Who was Flo Everette with her clever Parisian Pets?
When we posed that question in our introduction we didn’t intend to set out to find the answer – Flo and her dogs were simply one of the acts billed in the October 1896 advertisement for Tudor’s New Circus that was the spur to our research. But, having answered the ‘Who was . . . ?’ question for such characters as Evetta, Alar, and Oscar Dubourg (the Man Fish), it proved impossible to resist the temptation of leaping through the hoops provided by The Era, regional newspapers, censuses and the General Register Office in the hope of reward.

Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday , 20 July 1889,  p 4

To the public, Flo was a singer, dancer and pantomime actress from the theatrical Everette family, with siblings Harriet, Lily, Florence, Charles, Lorrie, and Ted and Emily, who performed in music halls and theatres during the 1880s and 1890s. There are regular appearances in the columns of The Era in that time. Flo was more likely to be found on the stage than in the circus ring but in October 1896 she and her very clever Parisian Pets were gracing the sawdust of Tudor’s Circus, giving ‘evidence of the most careful training’ as they jumped through hoops, turned somersaults and skirt danced (CDN, 2 October 1896, p 3).

The official record
We have been unable to find the Everettes under that name in official documents such as censuses, birth certificates and death certificates, so we conclude that it was a marketing creation, perhaps of Flo herself, who worked with a number of performers who assumed the name and claimed to be on-stage siblings. But there are sufficient sources to compile a reasonable narrative, for a couple of decades at least, and it’s a story that demonstrates the insecure careers and short lives of many performers.

The General Register Office supplied the birth certificate for Florence Edith Duffey, her parents being James William Duffey (machinist journeyman) and Rebecca Sarah Duffey (née Wright). Florence was born on 8 February 1865 at 13, Roehampton Street, London – a street since renamed but which is close behind the Tate Britain gallery near Vauxhall Bridge Road. James took a somewhat leisurely four weeks before registering the birth on 9 March.

How do we know that’s our Florence? And what made us look for the certificate? She acknowledged her marriage in a notice in The Era (3 February 1900, p 26), ten months before she petitioned for divorce (of which more below). Her husband’s name led us to their July 1894 marriage certificate and her parents’ names, thence back to the 1881 census which lists the family, including 16-year-old Florence and older sister Ada Alice (22), in Egham, Surrey.

In the years after 1881 Flo aged slowly, despite her busy career, because in the 1891 census in Gravesend she’s only 23 and at marriage three years after that the certificate says she was 25. That was a considerable achievement for someone born in February 1865, but it did reduce the seven-year gap between Flo and her 22-year-old husband, William Cowan Reid.

On the stage
The first we see of Florence is her appearance in 1885 in The Magic Cave, the creation of play and pantomime actress Harriet Laurie. Harriet was called The Electric Star – she performed with electric lights in her hair. Under the direction of Harriet’s husband, Alfred Douglass, she and Flo and a colleague called Lilian Everette sang and danced in a stage cave illuminated by coloured electric lights connected by nine miles of electric wires.

The Era, 19 September 1885, p 5

Electricity was still a novelty and the act was very popular, though perhaps alarming for us. Florence and Lily also danced and sang with electric lights in their dresses and hair. Florence’s father was a teacher of telegraphy and an electrical instructor at a college, so the connection with Harriet may have come through him. Harriet, or her agent, collated some reviews of the show in Birmingham and published them in an advertisement in The Era, 28 November 1885, p 23:

Reviews generally thought 20 year old Florence and Lily to be pretty and talented but needed more practice. They now began to perform under the name The Sisters Everette. Harriet continued combining pantomime work with her Electric Star appearances but she died in September 1888.

Leamington Spa Courier, 22 Sep 1888, p 8

Anniversary memorials that appeared in The Era gave the impression that Florence and Lily were Harriet’s sisters – but she was born Harriet Mary Dursdill and there seems to be no family connection.

The Era, 7 September 1889, p 13

The Era, 13 September 1890, p 13

Florence and Lily were left to perform together, and the Everette Sisters were back on stage in Accrington in January 1890. In the pantomime Babes in the Wood, Florence played Robin Hood, Lily was Maid Marian, and Charles Everette (we don’t know who he was!) played Friar Tuck (The Era, 4 January 1890, p 16).

 The Era, 15 February 1890, p 27

The Era, 15 March 1890, p 16

Babes was still doing good business at The Theatre Royal, Lincoln in March with dashing Florence and lively Lily. Also on the bill were a roller-skating trio, two women – Ivy and Rene – and a man called Lorrie.

