SHOOTING TRAGEDY AT NEWBURY. GIRL PERFORMER SHOT BY CHIEF RAVEN CODY. As was briefly stated in a telegram on Tuesday, a tragedy, resulting in the death of a woman engaged at the Hippodrome Music Hall, Newbury, occurred on Monday. The woman, who was 28 years of age, was appearing at the Hippodrome, under the name of Kitty Seymour, in a Wild West sketch as assistant to Samuel Frederick Cody, who was described on the bills as the Hon. Chief Raven Cody, and is said to be a son of the renowned Buffalo Bill.[1]

Samuel Frederick Cody was not the son of Buffalo Bill, nor was his name Samuel Frederick Cody. He was Samuel Gale (1876–1936), a Bradford grifter who had been imprisoned twice for fraud and had two further convictions for violence.[2] The shooting death of Agnes Walker, aka Kitty Seymour, in June 1909, judged an accident by a coroner’s jury, the result supposedly, of Cody/Gale’s gun going off while he was cleaning it, would indirectly lead to Cody being imprisoned a third time, and for the same fraud that had put him in prison three years earlier. On his release, he would, in some ways, pick up where he had left off, touring the halls, claiming to be the son of Buffalo Bill, and working with a succession of women whom he picked up and discarded with alarming ease; he would even return to the same fraud. More than simply a performer with a fake on-stage persona, he was a man who exploited the itinerant nature of touring the halls to indulge the worst parts of his personality and then disappear into the night. His story is a reminder that stage personas sometimes served a dual purpose.

A "Wild" West Show.—At Sheffield, on Monday night, during the performance of Mexican Joe's Wild West Show, an Indian, named Running Wolf, said to be the most savage of the troupe, shot at Colonel Shelly while he was impersonating the death of Lone Scout. Instead of using a blank cartridge the Indian had used a hard substance, which struck Colonel Shelly under the left eye, and inflicted a slight wound, from which blood flowed rather freely. Col. Shelly was able to appear again later, and was loudly cheered. This is said to be the fourth attempt of Running Wolf to shoot his employer.[3]

According to a evidence that Samuel Gale/Raven Cody gave at his September 1909 trial for fraud, at aged 14, he had run away from home and joined Mexican Joe’s Wild West Show, which is where he learned the skills he used in his cowboy act. ‘Mexican Joe’ was American Joseph Shelley, who claimed—the emphasis is on the word ‘claimed’—to have been a colonel in the army of the Confederate States of America and a Texas ranger. His eponymous Wild West Show, which he brought to England in 1887, was a bargain-basement copy of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show and would become infamous for its poor treatment of its performers, human and animal, and its many brushes with the law. In the course of its seven-year existence, it would see animals die in a fire, a spectator killed by a runaway horse, numerous performers injured in accidents, still more up in court for violence against each other, members of the public, and even police officers, and Shelley himself on more than one occasion attacked with guns and edged weapons by his own employees.[4]

Although all of this adds up to an environment in which Samuel Gale would fit right in, it has to be acknowledged that Gale was still living at home at aged 15, one year after he claimed he had run away, and Mexican Joe’s Wild West Show folded just three years later, a full five years before Gale began to perform his cowboy act using the name Cody. As to why, if he had no connection to Mexican Joe, he brought the name up in his September 1909 trial, it is worth noting that the name ‘Mexican Joe’ had been featured prominently in the newspapers at the end of 1908 in connection with the ‘Swadlincote Mystery’. ‘Mexican Joe’ was the name under which itinerant conjurer Herbert Nottingham Turner performed. A few hours after performing his act at a public house in Swadlincote, Derbyshire, Turner was found murdered. The crime was never solved. It would be natural for anyone reading about the case to associate the name with the original Mexican Joe and remember his old Wild West Show, making something that might otherwise have faded from memory fresh in people’s minds in September 1909.[5] (As an aside: it would be tempting to try to connect Cody with the murder of Turner, as he was from the same part of the country; however, there is nothing to suggest any actual connection.)

