Great War Theatre

The 1939 Register below shows that John Lodge Percy was born on 30 December 1884 in Yorkshire. Other records imply that he was born a few years earlier: the 1911 census return, for example, indicates he was 32, and therefore born in 1878/79 In 1911 Lodge Percy was working as a ‘theatrical proprietor’ and ‘Principal of Theatrical Company’. He was a boarder in the household of Harry Long, a trainer and breaker of horses, in Bilston, Staffordshire, alongside Henrietta Percy, aged 27 and born in Barking, Essex, who was an actress. It is unlikely that Lodge Percy and Henrietta - the co-author with Lodge Percy of several plays - were legally married to each other. The WW1 service record of John Charles Lodge Percy shows that he enlisted into the army reserve on 10 December 1915 and gives his address as 28 Panton Street, Haymarket, London. In this record his age is given as 35 [so born around 1880] and his trade or calling as actor-manager. His wife is listed as Henrietta Lodge Percy, The Retreat, Shoreham-on-Sea. Lodge Percy was mobilised in January 1917 to the Mechanical Transport Depot, Army Service Corps, at Grove Park in Lewisham as a lorry driver. On demobilisation in January/February 1919 his birth year was recorded as 1878 [matching his age on the 1911 census]. In the spring/early summer of 1938, John Lodge Percy married Dorothy Motley Clare (born 18 November 1909), at Rochford. The 1939 register shows him as working as a ‘manager stage’ and living in Leeds. An obituary published by Dorothy in The Stage, 15 February 1962, read: ‘In Ever Loving Memory of John Lodge Percy who passed peacefully away, Feb. 1st. Thank you darling for all your love. You will always be in my heart. – Your Dorothy’. On reporting Lodge Percy's death the previous week, the same publication had reported that ‘Lodge Percy, former actor-manager, died at his home at South Benfleet on February 1. During the First World War he presented his own show, “A Long Way From Tipperary” and during the last twenty years he devoted most of his time to repertory. He was in the opening production at the Arts, Ipswich, and worked consistently for Harry Hanson and Arthur Brough. The Funeral will be tomorrow (Friday) at St. Mary’s Church, Benfleet at 3.15 and at Southend Crematorium at 4.0 p.m.’ (The Stage, 8 February 1962). On 19 March 1994, Lodge Percy's widow, Dorothy Mortley Lodge-Percy, died in Benfleet, Essex. Her death was registered in Southend-on-Sea and probate was granted at Ipswich on 4 August 1994 in respect of her estate.

Gender: Male

Served in the armed forces? Yes

Scripts associated with [John] Lodge Percy