“You Britishers I've come to see/ Not long escap'd from slavery”: Representations of Racial Conflict and Conflicting Representations of Race in Victorian London Music Hall Songs

Maber, Peter (2024) “You Britishers I've come to see/ Not long escap'd from slavery”: Representations of Racial Conflict and Conflicting Representations of Race in Victorian London Music Hall Songs. In: The British Music Hall Society Conference 2024: "Music Hall Songs and Conflict, 1840s-1918", 12-13 October 2024, Hoxton Hall. (Unpublished)

Abstract

This paper focused on performances of blackness as well as on performances by Black performers in the Victorian London music halls. It traced the influence of American representations of race through the tradition of blackface minstrelsy on Victorian music hall songs performed in London, but argues that the music hall performances made these traditions into something distinctive and even in conflict with their American predecessors. It focused first on E.W. Mackney and his blackface performances, which represent London as a site of escape from the horrors of slavery in ‘Whole Hog or None’, looking also at how this song was typical in its ability to evolve to accommodate topical contentious issues. It then turned to G.H. Chirgwin and his distinctive cockney blackface, as in the song ‘A Good Old London Town Girl’, with its apparent vision of integration in London. It considered the conflicting directions in which these songs can take their audiences: on the one hand perpetuating racist caricature, on the other hand seemingly advocating for integration. It then compared these songs and performances to those of Black singers on the music hall stage, including Amy Height and Belle Davis, and considered how points of tension change when Black performers take on these radically inauthentic traditions.

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