The following winter Little Bo-Peep was at the Theatre Royal in Leeds with Florence and Lily in their usual roles and performing on roller skates.

Yorkshire Evening Post, 22 December 1890, p 3

Yorkshire Evening Post, 22 December 1890, p 3 – Flo as Boy Blue, Lily as Bo Peep

Lorrie of the Canadian Skaters is now also an Everette and we realise that Lily and Florence are the two lady roller skaters. Again the Everettes make the most of the good reviews of Bo-Peep at the Theatre Royal, Leeds to post quotations in The Era (17 January, 1891, p 25) and we can infer even more confidently from this advertisement that the Canadian Skating Trio – Rene, Lorrie and Ivy – really were Lily, Florence and Lorrie. Later advertisements confirm this (e.g. The Era, 14 February 1891, p 25). Appearing for the first time was a canine Everette, clever dog Towser, ‘whose efforts in the sticking line are ludicrous in the extreme’. We have no idea whose brother he was.

Disaster in Gravesend
The misspelt sisters and their roller-skating alter egos (not forgetting Towser the dog) performed in Gravesend at Easter 1891:

A few days later, tragedy struck when Lily died on 3 April. The local press reported: ‘On April 3rd, at 154 Wellington-Street, Gravesend, Lily Everette (sister of the Canadian Skaters) late of Englefield Green, Surrey, of heart disease. Deeply regretted’ (Gravesend Reporter, North Kent and South Essex Advertiser, 11 April 1891, p 4). Florence and her mother Rebecca were boarding at 154 Wellington Street on census night, 5 April, so perhaps they were with her when she died.

Gravesend Reporter, North Kent and South Essex Advertiser, 11 April 1891, p 4

The Era published a notice of Lily’s death. Flo and Lorrie ‘of the Sisters Everette and Canadian Skating Trio render thanks to friends and colleague in their sad bereavement’ from the Englefield Green address in the same issue (The Era, 11 April 1891, p 25). Memorials to Lily appeared each year until 1894, that in 1892 (The Era, 2 April, p 12) proclaiming: ‘Never forgotten by her loving brothers and sisters—Ted and Emily George, Flo. and Lorrie Everette’. Emily George might be Harriet Laurie’s younger sister Emily Dursdill.

So the Everette Family remains a mystery. Perhaps it was a creation to protect and support a group of young performers and friends, or as a way of devising a stage lineage for authenticity, or perhaps it masked a very close relationship between the sisters.

The Everettes carry on
The trio needed to replace Lily. In May we learn from The Era that ‘Kate Leoni, having joined the Canadian Skaters, Ivy and Lorrie Everette, will work in their name’ (16 May 1891, p 23), and Florence herself posted that ‘Flo and Lorrie Everette, (in conjunction with Kate Leoni) resume business Monday, May 18, People’s Palace, Newcastle . . . having arranged with Kate Leoni to take my Sister’s place, we shall continue to take our turns as usual. Agent, Albert’ (The Era, 16 May 1891, p 27).

And so the Sisters Everette and the Canadian Skaters continued. In January 1892 Flo is playing Abdallah in The Forty Thieves at the Theatre Royal, Oldham, and ‘the clever Canadian Skaters appear, assisted by their clown dog Towzer; and musical talent is exhibited by Miss Lillie Laverne’ (The Era, 23 January 1892, p 18). It is good to see Towzer (sometimes Towser) is back, but who is Lillie Laverne, who sang and played the dulcimer and mandolin? The following month in Bradford, Ernest Everette – another unknown member of the ‘family’ – appears as Cassim Baba in the same production. But in August The Era announced the dissolution of the Canadian Skaters’ partnership because of illness, with all engagements cancelled. Perhaps Towzer, sounding very un-Gallic, became the founding member of those Parisian Pets.

The following Christmas sees yet another production of Babes in the Wood at the Theatre Royal, Ashton Under Lyne. Florence is no longer in a leading role but plays Will Scarlett to an all-female Robin Hood and troupe of outlaws. She’s now honing her act with her performing dogs, who ‘provoke much laughter’ as the production tours to Burnley and give ‘a very clever performance’ in Hull (The Era, 30 December 1893, p 16; 3 March 1894, p 19; 31 March 1894 , p 1).

