About the artist
Florrie Forde was an Australian-born singer and one of the biggest stars of British music hall in the early 20th century. Born in Melbourne in 1875, she left home as a teenager to perform on the Sydney stage before emigrating to London at 21, where she made her debut across three different halls in a single night and quickly rose to top billing.
Forde specialized in songs built for mass participation: rousing, singalong choruses that turned music hall audiences into a single roaring voice. This gift made her indispensable during the First World War, when she introduced or popularized some of the era’s most enduring patriotic and morale-boosting songs, including «Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag» and «A Long, Long Way To Tipperary», songs that became inseparable from the wartime experience of British soldiers and civilians alike.
Her other signature numbers, such as «Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?» and «Down At The Old Bull And Bush», were staples of the pre-war music hall repertoire and remained popular sing-along standards for decades. Forde performed at the first Royal Variety Performance in 1912 and recorded prolifically, leaving behind hundreds of recordings that document the golden age of British popular entertainment before her death in 1940.