Robert Hargreaves

The earliest references to Robert Hargreaves found in the Stage and The Era are as co-author of Stop Press in 1916; the last reference is found in 1932. Hargreaves wrote the words to many songs, often with Stanley J. Damerell and Tolchard Evans, the best known of which seem to have been Lady of Spain, Let’s All Sing Like The Birdies Sing and If (They Made Me a King). Some of his compositions had a humorous bent, such as the musical farcical comedy Turned Up (1926). In the 1920s and 1930s he wrote a number of songs for George Formby and the books and lyrics for two shows in which Formby starred in 1930, 'Playing The Game In The West ' (also the title of a monologue by George Formby senior) and 'Fire, Fire, Fire'. He may have died in 1947/48. The evidence for this is successive United States’ Catalogs of Copyright Entries viewed on Archive.org which show that in 1947 Robert Hargreaves of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, renewed, as the author, the copyright in Pop Goes The Major. Then in 1948 and subsequent years his copyrights were renewed by Kate or Kathleen Hargreaves who was described initially as his ‘next of kin’ (a term meaning that he had died without leaving a will) and later as his widow. Robert Hargreaves’ marriage and death have not been found in the usual marriage and death indexes.