Joe Elvin

Joe Elvin (real name Joseph Peter Keegan) (29 November 1862 – 3 March 1935) was a Cockney comedian and music hall entertainer and a Founder of the Grand Order of Water Rats, a show business charity. With other leading performers he took part in the Music Hall War of 1907, which supported less well paid music hall artistes in their strike for better pay and conditions.

Elvin was the son of Joseph Peter Keegan (1840 – 1901), an actor and music-hall artiste, and his wife, Annie Delaney. He was educated at a Catholic school in Tottenham Court Road while at the same time receiving tuition in dancing and other performance skills. He made his début in pantomime at Brighton's Theatre Royal in 1871 and began his music-hall career the following year as a juvenile comic and clog dancer at Crowder's in Greenwich. He appeared with his father as 'Joe Keegan and Little Elvin', their first real success being Poor Jo which was based on Dickens's Bleak House. During a season for the vaudeville entrepreneur Tony Pastor in New York City in 1882 they turned to more comic material.

Impresario Fred Karno described Elvin as one of a handful of physical comedians who "made significant changes in music-hall fare." Elvin developed the character of the loud, lovable, and irreverent cockney working man having a good time. With Marie Dainton, Marie Lloyd and Little Tich, Elvin was a leading force behind the 'Music Hall War' of 1907 when they persuaded other less well paid music hall artistes to strike for better pay and conditions and to picket the theatres that broke the strike. This action led to the formation of the 'Variety Artists Federation' (VAF), which decades later was absorbed into Equity.

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