Whatever the truth or otherwise of any association Gale/Cody had with the original Mexican Joe, the most obvious model for his act was that of someone else who adopted the Cody name, albeit adding to its lustre, not tarnishing it: Samuel Franklin Cowdery (1876–1913), aka the ‘real’ Sam Cody.[6]

THE CELEBRATED CODY FAMILY. S.F. Cody, with his Wife and Two Sons, Leon and Vivian, the Famous Texas Horse Riders, Expert Shots, and Dextrous Lasso Throwers.[7]

The ‘real’ Sam Cody would achieve lasting fame as a pioneering airman; however, he was also a showman, performing a Wild West act with his wife and two young sons across Britain in the late 1890s. Wherever Sam Gale learned to use a gun, whip, and lariat, when he debuted as a music hall performer in 1899 using the name ‘Young Cody, son of Buffalo Bill’, he was clearly taking inspiration from the S.F. Cody family dynamic. This first version of his stage name was taken from the label the press had given to Cody’s two sons: ‘Then followed a race between the Young Cody’s, which was won by Vivian’. And, as we have seen and will see, off stage, he would sometimes call himself ‘Sam Cody’.[8]

It also has to be said that Gale’s skills were not as advanced as he claimed. In a macabre foreshadowing of future events, the first phase of his career came to a premature end when one night on stage, a misaimed shot creased the forehead of his female assistant.

A LITTLE EXCITEMENT FOR THE AUDIENCE. “Young Cody," described as the son of Buffalo Bill, is giving an exhibition of rifle shooting, lassoing, etc., at Runcorn. On Saturday night he was shooting at an object in the mouth of his wife, Madame Rossele, when he missed his aim. The bullet ploughed its way across the woman's forehead, inflicting an ugly wound. The incident created great excitement amongst the crowded audience.[9]

‘Madame Rossele’ was Rosalia Harriet Ann Drasdo (1874–1925), the Bradford-born daughter of a German immigrant and his English wife.  She and Gale were not married, but they would have a son together, Harry, born in 1901. The relationship would be short-lived—Rosalia would marry another man in 1903. I have been able to find out anything about the fate of the child.[10]

Unsurprisingly, the shooting incident and the birth of his first child would put Gale/Cody’s career on hold for over three years. It would not be until the summer of 1902 that he would return with a new act, again accompanied by ‘Madame Rossello’. Given the timing, this would appear to once again be Rosalia. If this is the case, given that she had almost died the last time she appeared on stage, this speaks either to her fortitude or their desperation. The act still included shooting and tricks with a whip and lariat, but to these, Cody had added a new element: hypnotism. In his own take on the ‘long trance’, which involved an hypnotist putting ‘volunteers’ to sleep for extended periods of time, usually several days, Cody placed Madame Rossello in a trance at the end of the first performance of the day, pricking her with needles to show she was in a trance, as was usual with these acts, and then revived her at the start of the second performance of the day.[11]

This, Cody claimed, was the ‘Femastane’, the ‘Death Sleep’ of the North American Indians, taught to him by a North American Indian Medicine Chief. Critical to our ability to connect ‘Young Cody’ and the man who later used the stage name ‘Raven Cody’ is that Raven Cody was still performing the ‘Femastane’ routine 20 years later, and used a version of the name, ‘Femastine’, as the stage name of one of his assistants.[12]

By 1903, ‘Miss Dolly Hill’ had replaced Madame Rossello as Cody’s assistant—this, as we’ve said, being the year that Rosalia Drasdo married another man.[13] Just as significantly for our story, this was also the year that Cody began his career in crime.

MR GEORGE LE WIST And Expensive Company—including the Latest and Greatest Sensation, THE MEDICINE CHIEF (Young Cody, Son of Buffalo Bill), a Marvel. Cripples Cured in full view of the audience. Lame made to Walk. Blind made to See. Deaf made to Hear.[14]

Evidence suggests that Cody conceived the ‘Medicine Chief’ act as a fraud from the start, as early advertisements for the act included information on how members of the public could make appointments with the ‘Medicine Chief’ for consultations about their own ailments. The stage act itself, of course, made use of stooges planted in the audience, ready to be called to the stage to be ‘cured’ in the regular stage magic style. Within a year, Cody would receive his first conviction and first prison sentence for fraud, under a charge of obtaining money by false pretences. The sentence was a short one, just one month, which he served in Wakefield Prison, Yorkshire. His name was recorded in the records as ‘Samuel Gale or Cody’, and his profession as ‘Prof[essional] Alien’.[15]

