Harry Clay was a theatrical entrepreneur whose family home was based for many years in Glebe. His only child, actress Essie was born and died in the suburb.
Born near Singleton on 10 May 1865, Harry was a singer in minstrel shows before joining Harry Rickards’ vaudeville company. By the 1890s he was a regular at Rickards’ Tivoli and by 1900 he had started staging his own shows at St George’s Hall in Newtown. By 1905 he was playing one-night gigs in Balmain, Petersham, Parramatta, North Sydney and Newtown, and in the Masonic Hall in the city, and had theatrical business interests in Queensland.
In 1911 Clay built the Bridge Theatre at Newtown (later The Hub), home to ‘the Greatest and Cheapest Show in the Southern Hemisphere’. Clay’s company also toured country towns serviced by rail where players could hone their skills and try out new material. A strategy of continual changes of program, low ticket prices and letterbox marketing kept ‘Harry Clay and his Contingent of Laughter Makers’ popular when other vaudeville houses were falling swift victims to competition from movies and radio. A chance remark by Clay led to Roy Rene’s creation of ‘Mo’, and the success of the Stiffy and Mo routines inspired the Dinks and Onkus double act of George Wallace and Jack Paterson. These comics were great crowd pleasers – as was Thelma Woods whose specialty was singing in front of a projector screen, blending old tradition with new technology.
Henry Clay had moved to Glebe by the time of his marriage in 1887 to Catherine (1869-1965), the eldest child of Mary Ann and Thomas Jubb, a wheelwright living at 57 Gottenham (then spelt ‘Cottenham’) Street. During the next few years, presumably because he was touring, Clay rented one house after another in the suburb where his in-laws continued to live. (Another place in Raglan Street Alexandria may have been used for storing theatrical props and costumes.) In the period 1888-1903 the Clay family home was at 3 Ebenezer Place, 48 Talfourd Street, 126 Brougham Street, 2 Little Darling Street, 113 Brougham Street, 39 Brougham Street, 23 Denman Street and 14 Phillip Street. For two years from 1904 they lived on the corner of Bay Street and Wentworth Park Road adjacent to the stables of the Farmers’ Cooperative Company. By now a household name, Clay was at 25 Wigram Road 1906-7, then at 218 Glebe Point Road 1908-14, before returning to Wigram Road – at number 29 – where he remained until 1920 when he moved to Vaucluse, a suburb popular with those who had enjoyed theatrical success.
At the time of his death Harry Clay was the proprietor of Clay’s Bridge Theatre and Clay’s North Sydney Coliseum (later the Independent Theatre). He died on 17 February 1925 and was buried at South Head Cemetery. His funeral was attended by show business performers and stage crew, together with representatives of the Tivoli, Fullers, Sydney Stadium and Wirth’s Circus managements. His widow left the Eastern Suburbs and returned to Glebe, to 11 Wigram Road.
At the age of seven Harry and Catherine’s daughter, billed as ‘Little Essie Clay’, made her singing debut at Brisbane’s Gaiety Theatre, followed two years later by a season at Sydney’s Gaiety Theatre with the Australian Minstrel and Variety Company in which her father also performed. By 1898, promoted as ‘the phenomenal child balladist’ and ‘the child wonder’ and usually on the same bill as her father, Essie played at Sydney’s Tivoli and with the Continental Vaudeville Company in Brisbane and Rockhampton. Her repertoire included My Mother was a Lady, The Boers have got my daddy and Mr Conductor, please
don’t put me off the train.
In Queensland she performed with Clay’s Waxworks and Variety Company and in 1908, now ‘an established actress’ with Harry Clay’s Dramatic Company. One reviewer hinted that her lead casting in the latter’s production of The World Against Her (a play ‘of inordinate length’) was because she was the promoter’s daughter. With Walter Bentley’s Shakespearian Company she played Ophelia (‘a fine rendition’) and Annette in The Bells (‘amiable and pleasing’). Touring Shakespearian actor-managers often staged crowd-pleasing melodramas to recoup money lost on staging The Bard. For entrepreneur George Marlow, owner of the Princess in Melbourne and the Adelphi in Sydney, she appeared in The Power of the Cross (‘acceptable in a colourless part’), East Lynne and The Bad Girl of the Family. Immediately before World War 1 she was back in Rockhampton with Harry Clay’s Company. By 1916 she was living with her parents at 29 Wigram Road.
Essie Clay died on 13 May 1948 at Glebe – probably at her mother’s house – and was interred in South Head Cemetery following her funeral service at St John’s Church. When Catherine Clay died on 9 January 1965 she was living at 29 Wigram Road in the old family home. At least one of Catherine’s siblings had remained in Glebe. Florrie Jubb, until her death in 1947, was at 38 Gottenham Street.
Sources
Brisbane Courier 27.9.1895
NSW births, deaths, marriages registry
NSW electoral rolls
Philip Parsons (ed.) Companion to Theatre in Australia 1995
Sands directories
Sydney Morning Herald several issues
including 13.3.1897, 4.4.1898, 7.11.1910, 14.5.1948
10 comments. Please add yours.
Hello Daniel
I’m sorry we don’t have any photos to send you. Perhaps other website readers may be able to help you.
All the best
Lyn Collingwood
My name is Daniel Coleman (Danny).I have just read the comments and was wondering if there is still relatives alive of my father’s,Ray Coleman.Maybe you have old photos or stories or something you would like to comment on.I can be contacted by email,
colemandaniel21@gmail.com or
dcoleman@karimbla.com.au
Hi Faye , I just read yr message and my moms name was Susie ( passed away in 2000 ) I remember you when you were a little girl after yr mum Olga and yr dad Ray had 3 boys and yous lived at Camperdown behind the lolly factory and Police Station . I would love to see you and talk . Your g grandmother , we called her Topsy , she was lovely , well she loved you . She was my nanny s sister , my nan died before I was born 1942 and Topsy ( Elizabeth Daisy ) died in Sept 1966. Regards Robyn I am on Facebook and Instergram if you want to contact me .
Robyn rivers was your mother name Susie. Im ray colemans daughter Faye.
He has Lynette , Karen, Raymond, Danny, Kingsley and Fay . He would be 90yrs old now ( 2018) and both he and his wife Olga are both no longer alive . (Karen Had a different mother )
Yes Ray ( mustard ) Coleman has a daughter named Lynette
People in the comments may be able to help? Does Ray Coleman have a daughter named Lynette?
thia ray was my grandfather too my mum was adopted by the colemans where are you from ? your parents are my mums sister or brother! crazy!
Ray Coleman is my grandfather and lewis hoad is related to me also. Its amazing just how small this world is.
Katie clay was my gradmother’s oldest sister and I have cousins who still live in 29, 27 , Wigram Rd. I remember Katie quiet well when she lived in Taulford St. Glebe I used to do her messages for her when I was about 12,13 yrs old . She died in a lovely home in Wigram Rd. It was a nursing home run by a lovely lady who was a nursing sister .My grandmother ‘s name was Mary she was the youngest in the family , she died in 1942 before I was born . As a matter of interest their maiden name Jubb was also the Surname of Tennis player Lewis Hoad and another of Katie’s sisters Elizabeth was the grandmother of Ray mustard Coleman Australian boxing champion . Katie and Lew’s grandmother Mabel Jubb were 1st cousins . The Hoads family lived at no 43 Wigram Rd.