Reggie DeVeulle 1919 - 1956

After his release from prison Reggie disappears from the public record almost entirely. He was in his late 30’s and his acting days were behind him. 

Reggie and Pauline, certainly appeared to be able to hold on to some aspects of their former lifestyle. They retained a Mayfair telephone number staying at number 13 Lancashire Court near Hyde Park from 1919 until 1923. After this date Pauline disappears entirely from the record and Reggie can only be glimpsed.

Reggie was still in London in 1926 when he designed some dresses for a production of Yvonne at Daly’s theatre. These can been seen on the V&A site. Judging by these few drawings Reggie did have some skill in dressing woman.

Reggies brother Frederick H De Vaulle was an pioneer of the motor car. He died on the 24th January 1924 in Birmingham aged 49. Frederick left 3500 pounds to his widow. Could he also have supported Reggie or made him a beneficiary of the will? 

It appears likely that Reggie then moved to Paris. As noted by Marek Kohn in Dope Girls the Obelisk press in Paris announced in 1933 that they would shortly be publishing his scandalous memoirs. No further record on these has been found to date. Unfortunately the papers of the Obelisk publisher Jack Kahane, who went on to publish Tropic of Cancer in 1934, have been lost.

14 Rue De La Chaise

Then Reggie disappears into the tumult of the 1930’s and 40’s. Whether he risked life in Paris under the occupation or returned to the anonymity of London I cannot say but when he can next be placed it is, 14 Rue de la Chaise, Paris circa 1953. 

This 200 metre long street in the 7th Arridisement was to be Reggie’s final home. It is from this address that Reggie returned to London and was admitted to the Mildmay Memorial Hospital, Newington Green, Islington. The Mildmay closed in 1958 and was demolished shortly afterwards. However after the formation of the NHS in 1948 this former general hospital became an NHS acute care hospital. It was a small facility with only some 50 beds. 

Reggie appears in the 1954 electoral register as a patient at the Mildmay. Given the closing date for the registers it is likely that he had been admitted there by October 1953. Reggie never left the hospital. On 15th June 1956 he died, aged 75. His niece, M. Lee was the informant. The cause of death was Haematemesis, gastric ulcer and Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Mildmay Memorial Hospital

Right to the end Reggie demonstrated a taste for the theatrical. On his final electoral registration in October 1955 he gave himself a final round of applause: He recorded his name as ‘The Marquis R. DeVeulle’.

1911 The perpetual visitor, the Aristocrat and the American

The night of the 1911 census saw Reggie DeVeulle again as a visitor in the home of someone 'of note'. In 28 Half Moon Street Reggie was the guest of the 47 year old Rowland Richard Clegg, The 4th Viscount Hill was a member of the London County Council and was otherwise notable only for overseeing the break up of the families estates  including Hawkstone Hall and Peplow hall due to the debts built up by his Grandfather. He died without issue in 1923 and was suceeded by his brother.

The other house guest on that evening was Elizabeth Banks, the American born author and journalist. Born in Wisconsin in 1865 she moved to London at the turn of the century. According to the Wikipedia entry on her life:

“In London, she became a regular contributor to publications such as The Daily News, Punch, St James' Gazette, London Illustrated, and Referee. She created a sensation in London by recording her observations on the plight of the lower classes, which she researched posing as a housemaid, street sweeper, and Covent Garden flower girl. Her journalistic writing under several pen names including pseudonyms of "Mary Mortimer Maxwell" and "Enid", unceasingly promoted women's right to vote and denounced prison conditions for jailed suffragettes.”

Interestingly the property at 28 Half Moon Street appears to have been a ‘Private Hotel’ run by a Mrs Adelaide Banks Burlie also an American. The resident staff consisted of a German Butler and a Scottish cook.

Reggie would later become a resident of Half Moon Street himself and indeed the 1911 census shows his future wife Pauline Gay living at number 24 Half Moon Street in a household full of dressmakers like herself.

New York nights

Reggie DeVeulle had tried his hand at acting in London with little lasting effect. Perhaps by 1908 he get that he had outstayed his welcome in the West End but in any case he decided that London's loss would be New Yorks gain. In September 1908 he sailed on the S.S. New York from Southampton to New York city. The authorities registered all arriving aliens including of course, Reggie who was required to answer a number of questions about his situation and intentions.