The latter shows that, although still using the ‘Young Cody, son of Buffalo Bill’ label, he had already begun to present himself as having North American Indian heritage on his mother’s side, who, in later life, he would claim was an Apache.[16] This first conviction set another pattern; his life for the next few years would be a succession of brushes with the law, fines, or imprisonment, accompanied, as we have seen, by a succession of young women he duped into being his assistant and co-conspirators. In July 1905, a year after being released from prison, he was fined 15s for striking his manager twice in the mouth in a row over the setting up of the stage for his act. In a newspaper account of the case, he was explicitly named as ‘Sam Cody’, who performed as ‘Young Cody the Medicine Chief’, another link in the chain of evidence that connects Young Cody, Sam Cody, and Raven Cody. The following May, now calling himself ‘Noel Cody’, but identifiable as an ‘actor in the Medical [sic] Chief company’, he was convicted of another assault, this time of a train guard at Cudworth Railway Station in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Sam Gale/Sam Cody/Noel Cody was a man with a temper. Three months after his second conviction for assault, still using the name Noel Cody, he was back in court in Barnsley and facing his most serious set of charges to date: selling fake cures to people with eye disease.[17]

COWBOY AS BOGUS OCULIST. Noel Cody, said to have been originally a Texas cowboy, was brought before the Barnsley magistrates on two charges of obtaining money by false pretences. It stated that the prisoner lectured in the street on diseases of the eyes; A woman who consulted him for cataract received from him a warranty to cure her, in which he described himself as a "medicine chief." He gave her a lotion, but it did no good, and a public analyst certified that the liquid was simply starch and water.[18]

Gale/Cody pleaded guilty and claimed to be ‘heartily ashamed of himself’. He was sentenced to six months in prison. Events would show how little his claims of remorse were worth. However, his imprisonment did mark an interruption in his activities that extended beyond the term of his prison sentence. While there is an outside chance that he was a performer in the 1908 Wild West Show mounted at the London Hippodrome by Sir Genille Cave-Brown-Cave, the ‘Cowboy Baronet’, a man whose life story is stranger than fiction,[19] his next confirmed appearance on stage would be using the ‘Raven Cody’ stage name in the spring 1909 tour that led to the tragic death of Agnes Walker and Cody’s third conviction for fraud.

[…]at the conclusion of the performance Cody, [Walker], and the other members of the company left the theatre in the best of spirits. The deceased, Cody, and a man named Yates proceeded to their lodgings in West-street. Before sitting down to supper Cody commenced to clean out the rifle, Whilst he was doing this the deceased passed in front of him to throw a piece of paper in the fireplace. By some means the gun went off and the bullet entered the woman’s head.[20]

In press reports of the tragedy, Cody was identified as ‘Samuel Frederick Cody’, who performed as the ‘Hon. Chief Raven Cody’. It is not clear if this was a typo or if Cody had reverted to using the name of the man who had inspired his act. Subsequent events would show that he was still using the later Noel Cody identity at least some of the time. Those same events would also show that Cody was once more using his stage act as a cover/marketing for his fraudulent activities.

What are we to make of a man with a temper and with a criminal activity to conceal, shooting to death his newly hired assistant? It is worth noting in this context that the firearms used in trick shooting acts were routinely of a much lower calibre than ‘regular’ firearms, and if Cody’s gun was such a weapon, if the bullet had struck Agnes Walker anywhere other than in the head, she would have likely survived. We can at least say it was not a calculated act, as, in any state other than a fit of rage, Cody would have realised that killing someone would bring down on him the attention that he was seeking to avoid—which is exactly what happened. Finally, in this regard, it is worth saying that the evening following the tragedy, Cody was back on stage, albeit without his guns. However, within a few months, possibly weeks, he had engaged a new assistant and reintroduced the shooting part of the act.

However, it should also be said that, within a month of the tragedy, Cody was arrested for being drunk and disorderly.[21] Whatever the true circumstances of the case, whether it was just a tragic accident or the act of an enraged man with a secret to keep, Cody does seem to have been genuinely affected by Walker’s death. And then there was that attention that he would have wished to avoid.

CLAIMED TO CURE THE BLIND. “CHIEF RAVEN CODY” IN CUSTODY. Described as Chief Raven Cody, son of Buffalo Bill, of Wild West fame, a young man named Noel Cody was charged at Wigan, yesterday, with obtaining money by false pretences. He was arrested at a Westhoughton place of amusement, and the Chief Constable stated that he had appeared at a Wigan music-hall, advertising himself as being able heal the sick and cure the blind.[22]

On his arrest, Cody initially claimed to be from Russia, but fingerprints were taken, and his past finally caught up with him. The case excited so much interest that news reached friends of William Cody, who felt compelled to issue a notice to the press via those same friends disavowing any connection between himself and this man claiming to be his son.

