Family tradition has it that James Bernard Sherry’s parents emigrated from Ireland to Glasgow in the mid 1800s. They came from Co. Fermanagh and Co Sligo and that, born in Glasgow, he left school when still a boy and went to work in one of the local shipyards.
Searches of the available census records, and certificates of birth, marriage and death (where available) reveal a slightly different picture.
It was in fact James Bernard Sherry’s grandparents, Bernard Sherry (born 1809) and Catherine Sherry (Née Cavanagh, born 1801) who originated from Ireland. They appear to have moved between Scotland and Ireland during the late 1830s and 1840s. James Bernard’s father, Patrick Sherry, was born in Edinburgh in 1837. His brother, Martin, was born in Ireland in about 1841, and a sister, Jessie, back in Edinburgh in 1845. Bernard and Catherine Sherry were living in Dickson’s Close, Edinburgh, in 1861, after which they disappear from the Scottish records. Perhaps they went back to Ireland?
Patrick Sherry married Sarah McGuire in central Edinburgh on 8th July 1858, when she was 19 years old. He was, like his father and brother Martin, a wood sawyer. They had at least five children, all born in Edinburgh. Mary Sherry, born 1860 who died in infancy, John Thomas Sherry born 1864 who probably died shortly after 1871, James Bernard Sherry, born 8th July 1866, Jessie Sherry, born 1871, John Sherry born in 1871 or 1872 and Peter Sherry born in 1873.
The family appears irregularly in the Scottish records and it is possible that after 1873 they travelled between Scotland and Ireland. The date of Patrick Sherry’s death is not recorded but he predeceased his wife who died on 27th November 1896 in Glasgow.
However, by 1881 reality has caught up with family recollections, and James Bernard Sherry, then aged 15 had left his family behind in Edinburgh and was living in Govan, near Glasgow, with his uncle Martin, and working as a hammerman in the local shipyards.
However it seems that his real interest was in the theatre and he spent much of his spare time visiting local music halls to watch the best acts of the day performing. He was a natural dancer and after work would take a board to a disused railway arch and practise the steps which he had seen others perform on the stage. Soon he was proficient enough to take semi-professional engagements and to enter competitions. By this time he had adopted the stage name of Dan Conroy.
The prize for one of these competitions was to be a week’s work at one of the local theatres, and among the contestants was his friend Harry
Lauder. James won and Harry Lauder, who was to go on to become an internationally known music hall star was told to go home and do some more work on his act!
Although he began his career as a dancer he gave this up fairly early on in his career and concentrated on singing. James’ act consisted of
comedy songs, normally with some sort of moral twist, interspersed with more straightforward items such as “How Can a Man be Happy
With His Wife when She’s Always Eating Biscuits in Bed?”, “I Want to be a Sausage”, “Cassidy’s Barber’s Shop”, “Harry Girl”, and “Johnny MacKilroy, Bought a Penny Savaloy”. Many of these were written by song writers who touted their wares round the theatres. If an artiste liked a song he bought it and it became his copyright. He was also an adept comic and his quick-fire patter was years ahead of his time. He was also an early champion of performer’s rights, being a founder member of the Variety Artistes’ Federation.
By about 1900 he had become a well-established artiste all over the British Isles and had made a very successful tour of Australia.
He married, in 1896, Alice Louise Bradley-Truman and the couple settled in Costock, Nottingham where his wife’s parents owned the Red Lion Inn and Pleasure Gardens. They too had a stage background and the Red Lion had a small concert hall behind the pub. James and Alice had nine children, Daniel Conroy, Henry Bradley, James Bernard Jnr, Alice Louise, Daisy Mary, Louise Blanche, Bessy Violet, Peter Bijou and Samuel John, all of whom became involved in theatre to a greater or lesser degree.
Unsurprisingly, given his views on performer’s rights he became involved in a strike of music hall artistes in 1907. As one of the leading performers of his day he had, at that time, several years work booked ahead with Sir Oswald Stoll, who owned a vast empire of music halls all over the British Isles. Because of his involvement with the strike his contracts were cancelled and he was blacklisted. He was still able to work in the more minor venues and he travelled all over the country with his three eldest sons performing, particularly in South Wales.
Then WW1 intervened and the eldest boys were called up. The family moved to Nottingham in about 1916, but by the time the war had ended he
found it more and more difficult to get work and retired . He died in 1940.
