Walker & May

Charles (C.W.) Walker and his wife, Ida May, had arrived with McAdoo's Georgia Minstrels at the start in June 1899 on the SS Moana. They were billed together as "America's Gold Medal Champion Cakewalkers." They continued to play the Tivoli circuit, in Sydney, Melbourne (Bijou Theatre and New Opera House) and Adelaide (New Tivoli) until March 1902. Apart from the Cakewalk, they were variously billed as coon singers, comedians, and along with Billy and Cordelia McClain as the Four American Minstrels, "who not only contribute their individual turn but conclude the part with a cakewalk."

They lived at 69 Mostyn Road between 1904-1906 before moving to Ackerman Road then back to 30 Mostyn Road. Born in Chicago, Charles had performed in America since childhood and when he married 15 year old Ida from Ohio she joined him professionally.

Charles Walker and Ida May, billed as "America's champion gold medal cakewalkers and specialty artists," were the only African Americans on the bill. After returning to Sydney and the Tivoli during August and September, Walker and May spent four months in Perth and regional WA, until February 1903. Back in Melbourne, they played the Opera House until July 3, 1903, sharing the bill at one stage with an "eccentric American juggler," one W.C. Fields. On conclusion of the Opera House engagement they departed for England, the last of that round of stayovers to depart.

During an exhausting three year tour of Australia, at the age of thirty-three, Charles, began to lose his sight due to atrophy of the optic nerve while at the Melbourne Opera House in 1903. The couple travelled to London to get treatment. Tragically he went fully blind on the journey and didn’t recover. Not deterred, Charles and Ida continued full force with their comedy song and dance act. For eighteen months in England he successfully concealed his handicap from theatre managers. Using aural information from the position of the orchestra instruments, and whispered comments from his wife, he was able to dance, sing, and tell jokes. The pair was still performing successfully in England in 1908.

They were known as the first black couple to perform the 'cakewalk' a style of popular dance. After Charles went blind, he and Ida worked out a secret code that enabled him to know exactly where on the stage he needed to be. Worried about audience reaction, they didn’t tell anyone for over a year, but their popularity soared when it became public. Charles became known as the great blind comedian. In 1909, their 18 year old daughter Leonora Walker made her first stage performance with them at the Brixton Empress. In the 1911 census they are staying in small lodgings rooms at 100 Ackerman Road but this is almost certainly short term digs. For reasons not entirely clear Charles (fifty-two) & Ida (forty-nine) were deported to America in 1918, and sailed 3rd class back to the country they hadn’t lived in for 20 years.

Sources: African American Entertainers in Australia and New Zeland: A History, 1788-1941 (Bill Egan); Layers of London article by Chris Beddoe