CHIEF RAVEN CODY. We are asked to state that the young man Noel Cody, who was yesterday remanded at Wigan on a charge of fraud, is not, as stated, a son of Buffalo Bill. Since the death of his only son in 1870 Buffalo Bill (Colonel Cody) has had no male relative bearing his name.[23]

When Cody’s case went to trial in September 1909, it was revealed that, as confirmed by his fingerprints, he was not ‘Noel Cody’, the son of Buffalo Bill, but ‘Sam Gale and he hailed from Bradford’. The case itself was a repeat of the 1906 case: Cody/Gale was accused of selling fake cures to people afflicted with eye diseases, amongst other ailments. The only thing that seemed to have changed was that he had replaced the starch solution of his previous fraud with a weak solution of potassium permanganate. As with the previous case, Cody also admitted the charges and expressed remorse, further claiming that, at the insistence of his wife, he had already determined that he would give up ‘the eye business’ after his current music hall engagement. At the same time, he also claimed that he believed that he could cure people’s ailments, and it felt wrong to turn people away who came to him looking for help. He even produced several witnesses who claimed to have been cured by him (some of the stooges from the stage act or the placebo affect at work?) The judge was having none of it and sentenced Cody to another six months in prison.[24]

I have as yet been unable to identify the ‘wife’ that Cody mentioned in his evidence.[25] We can tentatively guess that her given name was ‘Lily’, as, incredibly, Cody was back touring the halls, still using the Raven Cody stage name, and with a “Lily Cody” as his assistant, within a year of his third term of imprisonment.

Chief Raven Cody and company of American artists in a sketch titled Her Half-Breed Lover, show some clever lassooing, &c., and an hypnotic demonstration is also included.[26]

EMPIRE HIPPODROME. At the Hippodrome good houses welcomed an excellent variety company on Monday. The opening turn was a fine display of skill with whip and lariat by Raven Cody, a Mexican cowboy, assisted by Lily Cody, and the feats were of a surprising nature—a marvel of hand and eye training.[27]

Somehow, despite the press the Wigan court case had received in the autumn of 1909, Cody had been able not only to return to the halls but also to return with a full company. The curious combination of wild west show and hypnotism, first performed with Rossello/Rosalia back in 1902 and revived here, was to remain his signature stage act for the next 20 years. Although it had abandoned the ‘Medicine Chief’ grift for now, it would make a return, as we will see below. The 1911 England Census found Cody in digs in the town of his birth, Darlington, County Durham. However, on his census return, he claimed that he was Raven Cody, US Army Scout, born in San Antonio, Texas, and aged 32. All false, of course. Tellingly, “Lily” is no longer with him—another woman left behind.

Over the following decades, Cody’s fortunes waxed and waned with regularity, and firearms would remain his bête noire: a few years after his return to performing, another ‘accidental’ discharge of a rifle would see him shooting himself in the foot.[28] This was on 1 August 1914, three days after the start of the First World War, as all around him, men were rushing to the recruiting offices. He performed with his ‘Bar Z’ company of ‘real Indians and cowboys’ off and on throughout the war years, and, in 1917, there was a new addition to the troupe, ‘Vera Canaires’, described as ‘the daughter of Col. Canaires, 5th U.S.A. Cavalry. Miss Canaires was taken captive by the Sioux Indians when a baby, spending 8 years in an Indian Village. when she was rescued by Chief Raven Cody, during the late Sioux Indian Rising.’[29]

She was, needless to say, nothing of the sort. She was, rather, 17-year-old Vera Lister of Woodhouse, Yorkshire. Within a few years, she would become Cody/Gale’s wife; he was in his forties, she had just turned 21. There is evidence to suggest that this marriage was bigamous, i.e., that Gale was still legally married to “Lily”. Whatever the truth of that, the Sam and Vera Gale professional partnership would last until 1926. The 1922 England Census would find the pair staying with Gale’s parents in Bradford. As the return was filled out by Gale’s father, it is a rare example of a public record connected with Gale/Cody with true information, and another important link in the chain of evidence connecting Sam Gale and his various Cody-based identities. On the census return, Sam and Vera Gale as described as “circus artists”. The end of the pair’s professional partnership in 1926 was very likely the end of their marriage, too.[30]

By December 1931, Cody, now in his late 50s, had found a new partner in Grimsby resident Phyllis Hurst. Their act was centred on the ‘Femastine/Femastane’ long trance element of Cody’s old show. However, within two years, Cody would desert Phyllis, who would attempt to continue the Femastine act on her own, seemingly without success (at least, under that name).[31] The next year, 1934, would see Cody fall back on the worst of his old proclivities: claiming to be able to cure blindness, albeit in strange circumstances.

