Herbert Barber - cinema organist 1947 or was he ?

[hatofthecat]

I have a curious one with a chap called Herbert Clarence Barber as an executor of the wills of two of my 2x great grand aunts in 1945 and 1947.  In '45 he is noted as a "lecturer in music" of Newcastle but in '47 he's an "organist" with his address given as the Gaumont Cinema in Worcester...!?!? 

Sounds an interesting character but I've not been able to find any sign of him through Google.  There is mention of an Association of Theatre Organists in the "Kinematograph Year Book 1945", likely an organisation long defunct but I wonder if he was a member and lists might exist somewhere (?).

Putting his name into Ancestry turns up a chap born 1903 (likely Ashton Under Lyme) who died in 1988 in Worcester, there is a death notice in Times apparently (31 Mar 1988 edition) but I don't have access to look that up, pity as perhaps it would confirm its him.

Anyway, I'm really just throwing out the feelers to any theatre/cinema organ aficionados as to what they can tell me about Herbert as I'm completely flummoxed as to how he came to know two elderly spinsters from Poplar (later living in Worthing, Sussex)   

Pete

[jacquelineve]

Pete
        Numerous mentionings of a Clarence Barber -theatre organist in the British Newspaper Archives, mostly in the radio listings 1938-42

Also.. Yorkshire Post  and Leeds Intelligencer  16th Nov 1940
"Mr Clarence Barber theatre organist, yesterday, gave a pianoforte recital,at a mid-day musical
gathering at Bradford Technical College"

Jackie

[hatofthecat]

Thanks jacquelineve.... obviously he was travelling the country under his middle name    I'd had a search of the  British Newspaper Archives but I'd used his first name 

One theory I have is that perhaps Clarence (well I'll have to use his middle name now) boarded with the spinster sisters when he was in Worthing and struck up a friendship.  There's a bit of a track record there taking in waifs & strays as a long term boarder who lived with their mother and them in Stratford (east London) was made the legal guardian of their mother's great niece and actually buried in same plot as their parents and sister 

Hoping there's one of those glossy promo pics for Clarence out there somewhere ?

Pete

PS thanks also for the PM'd info.  That matches the birth info I found.  I've found that person on someone's tree on Ancestry and sent them a message to see if they know anything about him (possibly not as he looks to be a three generations back uncle on their line).

[AnMiMo]

He lived latterly in Norton, Worcestershire. Yes, he was a cinema organist and taught. I have seen photographs of him sitting at the organ. I also had heard of a connection with two spinsters but I never bothered to find out what the story was behind that. I met him once or twice. His wife, a very nice lady, died in 1990. He had died about 4 years earlier and details will be on the local records.

[brigidmac]

Interesting story. Have you found any other information about his life.. baptism. 1911 or 1921 census

Could he have been connected to the ladies via informal adoption?

What are their names and birth dates? We're they by any chance connected to theatre too. ?

[hanes teulu]

The Times article (31 Mar 1988) -

[hanes teulu]

He's on the 1939 Register in Bradford.

[jonwarrn]

Lots of biographical info in various editions of the Radio Times
including
18-24 December 1938 (George Formby on the cover!)
Tuesday, 6.25
Clarence Barber at the BBC Theatre Organ
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/a98f09df89d44a60bb4722d428eaf2ac?page=36

1-7 December 1940
Thursday, 10.40
Clarence Barber at the theatre organ
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/12cc687001ce4b148b8558ab30398d89?page=20

27 July - 2 August 1941 (Arthur Askey on the cover!)
Friday 9.00 am
Clarence Barber at the theatre organ
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/79603d5ec4684f59966a7a77ef45fc71?page=28

[hatofthecat]

This thread is a bit of a "blast from the past" from 2014 !

AnMiMo it is wonderful that you met him, its very likely my late father (born 1925) met him as he told me about the spinster sisters (there were actually three altogether).

I actually managed to track down Herbert and just exactly how he was related to my Norris family.  Herbert's aunt Elizabeth Barber (born in Footscray a suburb of Melbourne, Australia) married Thomas Morcomb Norris in 1882 in Little Ilford, Essex.  Thomas was an elder brother of the three spinster great grand aunts of mine that he was executor of two of their wills for.  Their father being my 3x great grandfather Henry Norris who was a civil engineer specialising in lighthouse construction (there's a Wikipedia page for him).   Two distant cousins of mine from the Morcomb (St Merryn, Cornwall) side were told all sorts of wonderful stories about my Norris family in Stratford, London by their maternal grandmother who was raised by the spinster sisters and their mother after her own mother's early death in Cornwall.  Herbert would regularly stay with my Norris family in Stratford east London before the war when he was playing at local picture houses or for his many appearances on the BBC. I also managed to find a signed example of one of his publicity postcards showing him at the organ.  The Barber family were rather interesting,  Elizabeth's younger sister Martha Edith Barber (1864-1953) was a Titanic survivor along with her daughter Elsie Edith Bowerman (1889-1973) who was also one of the very first lady barristers in England and a celebrated suffragette honoured with a blue plaque in her home town of St Leonards-on-Sea (again she has a Wikipedia page).