This was Reggie's first visit to the USA and his final destination was New York. He had paid for his own ticket and had funds of at least $50 in his possession.

Reggie was English, of fair complexion, 5 feet 9 inches in height with brown hair and grey eyes. For some reason I imagined Reggie would have been a smaller man.

I don't know whether Reggie had already arranged a theatrical engagement in New York. However he had already been denied the intriguing possibility of playing himself on the London stage.

In early October 1908 Sir Charles Wyndham the legendary actor manager appeared as Lord Bellamy in the stage version of 'The Magnificent Bellamy' at his own Wyndham Theatre. This was the play chosen to reopen the theatre and was well received. Sir Charles Wyndham was over 70 in 1908 and playing a Lord Bellamy much younger than his own years. Lord Bellamy, his valet Stevens, Lady Bellamy and the double dealing, blackmailing detective were all present but there was one prominent character from the novel who was missing from the cast list at the Wyndham Theatre: Reggie Vandeleur.

Is is too much of a leap to suggest that a slighted Reggie, knowing that a character so obviously based on himself had been edited out of this extravaganza 'showed them all what he was made of' and headed off to the promised land of Broadway?

Instead of the Wyndham theatre Reggie found himself an engagement in a farcical musical that caused quite a sensation on Broadway. Although it went on to be toured across the USA it so outraged the Mayor of Boston that after he honourably and selflessly viewed it himself on Broadway he decreed that it could not be seen on any stage in Boston due to its impropriety.

"Queen of the Moulin Rouge" ran at the Circle Theatre on Broadway from December 1908 to April 1909. This small theatre on Columbus Circle was built as a music hall but hosted some short lived musicals. It was demolished in 1954.

Circle Theatre,  Columbus Circle

Finally Reggie could read his name in a review. The New York Times reviewed the show on December 8th. However the Broadway reviewers were as sniffy in 1908 as they are today:

"MOULIN ROUGE SHOW AIMS TO BE NAUGHTY; It Is Chiefly a Girl Exhibit and All Kinds Are Represented. SOME CLEVER DANCING Also Some Indelicacy and Many Fine Feathers -- Funny When It Tries to be Serious."

Reggie was not in the cat list but was mentioned in the review for his dancing of 'The Mattiche' or 'Kicking Polka'. This dance was familiar to the reviewer but: 

"not with such abandon as marks its dancing by Mme Auber and M. De Veulle, its allurement too has been somewhat discounted by its familiarity." 

Perhaps Reggie toured with the show perhaps not but there is again an intriguing glimpse of Reggie at '26 years and 9 months' as he claimed at immigration. Perhaps he was most flattered that he had been assumed to be a genuine Frenchman given the title of 'M' for Monsieur...

Benjamin Horniman

Reggie DeVaulle had another host in Westminster on that March night in 1901.

Benjamin Horniman, the younger brother of Roy was also an author and journalist.

His output was of a more serious minded nature than that of his elder brother. Similarly he was active in the campaigns to change the position of India in the empire and was also an ardent anti-vivisectionist. However he had no acting or other theatrical aspirations and after a spell at the Indian Statesman was appointed in 1913 as founding editor of the Bombay Chronicle. Here his radical views made him enemies in the colonial government and in 1919 he was banished from India. He is still remembered in India as a passionate supporter of Indian Independence. 

Benjamin Horniman 1920

Reggie, Roy and 'The Magnificent Bellamy'

“Reggie Vandeleur was unique. He was perhaps the most amazing combination of shrewdness and stupidity it is possible to conceive, the apotheosis of the superficial. The word "smart" hovered perpetually on his lips. Woman, as God made her, he did not understand ; woman recreated by the modiste and the hairdresser fascinated him. He lived on a small allowance from his mother, which was a chronic cause of dispute between them”

- Roy Horniman - The Magnificent Bellamy (1904)

The night of Sunday the 31st of March 1901 in set in amber. Those who were truthful and obedient of authority recorded their overnight companions and other intimate details for the vague purposes of good civic governance in the national census.

That is how we know  that Reggie De Vaulle spent the night of the census as a guest of Roy and Benjamin Horniman.

Whatever happened between them and however they were subsequently connected them may never be known.  However the author Roy Horniman left us with what appears to be an excoriating portrait of Reggie Devaulle as the character ‘Reggie Vandeleur’ in his rumbustious comic novel “The Magnificent Bellamy - An Extravaganza”.