OPERATIONS BY AID OF TONGUE Man Claims to be Able to Restore Sight. That he performs operations on the eye to restore sight to the blind by the use of a lotion and the aid of his tongue, is the claim put forward by Mr. C. R. Cody, of Middlesbrough, who says that he is the 76-years-old descendant of the world-famous Bill Cody, more popularly known as “Buffalo Bill.”[32]

‘C.R. Cody’ is clearly Chief Raven Cody, aka Sam Gale. Somewhat disturbingly, one of the people whose eyes he claimed to be able to fix by licking them was a 7-year-old girl. Just as strangely, Cody claimed to be deaf and communicated with the newspaper reporter via signs that he exchanged with his ‘young wife’. When Phyllis Hurst reported Cody missing the previous year, she had expressed concern that he had lost his memory. That and the sheer strangeness of the Middlesbrough incident the following year may indeed point to some kind of mental decline. However, set against this, once again, Cody had clearly experienced no difficulty in finding another female assistant to act as co-conspirator, and someone who met Cody a few years later described long conversations with him with no mention of any deafness. The latter was Mrs Astle of Chester, in whose home, Samuel Gale, aka Raven Cody, spent the last three weeks of his life.

SON OF BUFFALO BILL CHARLES R CODY DIES IN CHESTER FAMOUS CIRCUS CHARACTER Charles Raven Cody, son of Lew Cody, better known as “Buffalo Bill”, and the last surviving member of that well-known family, died in the City Hospital, Chester, on Sunday at the age of 78.[33]

The death certificate, issued on 16 December 1936, two days after Gale died of cardiac arrest as a result of bronchitis, was, for some reason, in the name ‘William Cody’, something that would no doubt have appealed to Gale.[34] His claim to be 78 was also a lie: he had just turned 60.

The tall tales that Cody spun for Mrs Astle and her husband became his epitaph. It may even have been the case that, at some level, in his old age, he believed them a little himself. However, with Gale, it is important to resist the urge to romanticise. He may well have started out as simply a music hall performer who, like so many others, lived the same fake life off stage as on. However, by no later than 1903, his stage act had become simply a front for his off-stage criminal fraud. He exploited the itinerant life of the performer to avoid arrest, moving from town to town and from police jurisdiction to police jurisdiction. The fact that he served three, very short, terms of imprisonment should not detract from the fact that the crimes for which he was convicted were unquestionably only a tiny proportion of his true crimes. Nor should we forget the numerous women that he used through the course of his life and career, not least Agnes Walker, the woman he killed, accidentally or otherwise. His was a black heart.

Jamie Barras, November 2025.

 Back to Staged Identities

Appendix

SHOOTING TRAGEDY AT NEWBURY. GIRL PERFORMER SHOT BY CHIEF RAVEN CODY. As was briefly stated in a telegram on Tuesday. a tragedy. resulting in the death of a woman engaged at the Hippodrome Music Hall, Newbury, occurred on Monday. The woman, who was 28 years of age, was appearing at the Hippodrome, under the name of Kitty Seymour, in a Wild West sketch as assistant to Samuel Frederick Cody, who was described on the bills as the Hon. Chief Raven Cody, and is said to be a son of the renowned Buffalo Bill. The previous three week, Cody had been performing at the East Oxford Theatre, in Cowley-road, as a medicine man, professing to cure certain complaints. Until Saturday last Kitty Seymour, a married woman, was residing with her mother at 14, Stratton terrace, Bostall-lane, Abbey Wood, Kent, but on that day left to take up an engagement with Cody which she had obtained through on advertisement. She joined Cody on Saturday night at Oxford, and went on to Newbury the next day. They opened at the Hippodrome on Monday evening, and amongst other things done by the deceased whilst she was on the stage was to hold various articles at which Cody shot, and he also shot at the bowl of a plate balanced on her forehead. Although not used to this particular kind of stage work, she did her part well, and at the conclusion of the performance Cody, herself, and the other members of the company left the theatre in the best of spirits. The deceased, Cody, and a man named Yates proceeded to their lodgings in West-street. Before sitting down to supper Cody commenced to clean out the rifle, Whilst he was doing this the deceased passed in front of him to throw a piece of paper in the fireplace. By some means the gun went off and the bullet entered the woman’s head. Cody at once went for a doctor, and Yates went to the woman’s assistance. Dr. Wyllie was soon on the spot, and the deceased was removed to Newbury hospital, where, without recovering consciousness, she died at nine o'clock on Tuesday morning. An inquest was held on Wednesday, at which the mother was present, and after hearing the evidence, the jury returned a verdict of accidental death, exonerating Cody from blame. The deceased was a young woman of attractive personality, and, we understand, married at the early age of 19, her proper name being Mrs. Agnes Weedon Seymour Hawker. There is a child four and a half years of age, and her husband had been latterly making her an allowance which she had been supplementing by stage performances for about two years past. Despite the tragical events of the previous night, Cody made his appearance on the stage on Tuesday, but omitted his shooting feats.[35]

