Compton Lodge Visitors Book by Butt, Clara - 1901

1901. Visitors book containing signatures of visitors to Compton Lodge, the London home of British opera star, the contralto Clara Butt (1872-1936), one of the most notable British singers of the early 20th century. Compton Lodge is currently an assisted living facility, but in 1969 a blue plaque commemorating Butt's residence was added to the exterior.

Clara Butt was born in Sussex, gaining early experience in performance as part of

the Bristol Festival Chorus. She obtained a scholarship to the Royal College of Music

in London in 1890, during which time her performances attracted arts notables George du Maurier (who based his most famous character, Trilby, on Butt), and actor and theatre company director Herbert Beerbohm Tree. Butt subsequently received additional vocal training in Paris, Berlin, and Italy. Her premiere performance in 1892 was at the Royal Albert Hall, where she sang the role of Ursula in "The Golden Legend", an Arthur Sullivan cantata. Butt harnessed audio recording technology and through the company "His Master's Voice" (HMV) and later Columbia Records she was able to bring her voice to a much wider audience than was possible in a concert hall. She worked with some of the most famous British composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including Arthur Sullivan and Edward Elgar, who composed "Sea Pictures" (1899) with her voice in mind.

During the First World War, Butt organised concert parties to fundraise for the Red Cross and employ artists who faced financial difficulties due to war. She was also involved in the Three Arts Women's Employment Fund, alongside actresses Constance Collier and Maud Tree, which was established to assist women in the arts during the war by putting them to work making crafts to sell. Butt was made a Dame in 1920 following her war work.

The Compton Lodge Visitors Book illuminates the international network of musicians and composers, actors and theatrical management within which Butt and her husband, baritone Kennerley Rumford circulated, and provides snapshots of early 20th century British Society and celebrity culture. Butt and Rumford were married in 1900 and purchased Compton Lodge after their marriage, thus the first group of signatures are dated 22 December 1901. Visitors on that day include Samuel Arthur Chappell of the noted London music publisher Chappell & Co and organiser of Saturday popular concerts at St James' Hall, and the sister-singers Frederica and Nora Conway.

The book records the names of various women who had stellar careers in the arts. The name of world-famous Australian opera star Nellie Melba, a friend of Butt's, occurs multiple times; also included in the visitors book are composers Ethel Smyth, Liza Lehmann, Maud Valerie White and Regine Wieniawski (known as Poldowski); singers Nellie Rowe and Louise Kirkby Lunn; musicians Irene Scharrer Lubbock (pianist), Miriam Timothy (harpist) and Adela Verne (pianist).

Clara Butt and Kennerley Rumford's association with the Terry and Beerbohm Tree acting dynasties was particularly close, with multiple visits recorded. The most famous British actress of the Victorian age Ellen Terry, her brother and sister-in law actors Fred Terry and Julia Neilsen Terry, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who founded the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1904, the actress Maud (Holt) Beerbohm Tree his wife, their daughter Viola Tree (later Parsons) all appear in the volume. Related to the Terry family and members of Tree's company actresses Lily Hanbury and Hilda Hanbury, friends of Butt's since her studies at the Royal College of Music, appear with their husbands Herbert Guedella and Arthur William Fox respectively (Hilda Hanbury Fox is grandmother to actors James Fox and Edward Fox, and great grandmother to actors Emilia Fox, Freddie Fox and Laurence Fox). Various members of Tree's company over the years are also present, including Constance Collier, George Alexander and Gwendoline Brogden.

Kennerley Rumford's interests in cricket are also evident, with noted cricketers Basil S. Foster, Stephen Fry and K. S. Ranjitsinhji in the Visitors Book. The last entry is 11 September 1948. Clara Butt died in 1936, so the book either records visits to the next occupants of Compton Lodge, or visits to Kennerley Rumford after her death - among the final signatures in the book is playwright Terence Rattigan.

Hardback book covered in leather, 118 pages (21 of which are filled in). 309 signatures. "Visitors Book Compton Lodge" in gilt lettering on front cover, marbled endpapers and fore-edges. Includes two loose photograph postcards of Clara Butt - one Rotary Photographic Series and one from the Milton "Glossette" Series - which are addressed, stamped and postmarked; one photograph postcard of Ellen Terry (Rotary Photographic Series), loose postcard "The City Women's Club" and loose postcard designed by Mabel Lucy Attwell.