Daisy and Violet Hilton

Daisy and Violet Hilton
Hilton twins c. 1927
Born	5 February 1908 Sussex, United Kingdom
Died	4 January 1969 (aged 60) Charlotte, North Carolina, United States
Cause of death	Hong Kong flu
Occupation	Entertainers, grocery store clerks
Known for	Conjoined twins
Spouse(s)	Daisy's Harold Estep (1941－1941, 10 days) Violet's James Moore (1936－1946)
Parent(s)	Kate Skinner (mother)

Daisy and Violet Hilton (5 February 1908 – 4 January 1969) were a pair of English conjoined twins. They were exhibited in Europe as children, and toured the United States sideshow, vaudeville and American burlesque circuits in the 1920s and 1930s.

The twins were born at 15 Riley Road, Brighton, England, on 5 February 1908. Their mother was Kate Skinner, an unmarried barmaid. The sisters were born joined by their hips and buttocks; they shared blood circulation and were fused at the pelvis but shared no major organs.

A medical account of the birth and a description of the twins was provided for the British Medical Journal by a physician, James Augustus Rooth, who helped deliver them into the world. He reported that subsequently the Sussex Medico-Chirurgical Society considered separation, but unanimously decided against it as it was believed that the operation would certainly lead to the death of at least one of the twins. He noted these twins were the first to be born in the UK conjoined and to survive for more than a few weeks.

Kate Skinner's employer, Mary Hilton, who helped in childbirth, apparently saw commercial prospects in them, and effectively bought them from their mother and took them under her care. The girls first stayed above the Queen's Arms pub in Brighton, but later moved to the Evening Star pub. According to the sisters' autobiography, Mary Hilton with her husband and daughter kept the twins in strict control with physical abuse; they had to call her "Auntie Lou" and her husband "Sir". They trained the girls in singing and dancing.

The Hilton sisters toured first in Britain in 1911 (aged 3) as "The United Twins". Mary Hilton took them on to a tour through Germany, then to Australia, then in 1916 to the US. In true sideshow manner, their performance was accompanied by an imaginative "history". Their controllers kept all the money the sisters earned. In 1926, Bob Hope formed an act called the Dancemedians with the sisters, who had a tap-dancing routine. When Mary died in Birmingham, Alabama, the girls were bequeathed to Mary's daughter Edith Meyers, and Edith's husband Meyer Meyers, a former balloon salesman.

The couple took over management of the twins. Held mostly captive, the girls were beaten if they did not do as the Meyers wished. They kept the twins from public view for a while and trained them in jazz music. Violet was a skilled saxophonist and Daisy a violinist. They lived in a mansion in San Antonio, Texas. The 1930 US census records the twins as Meyer Meyers' nieces.