Notes

[1] ‘Shooting Tragedy at Newbury’, Oxford Review, 18 June 1909.

[2] See text for sources for the information in this sentence. Gale was born in Darlington, Co. Durham, but grew up in Bradford, Yorkshire; see, for example, entry for Robert L. Gale, Sarah L. Gale, and Samuel Gale, Bradford district, 1891 England Census, ancestry.co.uk, Ancestry.com Inc. (Operations), accessed 23 November 2025.

[3] ‘A “Wild” West Show, Yorkshire Gazette, 3 December 1887.

[4] Fire: ‘Destructive Fire’, Kent Herald, 28 February 1889. Spectator death: ‘A Young Fellow…’, Maryport Advertiser, 14 October 1887. Brawls and assaults: ‘“Mexican Joe”’: Wild Western Men in Leeds”, Ripon Observer, 5 October 1893; ‘Mexican Joe and His Cowboys: Serious Charges’, Northern Guardian (Hartlepool), 6 May 1893. Overturned coach: ‘Accident to “Mexican Joe’s” Wild West Troupe’, Evening Gazette (Aberdeen), 30 September 1887. Attacks on Joe Shelley: See Note 2 above, and: ‘An Unrehearsed Attack at “Mexican Joe’s”’, Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser, 4 July 1891.

[5] ‘The Swadlincote Mystery’, Derby Daily Telegraph, 1 December 1908; ‘Who Killed the Conjurer?’, Burton Daily Mail, 23 June 1990.

[6] Gale at home at 15: see Note 2 above. S.F. Cody: Jean Roberts, ‘The Life of Samuel Franklin Cody’, https://sfcody.org.uk/, accessed 23 November 2025.

[7] ‘The Celebrated Cody Family’, Boxing World and Mirror of Life, 4 August 1897.

[8] ‘Cody’s Cycle v Horse Tournament’, Sporting Life, 16 August 1897.

[9] ‘A Little Excitement for the Audience, Yorkshire Evening Post, 16 January 1899.

[10] Entry for Samuel Gale, Rosalia H. ‘Drusulo’, and Harry Gale, Bradford district, 1901 England Census, entry for Rosalia H. Drasdo, Manningham district, 1881 England Census, ancestry.co.uk, Ancestry.com Inc. (Operations), accessed 23 November 2025. Search, Births, Marriages, Deaths, https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl, accessed 23 November 2025.

[11] I tell the story of the original ‘long trance’ acts here: https://www.ishilearn.com/staged-identities-they-see-nothing-at-all, accessed 24 November 2025.

[12] Cody and Madame Rossello, 1902: ‘Ilkstone: Queen’s Palace of Varieties’, Era, 27 December 1902. Femastane, Youn Cody, 1902: ‘At The Variety Theatres’, Hull Daily Mail, 29 July 1902. Femastane/Femastine, Raven Cody, 1922: ‘St John’s Theatre Warwick’, Warwick and Warwickshire Advertiser, 25 February 1922. It has to be said that in the latter case, it is not clear if ‘Femastine’ is the name of the act that Cody is performing or a performer with whom he is working.

[13] ‘New Theatre, Consett’, Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 2 June 1903.

[14] ‘Amusements: Market Hall Whitehaven’, Whitehaven News, 9 July 1903.

