George Robert Sims was an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, poet, dramatist, novelist and bon vivant

Bon viveur

A bon viveur is a person who enjoys the good things of life, especially food. The phrase is derived from the French bon vivant, meaning good living, a bon viveur being a "good liver", or one who lives well. The phrase is not derogatory but conveys a sense of overindulgence...

.

Sims began writing lively humour and satiric pieces for Fun

Fun (magazine)

Fun was a Victorian weekly magazine, first published on 21 September 1861. The magazine was founded by the actor and playwright H. J. Byron in competition with Punch magazine.-Description:...

magazine and The Referee, but he was soon concentrating on social reform, particularly the plight of the poor in London's slums. A prolific journalist and writer he also produced a number of novels.

Sims was also a very successful dramatist, writing numerous plays, often in collaboration, several of which had long runs and international success. He also bred bulldogs, was an avid sportsman and lived richly among a large circle of literary and artistic friends. Sims earned a fortune from his productive endeavours but had gambled most of it away by the time of his death.

Biography

Sims was born in Kennington

Kennington

Kennington is a district of South London, England, mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, although part of the area is within the London Borough of Southwark....

, London, England. His parents were George Sims, a prosperous merchant, and Louisa Amelia Ann Stevenson Sims, president of the Women's Provident League. Sims was the oldest of six children, who were exposed to their parents' cosmopolitan artistic and progressive friends, including suffragists. He grew up in Islington

Islington

Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...

, London, and his mother often took him to the theatre. He was educated in Eastbourne

Eastbourne

Eastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...

 and then Hanwell Military College and the University of Bonn

University of Bonn

The University of Bonn is a public research university located in Bonn, Germany. Founded in its present form in 1818, as the linear successor of earlier academic institutions, the University of Bonn is today one of the leading universities in Germany. The University of Bonn offers a large number...

. He had begun to write poetry at the age of ten, and at Bonn he wrote some plays, including an adaptation of Dr. Wespe by Benedix. He completed his studies in Germany and France, where he also became interested in gambling. In Europe, he translated Balzac's Contes drôlatiques, which was published in 1874 by Chatto and Windus; but it was considered too racy and was withdrawn, only to be reissued in 1903.

Sims was married three times and was twice a widower. In 1876, he married Sarah Elizabeth Collis (b. 1850). In 1888, he married Annie Maria Harriss (b. 1859). Finally, in 1901, he married Elizabeth Florence Wykes (b. 1873) who survived him. None of these marriages produced any children. The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

wrote in Sims's obituary that

"so attractive and original was the personality revealed in his abundant output—for he was a wonderfully hard worker—that no other journalist has ever occupied quite the same place in the affections not only of the great public but also of people of more discriminating taste.... Sims was indeed a born journalist, with the essential flair added to shrewd common sense, imagination, wide sympathies, a vivid interest in every side of life, and the most ardent patriotism.... He was [also] a highly successful playwright... a zealous social reformer, an expert criminologist, a connoisseur in good eating and drinking, in racing, in dogs, in boxing, and in all sorts of curious and out-of-the-way people and things."

Journalism, satire and social writings

He returned to England and briefly worked in his father's business, but his interests lay in writing, and he began to write stories and poetry. He began to publish pieces in Fun

Fun (magazine)

Fun was a Victorian weekly magazine, first published on 21 September 1861. The magazine was founded by the actor and playwright H. J. Byron in competition with Punch magazine.-Description:...

in 1874, succeeding editor Tom Hood

Tom Hood

Tom Hood , was an English humorist and playwright, son of the poet and author Thomas Hood. A prolific author, he was appointed, in 1865, editor of the magazine Fun. He also founded Tom Hood's Comic Annual in 1867....

 and making friends with fellow contributors W. S. Gilbert

W. S. Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...

 and Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist...

. He also contributed early to the Weekly Dispatch. In 1876, Sims penned a satiric open letter

Open letter

An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally....

 "To a Fashionable Tragedian", humorously accusing actor-producer Henry Irving

Henry Irving

Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...

 of inciting mass murder

Mass murder

Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...

 by emphasising the gore in his Shakespeare plays and of paying bribes to critics. Irving sued Sims and his editor Harry Sampson

Henry Sampson (newspaper proprietor)

Henry Sampson was an English newspaper proprietor and editor.Sampson was the son of a journalist. At the age of twelve he entered a printing office in London, and became successively a compositor and proof-reader...

 for libel, but after an apology he withdrew the legal action.

In 1877, he began contributing to a new Sunday sports and entertainments paper, edited by Sampson, The Referee, writing a weekly column of miscellany, "Mustard and Cress," under the pseudonym Dagonet, until his death. This was so successful that compilations of his verses from the paper, published as The Dagonet Ballads (1879) and Ballads of Babylon (1880), sold in hundreds of thousands of copies and were constantly in print during the next thirty years. He also wrote amusing and popular travelogues, also as Dagonet. He became editor of One and All in 1879 and for various papers wrote about horse racing, showing dogs, boxing, and leisure. Although Sims published his "Mustard and Cress" column every week for 45 years without fail, according to The Times,

"week after week... the page read freshly and seemed always to have something new in it. It was sprinkled with neat little epigrams in verse, patriotic songs or parodies, with jokes, puns, conundrums, catch-words. He talked of politics... philanthropy, amusement, reminiscence, food and drink, and such travel as so confirmed a Cockney could enjoy. ...he would champion the cause of the unfortunate middle classes.... He took his readers into his confidence, and told them all about... his friends... his pets.... And he contrived to do this without ever becoming egotistical or a bore."

Sims is best-remembered for his dramatic monologue

Monologue

In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media...

 from The Dagonet Ballads that opens "It is Christmas Day in the workhouse". Its zealous social concern aroused public sentiment and made Sims a strong voice for reform, dramatising the plight of suffering Londoners. He also contributed numerous articles from 1879 to 1883 about the bad condition of the poor in London's slums in the Sunday Dispatch, Daily News and other papers. Many of these were later published in book form, such as The Theatre of Life (1881, Fuller), Horrible London (1889, Billing and Sons), The Social Kaleidoscope, and The Three Brass Balls. In particular, in 1881, Sims and Frederick Barnard

Frederick Barnard

Frederick Barnard may refer to:*Sir Frederick Augusta Barnard , George III's librarian*Fred Barnard , Victorian illustrator*Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard , American scientist and educator...

 wrote a series of illustrated articles entitled How the Poor Live for a new journal, The Pictorial World. This was published in book form in 1883. He also wrote many popular ballads attempting to draw attention to the predicament of the poor. These efforts were important in raising public opinion on the subject and led to reform legislation in the Act of 1885.

Sims was appointed as part of an 1882 study of social conditions in Southwark

Southwark

Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...

 in 1882 and as a witness before the 1884 royal commission on working-class housing. Sims also raised public awareness of other issues, including white slave traffic in a series articles published in the Daily Telegraph, later in book form as London by Night (1906) and Watches of the Night (1907); and the maltreatment of children, writing The Black Stain (1907). Together with Mrs E. W. Burgwin, he founded the Referee Children's Free Breakfast and Dinner Fund (1880), which became London's largest charity of this kind. He also worked to promote the boys' clubs movement and campaigned to open museums and galleries and permit concerts on Sundays as part of the National Sunday League.

He also published a number of novels, including:

• Rogues and Vagabonds
• Memoirs of Mary Jane
• Mary Jane Married
• Memoirs of a Landlady
• The Ten Commandments
• Li Ting of London

His autobiography, My Life: Sixty Years' Recollections of Bohemian London (1917) became very popular. It consisted of reminiscences originally contributed to The Evening News. Its profiles of Sims London contemporaries are written kindly but with zest. His other books include:

• The Coachman's Club, Or, Tales Told Out of School (1897, F. V. White and Co.)
• Living London (3 vols. 1901–1903, Cassell, chronicling the variety in London life)
• Among My Autographs (1904, Chatto & Windus)

Sims was intrigued by the psychology of crime, and he penned some ingenious detective stories. His 1897 story, Dorcas Dene, involved a woman detective. At Arthur Lambton's Crimes Club, Sims took pleasure in discussing cases with Max Pemberton

Max Pemberton

Sir Max Pemberton was a popular British novelist, working mainly in the adventure and mystery genres. He was educated at St Albans School, Merchant Taylors' School, and Caius College, Cambridge...

, Conan Doyle

Conan Doyle

Conan Doyle is a rugby player. His club is Garryowen. His usual position is inside centre, but he also plays out-half. He has made two appearances for Munster Rugby in the Magners League, but was released by Munster at the end of the 2008/2009 season. While at Munster he was selected for the...

 and Churton Collins. He was consumed with the murders of Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper

"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...

 and even became a suspect. A modern edition of his poetry, Prepare to Shed Them Now, was published in 1968.

Sims's sympathy and wit were not enough to spare him some criticism. The National Observer, in 1892, ironically nominated Sims to succeed Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....

 as poet laureate

Poet Laureate

A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...

. The members of the aesthetic movement were sometimes contemptuous of Sims, and in 1894 he was the butt of a spoof in The Green Carnation

The Green Carnation

The Green Carnation, first published anonymously in 1894, was a scandalous novel by Robert Hichens whose lead characters are closely based on Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas - also known as 'Bosie', whom the author personally knew...

by Robert Hichens

Robert Smythe Hichens

Robert Smythe Hichens was an English journalist, novelist, music lyricist, short story writer, music critic and collaborated on successful plays. He is best remembered as a satirist of the "Naughty Nineties".-Biography:...

. In 1899, Charles Whibley

Charles Whibley

Charles Whibley was an English literary journalist and author. Whibley’s style was described by Matthew as “often acerbic high-tory commentary”.-Life:...

 wrote an acid profile of Sims. He later sacrificed some of his standing among progressives with his 1906 campaign in The Tribune, "Bitter cry of the middle classes", in which he criticised organized labour and argued that lower middle-class tradesmen and workers were over-taxed in the name of statism

Statism

Statism is a term usually describing a political philosophy, whether of the right or the left, that emphasises the role of the state in politics or supports the use of the state to achieve economic, military or social goals...

.

Plays

Sims wrote over thirty plays, but most of them were adapted from European pieces. His first hit play, Crutch and Toothpick, based on a French farce by Labiche

Eugène Marin Labiche

Eugène Marin Labiche was a French dramatist.-Biography:He was born into a bourgeois family and studied law. At the age of twenty, he contributed a short story to Chérubin magazine, entitled Les plus belles sont les plus fausses. A few others followed , but failed to catch the attention of the...

, was produced at the Royalty Theatre

Royalty Theatre

The Royalty Theatre was a small London theatre situated at 73 Dean Street, Soho and opened on 25 May 1840 as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938. The architect was Samuel Beazley, a resident in Soho Square, who also designed St James's Theatre, among...

 in 1879 and enjoyed a run for 240 nights. In 1881, he wrote the even more successful melodrama, The Lights o' London

The Lights o' London

The Lights o' London is a melodramatic play, by George R. Sims, first produced in London on 10 September 1881 at the Princess's Theatre, produced by and starring Wilson Barrett. The play was a hit, running for 226 nights, and was frequently revived thereafter...

, produced by Wilson Barrett

Wilson Barrett

Wilson Barrett was an English manager, actor, and playwright.With his company, Barrett is credited with attracting the largest crowds of English theatregoers ever because of his success with melodrama, an instance being his production of The Silver King at the Princess's Theatre of London.The...

 at the Princess's Theatre, London

Princess's Theatre, London

The Princess's Theatre or Princess Theatre was a theatre in Oxford Street, London. The building opened in 1828 as the "Queen's Bazaar" and housed a diorama by Clarkson Stanfield and David Roberts. It was converted into a theatre and opened in 1836 as the Princess's Theatre, named for then Princess...

. This ran for 286 nights and toured in the British provinces, as well as earning record ticket sales in America. It went on to tour continuously in Europe and elsewhere through World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. Next, at the Princess's, in 1882, was Romany Rye, another hit. In the early 1880s, Sims became the first playwright to have four plays running simultaneously in West End theatre

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

s. He also had a dozen touring companies playing his works by that time. He collaborated on many of his plays, and his co-authors included Barrett, Sydney Grundy

Sydney Grundy

Sydney Grundy was an English dramatist. Most of his works were adaptations of European plays, and many became successful enough to tour throughout the English-speaking world...

, Clement Scott

Clement Scott

Clement Scott was an influential English theatre critic for the Daily Telegraph, and a playwright and travel writer, in the final decades of the 19th century...

 and Arthur Shirley

Arthur Shirley

Arthur Shirley was an Australian actor and film producer.Born Henry Raymond Shirley in Hobart to civil servant Henry Shirley and Sarah Ann, née Morton, he was baptised Arthur and attended Catholic schools. He then worked for Tattersall's Lottery and as a junior solicitor's clerk before moving to...

.

His most successful collaboration was with Henry Pettitt

Henry Pettitt

Henry Alfred Pettitt , was a British actor and dramatist.With Augustus Harris, he wrote the play Burmah, produced on Broadway in 1896. With G. R...

, with whom he created a substantial body of hits, including In the Ranks (1883, 457 performances at the Adelphi Theatre

Adelphi Theatre

The Adelphi Theatre is a 1500-seat West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals...

) and The Harbour Lights (1885, 513 performances at the Adelphi). Their Gaiety Theatre

Gaiety Theatre, London

The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Musick Hall , in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the beginning of World War II...

 musical burlesques included Faust up to date

Faust up to date

Faust up to Date is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz . The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt...

(1888), which remained a hit for several years and coined a new meaning for the phrase "up-to-date", meaning "abreast" of the latest styles and facts. Their next hit was Carmen up to Data

Carmen up to Data

Carmen up to Data is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz. The piece was a spoof of Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen. The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt....

