Music hall performer, pre-war, Woolwich Empire

PS, if anyone has any info on how we can research acts that appeared at the Woolwich Empire, if such info exists in libraries or anywhere, that would also be great.

My grandmother and great-great grandmother were both pub/music hall performers in London from 1850's onwards and I often need to find information on the unique songs they sang, so I can sing them myself, thus keeping the family tradition going. There are a few avid Old Time Music Hall historians on line (have you done a Google search?). Another potentially helpful site is Mudcat Cafe, which is a free help site for people seeking lyrics/music and performers..there are a few people on there that know their OTM and might be able to help. Good luck to your mum with her search.

ps: great-great grandmother should read 'great grandmother', she was only great once!

I don't know anything about the performers, but I do remember the Empire as I grew up in Woolwich.

I live in south east London and had no idea there was an 'Empire' in Woolwich. I knew there was one in New Cross and can remember being taken to it was I was a very young girl. I have just googled the Woolwich Empire and what a lovely building it was inside and it was interesting to read it's history - thank you for sharing. Can't help with your search for info on Sonny Belman but Woolwich is in the borough of Greenwich which has a heritage centre they might be able to help. You could also try posing the question to readers of the local newspaper The Mercury or The Greenwich Visitor. I often see queries relating to historic people searches in their letters page.

Barney I googled "Sonny Belman Music Hall" and got nothing - as I daresay you did - but by missing out the Sonny I found lots of references to other peoiple called Belman with musical connections. could any of them be related to yout Sonny? Most of them seem to be in the states, and Sonny is an American sounding name.

Also, I searched on FreeBMD for marriages of a male called Belman between 1915 and 1940 and found that a Harry Belman married Debbie Franklin between March and June in 1915 in Mile End, and a Morris Belman married Rebecca Alter in December 1922 in Mile End. Do either of those brides have names which appear in your family tree in Mile End?

You can search the indexes free yourself at www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl