Thames Pathway

Journal of a Walk Down the River Thames

by Keith Pauling

Tagg’s Island and Fred Karno

Before I reach Molesey Lock, the largest on the non-tidal river, there is one more delight in store. A series of houseboats stretched along a row of islands in the middle of the river can not fail to attract ones attention.

Houseboats above Molesey Lock
Houseboats above Molesey Lock

The largest of these islands is Tagg’s Island, named after Tom Tagg, who was an entrepreneurial boat builder who invested the money from his boat business on the island to a include a hotel which became extremely popular with the arts and entertainments branches of society.

But it is the man who he sold it to who is of most interest. Mr Frederick John Wescott, music hall entertainer without equal in his day. He was better known to our grandparents and great-grandparents as Fred Karno.

Yes indeed; the man who gave us Fred Karno’s Army, a name that even today is still a byword for any chaotic group of people. His stock in trade was the slapstick comedy sketch of the music-hall, and he was the absolute master of it. Karno invented the “custard-pie-in-the-face” gag, still used by clowns throughout the world. He soon realised that there was far more money to be made by organising the sketches and managing the performers. The on-stage antics of his performing troupes reduced audiences to tears and the halls were packed whenever one of his touring teams came to visit. Early members of his troupes included the young Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel. His later discoveries included Stanley Powell, Flanagan and Allen and the incomparable Max Miller.

The name “Fred Karno’s Army” originated from an irreverent World War One marching song. This little ditty was a reference to General Kitchener’s hastily trained and usually shambolic “New Army”, of which some wag had said “Kitchener’s Army; more like Fred Karno’s Army”, and the name has stuck for nearly a hundred years.

We are Fred Karno’s Army, the ragtime infantry.
We cannot fight, we cannot shoot what bleeding use are we?
And when we get to Berlin we’ll hear the Kaiser say,
“Hoch! Hoch! Mein Gott, what a bloody rotten lot, are the ragtime infantry”.

We are Fred Karno’s Army, the ragtime infantry.
Fred Karno is our Captain, Charlie Chaplin is our O.C.
But when we get to Berlin we’ll hear the Kaiser say,
“Hoch! Hoch! Mein Gott, what a bloody rotten lot, are the ragtime infantry”.

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