Florence’s disastrous marriage, 1894 to 1901
On 7 July 1894 Florence married comedian William Cowan Reid, (stage name Dean Tribune), witnessed at Christ Church, Virginia Water by her real sister Ada and her mother Rebecca. In 1900 Florence filed for divorce, granted in December 1901 on the grounds of Reid’s adultery and cruelty. Her divorce petition shows that he had begun hitting her and had given her a venereal disease before the end of 1894, then deserted her and from 1896 committed adultery with Estella Hope, with whom he had two children, in 1899 and 1900. Reid was ordered to pay maintenance of £1 per week.

Meanwhile, in Robin Hood in Birmingham in October 1894 Florence was just one of the ‘other artists’ (The Era 20 October 1894, p 12), though in Walsall the same month her dogs received a special mention (The Era, 27 October 1894, p 12).

In Huddersfield she was still playing ‘one of Robin Hood’s merry lieutenants’ and put her dogs ‘through a clever performance’ (Huddersfield Chronicle, 5 December 1894, p 3), described elsewhere as ‘a great number of feats which they perform with wonderful sagacity and acrobatic style’ (Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 4 December 1894, p 2).

From now on Florence calls herself Flo and the dogs become the centre of her act but she continues to combine acts where possible. In Dick Whittington she plays Captain Harrold, and performs with her Parisian Pets, and Lorrie is mentioned in the cast (The Era, 12 October 1895, p 18). At the Aquarium, Brighton, she acted Prince Pastorelle in Little Bo-Peep, as well as introducing her performing dogs ‘with great success’ (The Era, 11 January 1896, p 19).

Helping colleagues down on their luck, protecting her intellectual property, and campaigning for lower train fares
Florence was obviously someone who cared about her colleagues and was not afraid to tackle injustices. She appealed for donations for the widow of fellow animal trainer George Dusoni appealing in The Era (30 November 1895, p 19) from the Theatre Royal, Preston, where brother Lorrie and her husband appeared with her.

A couple of months later she asserted her songwriter’s rights in The Era (8 February 1896, p 27), demanding that ‘Duettists to Know “Buy the Ring,” Words and Music, must not be sung in Public without my written permission. FLO EVERETTE.’ Then, in 1898 and 1900, we find two more stern statements that show she was not to be trifled with:

The Era, 21 May 1898, p 31

The Era, 3 February 1900, p 26 – this is the notice that enabled us to trace Flo back to her birth certificate, via the 1894 marriage certificate. It names her estranged husband’s partner Estella Hope without alluding to that by-then well-established relationship.

In May 1896 she was at Alvo’s Circus of Varieties in Middlesborough with the Parisian Pets and made her debut at Tudor’s Circus in Cambridge in October. We have not been able to ascertain whether the Parisian nature of her troupe had any basis in fact! (Daily Gazette for Middlesborough, 12 May 1896, p 3). We know they were small animals and that there were now eight of them, as a month after her engagement in Auckland Road Flo wrote to The Era in a dogged but unsuccessful campaign to have the railways reduce the cost of their tickets.

The Era, 28 November 1896, p 19

And she tries again, her letter to the Music Hall Artistes’ Association being quoted under the heading Music Hall Railway Rates, but appears to have failed.

The Era, 12 December 1896, p 18

When she writes that ‘I am travelling each week’ it is a reminder that most of the artistes we have encountered moved from job to job, town to town, and lodging to lodging every seven days. So, in October 1897 we find her in Stanley, County Durham, then Scarborough, before pitching up in Halifax early the following month to appear at The Mechanics’ Hall where her ‘marvellous troupe of dogs’ consists of ‘Somersault Dogs, Boxing Dogs, Skipping Rope Dogs, and a lot of leaping greyhounds’ (Halifax Evening Courier, 2 November 1897, p 2). Perhaps by now she had managed to negotiate reduced fares!

Heading to the new century
Her mother Rebecca’s death on 13 December 1899 must have been a huge loss. Florence placed a notice in The Era for her ‘beloved mother’ Daddles, with the parental address as 114, Bennerley-Road, New Wandsworth, and the sad lines ‘For her peace, but the loss to me of all I had to love’ (The Era, 23 December 1899, p 14).

Apart from the granting of divorce in December 1901, and a few more engagements up to 1904, the trail runs cold in the twentieth century. Flo was with her highly trained dogs at the People’s Palace in Scarborough on 3 September 1904, on 14 October she was with her dog orchestra at the Paddington Palace, Liverpool, and at the Gaiety, Oldham on 3 December. Then there is no further mention of Flo Everette in The Era. A 20-year career that began so brightly in the Magic Cave seems to have ended abruptly – we hear no more about this quirky artiste who caught our eye when she passed through Tudor’s Cambridge circus in the same week in October 1896 that moving pictures first came to our town.