(1890). Both of these were composed by the Gaiety's music director, Meyer Lutz

Meyer Lutz

Wilhelm Meyer Lutz was a German-born English composer and conductor who is best known for light music, musical theatre and burlesques of well-known works....

. With Cecil Raleigh

Cecil Raleigh

Cecil Raleigh was an English actor and playwright.He was the son of Dr. John Fothergill Rowlands, and took the stage name of Raleigh...

, he wrote the hit burlesque opera, Little Christopher Columbus

Little Christopher Columbus

Little Christopher Columbus is a burlesque opera in two acts, with music by Ivan Caryll and Gustave Kerker and a libretto by George R. Sims and Cecil Raleigh. It opened on 10 October 1893 at the Lyric Theatre in London and then transferred to Terry's Theatre, running for a total of 421...

(1893), and among his other musical plays were Blue-eyed Susan at the Prince of Wales Theatre

Prince of Wales Theatre

The Prince of Wales Theatre is a West End theatre on Coventry Street, near Leicester Square in the City of Westminster. It was established in 1884 and rebuilt in 1937, and extensively refurbished in 2004 by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, its current owner...

 (1892, starring Arthur Roberts) and The Dandy Fifth (Birmingham, 1898) and Dandy Dick Whittington (1895), at the Avenue Theatre, with a score by Ivan Caryll

Ivan Caryll

Félix Marie Henri Tilkin , better known by his pen name Ivan Caryll, was a Belgian composer of operettas and Edwardian musical comedies in the English language...

. Robert Buchanan

Robert Buchanan

Robert Buchanan is the name of:* Bob Buchanan , American baseball player* Robert Williams Buchanan , Scottish writer* Robert Buchanan , Scottish footballer...

 and Sims co-authored five melodramas at the Adelphi, including The Trumpet Call (1891), starring Mrs Patrick Campbell

Mrs Patrick Campbell

Mrs Patrick Campbell was a British stage actress.-Early life and marriages:Campbell was born Beatrice Stella Tanner in Kensington, London, to John Tanner and Maria Luigia Giovanna, daughter of Count Angelo Romanini...

 early in her career. On stage, one night, Mrs. Campbell's costume collapsed which, her biographer suggests, extended the run of that play. Sims and Mrs Campbell had an affair, but she tired of it before he did. In 1896, Sims wrote the melodrama Two Little Vagabonds with Arthur Shirley (an adaptation of Les deux gosses) which was a hit at Princess's Theatre and enjoyed many revivals. He also co-wrote some pantomime

Pantomime

Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...

s, including Puss in Boots produced at the Drury Lane Theatre

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...

.

Sims's other famous melodramas included:

• The Golden Ladder
• Master and the Man
• The Star of India
• The Gypsy Earl
• Scarlet Sin
• The Silver Falls (1888)
• The English Rose (1890)
• The White Rose, starring Mrs. Patrick Campbell
• The Lights of Home, starring Mrs. Patrick Campbell

His other notable comedies included:

• Mother-in-Law (1881)
• The Member for Slocum (1881)
• The Gay City (1881)

Later years

Sims enjoyed his position as a successful author and playwright and belonged to the Devonshire club, the Eccentric Club

Eccentric Club

The Eccentric Club was the name of several London gentlemen's clubs, the best-known of which existed between 1890 and 1986. For much of its history it was based at 9–11 Ryder Street, St James's.-First Eccentric Club:...

 and others. He reported earnings of nearly £150,000 in 1898, but he gambled most of his wealth away, or gave it to charities, by the time of his death. He was passionate about sports, especially horse racing and boxing, and he played badminton and bred bulldogs. Sims invented a tonic, Tatcho, that was marketed to cure baldness, but his friends found this a source of mirth when it did not stop his own hairline from receding.

Sims used the Daily Mail to wage a campaign to secure the pardon and release of a Norwegian, Adolph Beck

Adolph Beck case

The Adolf Beck case was a notorious incidence of wrongful conviction by mistaken identity, brought about by unreliable methods of identification, erroneous eyewitness testimony, and a rush to convict the accused...

, who had twice been imprisoned because of mistaken identity. This effort led to the establishment, in 1907, of the court of criminal appeal. For his assistance, in 1905, the king of Sweden and Norway made him a knight of the order of St Olaf, first class, awarded by in 1905.

He died at his home in Regent's Park

Regent's Park

Regent's Park is one of the Royal Parks of London. It is in the north-western part of central London, partly in the City of Westminster and partly in the London Borough of Camden...

, London, just after his 75th birthday in 1922, from liver cancer.

External links

• Horrible London (1889)