Published just 3 years after that night in Westminster, The magnificent Bellamy concerns Lord Bellamy, a man of 45 years and a 'perpetually young' married womaniser.  He meets his match when he tries to woo Mrs Henriette, who is (Unbeknown to him) the wife of his manservant of 20 years, Mr Stevens. This proves to be a fatal mistake and the novel ends with his social undoing and the sound of a single gunshot!

This is a novel of it’s time but has lasted remarkably well. Horniman appears to have his tongue firmly in his cheek as he describes the affairs and obsessions of the early Edwardian upper classes.

There is hardly a redeemable character amongst them. However their real peccadilloes have to be described in the most discreet terms. These erring couples have 'dinner together' when they go away for the weekend without their respective spouses.

One of the principal characters is ‘Reggie Vandelour’ an acquaintance of Bellamy and perpetually broke hanger-on. Even if the name that Horniman had given to the character had not been so similar there are so many other indicators of interests and character that I am convinced that this is an extremely unflattering portrait of Reggie DeVeulle as he was in his 20‘s when he was known by Roy Horniman. 

Reggie is portrayed as a Mamma’s boy whose only source of income is an allowance from his mother who, having sold her tiara to send him to college is now in perpetual dispute with him over the amount and timing of his allowance.

Reggie needs money and the prospect of paid employment being beyond the pale he decides to ‘sell himself for money’ by finding a suitably moneyed wife. He settles on the sum of £500 as the required amount by ‘ a brilliant mathematical feat’. Reggie is portrayed as a scheming idiot who has no skills, no intellect and no integrity. In fact Reggie’s social standing is as insubstantial as his character “in fact, Reggie's claim to social recognition lay in any number of distant relationships to great folk.”

Reggie has settled on a young woman called Pamela Gray and has ‘maneuvered himself into an invitation to the next weekend do at Bellamy’s stately home, Lanham Towers. He has written to his own mother that "She says that she feels like a mother to me," he had written. " Do you think this is a good sign ?"

However Bellamy himself doesn’t give Reggie much of a chance in the marriage stakes. 

“I don't think she'll marry you, Reggie. You wouldn't be very useful to her. She would want a man whose career she could influence? she's just that sort of girl?and as you're not going to have any career "

" I don't know, I'm sure," said Reggie. " I could advise her about her dresses. Mamma always says that she is never so well dressed as when she takes my advice."

"I don't think that would appeal to Pamela Gray, Reggie. If you were only a great sinner, she might think it worth while to take you in hand ; but you're not even wicked."

Reggie giggled. " Well, nobody's ever called me good before."

" I didn't say you were good, Reggie. You're vicious enough, but you're not wicked."

It is surely a coincidence that when Reggie DeVeulle finally did marry in 1915 it was to a woman with the same initials ‘Pauline Gay’ who was 5 years his senior.

Physically Reggie is portrayed as an unappealing specimen. He notes that: “I suppose I am delicate," he reflected, rolling up the sleeve of his pyjama and gazing at a skinny and wholly undeveloped arm. " I wonder if they'd change their minds if I went through a course of physical culture." He manipulated his arm, vainly searching for a non-existent muscle. Then it struck him that he might develop so rapidly that the plea of inability to work would be considered futile.”

Reggie is a vain creature obsessed with his clothing and appearance who can spend the entire morning preparing to leave his one room flat “The tying of his tie was an anxious and almost terrible moment, for a tie is a question of inspiration, and depends for its success on a mood which will not be forced. It either comes right the first time, or, in most cases, not at all. But the occult forces were propitious, and it knotted itself with absolute precision at once”

In the end Reggie is one of the survivors of the tale. He gets his £500 for getting the social climber Dawlish invited to Lanham Towers but not marriage to Pamela. We are left with the impression that, despite the loss of his benefactor, he will land on his feet and live well until his next financial crisis and opportunity to live on his wits.

The figure of £500 appears in the life of the real Reggie. It was the sum received by him in the 1917 blackmail case which he used to travel to America. In the absence of the biography promised by the Obelisk press, Roy Horniman  has left us with a picture of the young Reggie what may have more than a grain of truth to it.

You Can download ‘The Magnificent Bellamy - An Extravaganza’ complete and for free here: http://archive.org/details/bellamymagnifice00horniala