a professional ventriloquist, and even in those days there was not strong demand for ventriloquist acts. It would have been a precarious way to make a living. I am not sure what his stage name would have been, although there was someone who appeared as “The Ventriloquist King” in the 1900s in the theatres of Sydney and Melbourne. He lived latterly in High Street, Manly. He fell ill, and told a neighbour he was going to end it all. At the inquest she gave chilling evidence describing how she had heard an unusual voice saying ‘Tell her to say goodbye’, then saw King’s body with its throat cut, and a razor lying nearby. Shades of the Anthony Hopkins film, Magic.
JMacR
