The singer Evelyn Dove achieved a number of firsts throughout the course of her lifetime. Perhaps most notably, she was the first woman of African heritage to be broadcast on BBC Radio in 1925, three years after its launch.
1987
London
Mother was English and her father was from Sierra Leonne
1917- Studied at the Royal Academy of Music
1921- Took part in the Survivors Sacred Concert
1925- She joined the Chocolate Kiddies on their tour in western Europe
1926- Appeared at Wintergarten in Berlin with her revue
1927- Performed with her revue in the Netherlands
1932- Replaced Josephine Baker in a revue at the Casino de Paris
1936- She headlined cabaret act at the famous Harlem nightclub Connie’s Inn
1939-49- Evelyn’s career in Britain grew in success with much notable radio work broadcasting with the BBC.
1947- Performed alongside other notable artists in Variety in Sepia
1949- Evelyn left the BBC and worked in cabaret in India, Paris and Spain.
1956- Cast by the BBC as Eartha Kitt’s mother in a television drama called Mrs Patterson and more acting work followed like a role in the West End
Evelyn Dove was born in London on 11 January 1902 to a middle class family. Her father, Francis Thomas Dove, was originally from Sierra Leone but practiced law in Ghana (then Gold Coast) and had been called to the Gold Coast Bar in 1897. Her motherAugusta was from London.
From 1917 Evelyn studied singing, piano and elocution at the Royal Academy of Music.
Following her studies, she travelled with various music groups including the Southern Syncopated Orchestra, a band aiming to popularise Black music in the UK. She toured extensively as a singer and travelled to Europe, Australia, the United States and India.
Howard Rye records that she was using the name Norma Winchester when she became a member of the Southern Syncopated Orchestra (SSO), a band composed of British West Indian and West African and American musicians who were popularising Black music on the UK club scene. On 9 of October 1921, several members of the SSO and other passengers drowned when the SS Rowan sailing from Glasgow to Dublin collided with another ship and sank. Dove and other SSO survivors such as Cyril Blake took part on 14 October in the Survivors Sacred Concert
When in 1925 the all-Black revue Chocolate Kiddies toured Europe from New York, she joined the cast, replacing Lottie Gee, who had to return to the US, and the show toured Europe for a year.
In the 1920s and 30s, Evelyn’s career grew internationally. Five months after performing at London’s Mile End Empire in June 1926, Evelyn and Her Plantation Creoles, ‘the only singing and dancing act of its kind in Europe’, appeared at Wintergarten in Berlin. Her revue appeared in the Netherlands in February 1927, and Evelyn gained great popularity in Italy and lived there for some years. In 1932 she replaced Josephine Baker in a revue at the Casino de Paris. Following this she went to the US, where in 1936 she was the headline cabaret act at the famous Harlem nightclub Connie’s Inn. In New York she was photographed by the celebrated photographer Carl Van Vechten.
From 1939 to 1949 Evelyn’s career in Britain grew in success with much notable radio work broadcasting with the BBC which employed her during the war. She proved to be one of radio’s most popular singers, appearing in a wide range of music and variety programmes. She appeared regularly on such popular music and variety radio programmes as Rhapsody in Black, Calling the West Indies, Variety Bandbox, Music For You, Caribbean Carnival Mississippi Nights. Serenade in Sepia became so popular that a television version was made of it. It was one of the first UK television programmes to explicitly showcase Black talent.
In 1947 Evelyn and Connor, along with other artists including Mable Lee, Cyril Blake and his Calypso Band, Buddy Bradley, Winifred Atwell, and Adelaide Hall, performed in Variety in Sepia, which was filmed live on 7 October 1947 at the Radio Olympia Theatre, Alexandra Palace, London, and aired on BBC TV.
In 1949 Evelyn left the BBC and worked in cabaret in India, Paris and Spain. In 1955, her search for work led her to apply for a job as a Post Office telephonist, asking the BBC for a reference. In 1956 the BBC cast her as Eartha Kitt’s mother in a television drama called Mrs Patterson, and more television work followed, and then a role on the West End musical stage, as one of the stars of Langston Hughes’s Simply Heavenly, directed by Laurence Harvey.
Evelyn married Milton Alphonso Luke in London1919, at which date she was living in Hove, Sussex. Member of SSO at Glasgow, September/October 1921, using the name Norma Winchester. She married Felix John Basil Inglis Allen in 1941 and then married her third husband William Newton Brantley, in 1958.
Evelyn’s older brother Frank Dove, who studied law at Oxford University, was called up by the British army in 1915 and fought at the Battle of Cambrai, being awarded the Military Medal.
https://eehe.org.uk/?p=69025
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20s-people/20-people-of-the-20s/evelyn-dove/
https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/evelyn-dove-singer-music-actress/#:~:text=Dove%2C%20who%20would%20later%20become,the%20alias%20of%20Norma%20Winchster.
Evelyn Dove: Britain’s Black Cabaret Queen by Stephen Bourne
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/397642
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09df89k
