Mr and Mrs Case by Alexander Fox and Co, 1864
George Case (life dates unknown) and his wife Grace Egerton (d. 1881), variety performers, made several successful tours of Australia in the 1860s and 1870s. Mrs Case, the star of the duo, immediately impressed audiences with her impersonations, singing, dancing, dextrous changes of costume and prestidigitation in the persona of ‘The Wizard of the East’. Mr Case filled the gaps in her performances with turns on the violin and accordion. In August 1865, in Brisbane, she appeared in fifteen different roles on one night. In 1867 she appeared as the tenor, Sims Reeves, in Hobart; in January 1868 she took on three separate characters in ‘A Scene in a London Restaurant’. In Harrogate, Yorkshire in 1870 she starred as Mrs Major Buster, formidable mother-in-law, and Miss Judith Clench, ‘the determined advocate of woman’s rights’. Acclaimed to the last, she died in Montreal.
George Case (life dates unknown) and his wife Grace Egerton (d. 1881), variety performers, evidently made several successful tours of Australia in the 1860s and 1870s, although the precise dates of their visits are unknown. They appeared first in Melbourne in September 1864. Mrs Case, the star of the duo, immediately impressed audiences with her impersonations, singing, dancing, dextrous changes of costume and prestidigitation in the persona of ‘The Wizard of the East’. Mr Case’s turns on violin and accordion were also applauded. In December 1864 they played before Governor and Lady Darling, and every seated lady received a carte de visite of Mrs Case by Alexander Fox. In August 1865 the Brisbane Courier advertised that Grace Egerton would appear on a given night in fifteen different roles. In January 1868 she appeared at the Prahran Town Hall in ‘The Protean Cabinet’ and ‘Enchanted Heads’ (‘with full explanation’). The same month at the Polytechnic Hall she took on three separate characters in ‘A scene in a London Restaurant’. They were in Sydney by August that year. In Harrogate, Yorkshire in 1870 they appeared in a specially-written program, in which Mrs Case starred as Mrs Major Buster, formidable mother-in-law, and Miss Judith Clench, ‘the determined advocate of woman’s rights’. In September 1875 they were in Brisbane performing ‘Latest Intelligence’, in which Egerton assumed numerous identities: ‘the rapid transition from one to another is never allowed to interfere’, wrote the Courier, ‘the short period necessarily intervening between the assumption of each character being effectively filled up by Mr Case, whose performances on the violin and English concertina never failed to draw forth hearty manifestations of approbation.’ They were still drawing favourable reviews in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1879.
source: National Portrait Gallery
