Most people, on hearing the name George Formby, if they know it at all, think of the Lancashire banjo/ukulele playing star of such films as Turned Out Nice Again and singer of slightly risqué songs like 'Me Granddad's flannelette nightshirt'. However, his father - also known as George Formby (1875-1921) - was a very big star in his day.

Humble Beginnings

It is difficult to imagine a more inauspicious start in life. Born James Booth in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire¹, the illegitimate son of an illiterate working class mother, Sarah Jane Booth, he remarked later in life 'My childhood was the most miserable that could have happened to any human being'.

Although Sarah married some months after his birth, the marriage was turbulent and violent. He was frequently ill-treated and half-starved. While his mother sang at the local pub in return for drink, often resulting in her being carted away to the police station to cool off (she had over 100 convictions for being drunk and disorderly), he was left to sleep on the doorstep or in the lavatory. He went on to develop asthma and bronchitis, which troubled him all his life.

James ran away from home at the age of nine and after working in an iron foundry, at 13 he started his stage career singing in rough pubs and ale-houses around Wigan² as the soprano half of the Brothers Glenray. The partnership started to do reasonably well (they were playing in real music halls and at least making a living), but faltered when their voices broke. Finding audiences laughing at him, James decided they may well laugh with him and started to do comic songs, dressed in grotesque make-up.

'George Formby'

The name 'Formby' is said to have come to him whilst sitting at a railway platform watching a goods train destined for Formby (a coastal town, also in Lancashire) and he was known as George Formby until he died, 24 years later. It is likely that he took the name 'George' because of its royal connections.

Marriage to Eliza Hoy in 1899 gave him the support and encouragement he needed and he had a happy family life, with Eliza doing dressmaking when bookings were low. They had 12 children of which seven survived, the oldest being George, who became a star in his own right after his father's death.

George's act was as a droll, dry comedian, with a few basic costumes and between songs, he would chat to his audience as though over a pint. Later, he would do the same at the end of his records. He had a characteristic rasping cough, which he would explain away during his act, 'Coughin' well tonight!' or:

It's not the cough that carries you off - it's the coffin they carries you off in!

His audiences would laugh, thinking it was part of the act; he would eventually die of tuberculosis.

He allowed a young Charlie Chaplin to borrow one of his costumes (a bowler hat, a baggy coat with big buttons, concertina trousers, boots on the wrong feet, and a black moustache) and perform one of his songs. Charlie took those with him to America and went on to become a star, although he used different boots, as the ones he was given were too tight.

George Formby started working in London after George Robey, ('the Prime Minister of Mirth') recommended him. He emphasised his northern origins:

Good evening, I'm George Formby fra'³ Wigan... I've not been in England long...

He also developed an gormless, endearing character called 'John Willie', who thought he was a man about town and a real Casanova.

George cut his first record in 1907 and made over 180 records in his life, his most famous being 'Standing at the Corner of the Street'.

When playing in pantomime in 1918 and 1919, he had to leave the cast because of his agonising chest complaint. He worked himself hard and usually managed to come back, but again collapsed in Newcastle during a Christmas show in 1920/21. Despite careful nursing by his wife, he never recovered. He left over £21,000 in his will - he'd been fully booked for the next five years.

George had been adamant that none of his family should follow him into show business saying that one fool in the family was enough. After his death, however, George Formby Junior took to the boards. But that's another story...