William Hargreaves (1880–1941)


William Hargreaves — manager and first husband of the great male impersonator and Music Hall star Ella Shields — wrote many big hits, including Little Yellow Bird (with C.W. Murphy, 1903); and Victoria Monks’s Give My Regards To Leicester Square and If You Want To Have A Row Wait Till The Sun Shines (both 1906). Biggest of all his hits was Ella Shields’s immortal Burlington Bertie From Bow (with credits occasionally also attributed to Lawrence Wright, 1915).

Hargreaves also wrote several songs for Billy Williams, including Postcards (1908); and I Must Go Home Tonight (1909), both of which some sources have credited to Williams and Fred Godfrey. Hargreaves and Godfrey certainly collaborated on The Death Of Rag-Time (1913) and Oh, The Baa-Baa-Baa-Lambs! (1915).