[15] Appointments to consult the Medicine Chief: ‘Theatre Royal’, Workington Star, 26 June 1903. First prison sentence:  entry for ‘Samuel Gale or Cody’, 20 June 1904, West Yorkshire, England, Prison Records, 1801–1914, ancestry.co.uk, Ancestry.com Inc. (Operations), accessed 20 November 2025.

[16] ‘Son of Buffalo Bill’, Crewe Chronicle, 26 December 1936.

[17] ‘A Medicine Chief in Trouble’, Loftus Advertiser, 28 July 1912; ‘West Riding Court: An Abusive Actor’, Barnsley Chronicle, 26 May 1906;

[18] ‘Cowboy as Fake Oculist’, Ashborne Telegraph, 31 August 1906.

[19] ‘A Baronet as Showman’, The Graphic, 26 December 1908; ‘Life of Adventure: From Circus Boy to Pulpit’, Coventry Evening Telegraph, 30 October 1929.

[20] See Note 1 above.

[21] ‘Drunken Charges’, Oxford Journal, 17 July 1909.

[22] ‘Claimed to Cure the Blind, Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 28 August 1909.

[23] ‘Chief Raven Cody’, Manchester Evening News, 28 August 1909.

[24] ‘The “Cody” Case’, Wigan Observer and District Advertiser, 4 September 1909.

[25] Of course, as we saw with Rosalia Drasdo, Gale describing this woman as his wife does not mean that they were legally married.

[26] ‘Gainsborough: Grand Theatre of Varieties’, Era, 24 December 1910.

[27] ‘Ashton Amusements: Empire Hippodrome’, Stalybridge Reporter, 26 November 1910.

[28] ‘Helsby: Accident at Australian Show’, Cheshire Observer, 1 August 1914. It has to be said that Cody/Gale was 38 or 39 at this point, so, technically, too old to serve; however, against this, we don’t know what age he was claiming to be at the time.

[29] ‘King’s Theatre, Kilmarnock’, Kilmarnock Herald and North Ayrshire Gazette, 21 December 1917.

[30] Entry for Sam Gale and Vera Gale, Bradford district, 1921 England Census, ancestry.co.uk, Ancestry.com Inc. (Operations), accessed 20 November 2025. Vera’s age is given as 21 and her birthplace is given as Woodhouse, Yorkshire. Vera ‘Canaires’ is described as celebrating her 19th birthday in a January 1918 newspaper report: ‘Music Hall’, Inverness Courier, 22 January 1918. Vera ‘Conaires’ still with act 1926: ‘Pavilion, Picture & Variety Theatre’, Hawick News and Border Chronicle, 10 September 1926. The identification of Vera Gale/Canaires as Vera Lister is based on the following: 1) the year and location of birth: entry for Vera Lister, daughter of Alonzo and Louisa Lister, 1911 England Census, Woodhouse district, ancestry.co.uk, Ancestry.com Inc. (Operations), accessed 20 November 2025; and 2) marriage record for Vera Lister and ‘Thomas H. Gale’, 1921, Rotherham, Search, Births, Marriages, Deaths, https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl, accessed 23 November 2025. The use of ‘Thomas H. Gale’ as an alias is the evidence, although tentative, that this was a bigamous marriage. However, it is acknowledged that ‘Thomas H. Gale’ may not be Samuel Gale and, by extension, Vera Lister may not be Vera Canaires. More than this, we know that Vera Lister, daughter of Alonzo and Louisa Lister, married Alfred Horace Morton in January 1919: Derbyshire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1932, ancestry.co.uk, Ancestry.com Inc. (Operations), accessed 20 November 2025. This does not prevent her from marrying Gale two years later, of course, but it does add a note of caution to the identification.

[31] ‘Miss Phyllis’: ‘Garden Picture House’, Coatbridge Leader, 12 December 1931. Phyllis Hurst: ‘Can Anyone Help’, The People, 22 January 1933. Femastine: ‘Skating Rink, Chesterfield’, Derbyshire Times, 27 June 1931. Hurst advertising for new partner: ‘Wanted Partners and Financial’, The Stage, 23 February 1933.

[32] ‘Operations by Aid of Tongue’, South Bank Express, 30 June 1934. Truly a bizarre incident.

[33] ‘Son of Buffalo Bill’, Chester Chronicle, 26 September 1936.

[34] Death certificate for William Cody, died 13 December 1936, Chester district, digital copy obtained from General Register Office, November 2025.

[35] See Note 1 above.