George Arthurs (1875–1944)

Manchester-born lyricist George Arthurs was the writer of Clarice Mayne’s Joshua (with Bert Lee, 1912) and Marie Lloyd’s hit, A Little Of What You Fancy Does You Good (with Fred W. Leigh, 1915).

In 1914, Arthurs and Fred Godfrey wrote Be Sure He’s Irish and Up He Goes In His Little Monoplane, which Ella Retford introduced (“Ella Retford has in rehearsal a new Feldman ‘Monoplane’ number, for which artists and publishers expect great things. The authors are Fred Godfrey and George Arthurs” [“Song Notes,” The Stage, 26 March 1914, p. 28]). After a long break, they collaborated again in 1930 on The Christening Of The Baby Doll and, according to the Performing Right Society, on Tennessee Twilight (although other sources, including the printed sheet music, credit Godfrey alone). Songs of theirs of unknown date are: Cleo My Cleopatra; I’m Madly In Love; Sitting In the Park; and Stop Me If You’ve Heard It.