In December 2020, our Designations workforce had been updating the listed constructing document of the Bodie Fountain in Macduff and uncovered an electrical and magical story!
© Courtesy of A Taylor.
The Bodie Fountain
The Bodie Fountain in Macduff commemorates Jeannie Bodie. She died in 1909 on the age of 18. Jeannie was the daughter of Walford Bodie.
Jeannie Bodie (daughter) © Courtesy of Aberdeen Metropolis Libraries/The Silver Metropolis Vault.
Walford Bodie was a Scottish magician and music corridor entertainer. He was as soon as among the many most well-known and extremely paid entertainers of his period and a buddy of the good Harry Houdini. Bodie was often known as the Electrical Wizard of the North and was even imitated by Charlie Chaplin.
Jeannie was her father’s assistant in his phantasm, ventriloquism, hypnotism and electrical trick reveals.
Walford Bodie – the makings of a magician
Samuel Murphy Bodie, professionally often known as Walford Bodie, was born in Aberdeen in 1869. He started his working life at age 14 as an apprentice at The Nationwide Phone Firm. Nevertheless, by his late teenagers was performing magic reveals throughout Aberdeenshire.
Walford Bodie and his spectacular waxed moustache, round 1900.
© Courtesy of Aberdeen Metropolis Libraries/The Silver Metropolis Vault.
The Henry sisters
He married Jeannie Henry, who carried out alongside Walford as an illusionist and mind-reader, with the stage title ‘Princess Rubie’. Quite a lot of Jeannie’s sisters additionally carried out in ‘The Bodie Present’, together with Isabella and Mary.
Jeannie Henry Bodie
‘Princess Rubie’.
© Courtesy of Aberdeen Metropolis Libraries/The Silver Metropolis Vault.
Mary Walford Henry
‘Mystic Marie’.
© Courtesy of Aberdeen Metropolis Libraries/The Silver Metropolis Vault.
Isabella Henry
‘La Belle Electra’.
© Courtesy of Aberdeen Metropolis Libraries/The Silver Metropolis Vault.
Electrical energy was nonetheless a rarity right now. Most of the people believed it to be a wierd power that might kill, revive the lifeless or do any variety of mysterious issues. So, it was this cryptic power that Walford Bodie first utilized in his present at Stonehaven in 1884.
In his act, Bodie would typically strap himself into an electrical chair, assisted by his sister-in-law, ‘La Belle Electra’, and seemingly cross 30,000 volts by means of his physique. ‘La Belle Electra’ would additionally face ‘dying by electrical chair’ with arc lights emitting from her fingertips.
© Glasgow College Library. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk
Physician Walford Bodie MD will see you now
By round 1900, Bodie was promoting himself as a ‘cold surgeon’, curing folks of no matter ailed them. He additionally adopted the prefix Physician and added the letters ‘MD’ after his title. Nevertheless, this angered the medical career who referred to as him a quack, and he was taken to court docket in 1905.
Bodie misplaced the case and was instructed he needed to cease utilizing the MD. However he did proceed to consult with himself as Dr Walford Bodie. Along with that, he signed a sponsorship deal. This resulted in The Bodie Electrical Drug Firm of London, which produced cure-all ‘medicines’ together with ‘Dr Bodie’s Well-known Electrical Liniment’ and ‘Dr Bodie’s Famend Electrical Life Drugs’.
Electrical Liniment produced by The Bodie Electrical Drug Firm, advert from the Night Categorical 2nd June, 1907.
© Courtesy of Aberdeen Metropolis Libraries/The Silver Metropolis Vault.
‘The Bodie Present’ performed in venues, massive and small, throughout the UK, making Bodie nationally and internationally well-known. Charlie Chaplin impersonated Walford Bodie with a travelling firm referred to as Casey’s Court docket Circus within the early 1900s. Later, in Hollywood, he revived this act on movie. Bodie’s buddy, Harry Houdini, gave him a ghoulish current within the type of the electrical chair used within the first execution-by-chair at Sing Sing jail in Ossining, New York.
The Bodie residence
On the top of fame, Walford and his household settled in Macduff. They commissioned the architect Alexander Marshall Mackenzie to design a brand new home alongside Skene Avenue. The Manor Home was inbuilt 1905.
Walford Bodie and his chauffeur outdoors the Manor Home, Skene Avenue, round 1905
© Glasgow College Library. Licensor www.scran.ac.uk
The Bodie Fountain in Macduff was listed in 1990. On the time of itemizing the fountain was positioned alongside Duff Avenue, parallel to Skene Avenue. The fountain was moved in 2009 to the Maritime Backyard on Criminal O’Ness Avenue, near Macduff harbour. The listed constructing document was up to date to replicate this transfer in December 2020.
The Manor Home in 2007 (listed at class C).
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