thumb|right|250px|Albert Chevalier
Albert Chevalier (often listed as Albert Onésime Britannicus Gwathveoyd Louis Chevalier; 21 March 186110 July 1923) was an English music hall comedian, singer and musical theatre actor. He specialised in cockney related humour based on life as a costermonger in London during the Victorian era. Owing to this and his ability to write songs, he became known to his audiences as the "costers' laureate".
Born in London to a French father and Welsh mother, his name at birth was registered simply as "Albert Chevalier", but he gained the unusual middle names "Onésime Britannicus Gwathveoyd Louis" during his career. He showed an interest in entertainment from an early age through his private performances to family and friends. He made his debut on the amateur stage when he was eight, performing in Julius Caesar, at the local Cornwall Hall. Soon after, he joined a local amateur dramatics group before changing his stage name to "Albert Knight".
Chevalier joined the music hall circuit in the 1880s and over the decade became very successful. His success meant that from the early 1890s he was able to choose which theatres to perform in and often performed at three or four halls each night. Together with his brother Charles Ingle he wrote a number of highly successful coster songs to support his act including "Wot Cher! Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road", "The Future Mrs. 'Awkins", "Appy 'Ampstead", and the melodrama "My Old Dutch". As well as in London, Chevalier became popular with audiences in the English provinces which he toured over the length of his career.
thumb|250x250px|Albert Chevalier singing "[[My Old Dutch (song)|My Old Dutch", 1899]]
During the 1910s Chevalier moved from comedy into music composition for straight plays. With a deteriorating health his final appearance was in My Old Dutch at the Lyceum Theatre in 1920. The play was based on Chevalier's own song of the same name and had some success. The play ran for over a year and Chevalier completed his last performance in November 1922. He died aged 62 and was buried in Abney Park cemetery in the same plot as his son and father-in-law George Leybourne.
Biography
Early life
thumb|right|upright|Chevalier (left) and his brother, Auguste in the 1870s
Chevalier was born at 17 St Ann's Villas, Royal Crescent, London. The son of Jean Onésime Chevalier, a French master at Kensington School, and his Welsh wife, Ellen Louisa Mathews; he had five siblings, two of whom died in infancy. His surviving brothers were Bertram, who in later life became a freelance photographer, and Auguste, who was better known as Charles Ingle, a composer of music hall songs. Chevalier was educated at Clanricarde College, Bayswater, and later, St Mary's College, Richmond.
In 1869 Chevalier made his amateur debut on the stage performing as Mark Anthony in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, at Cornwall Hall in Notting Hill. A year later, on 17 August, and at the same venue, he performed some minor scenes from The September Gale, this time to a paying audience. where he adopted the stage name, Albert Knight. When he left education, and to pay his drama fees, Chevalier took up a position as a clerk in a newspaper office, and then as a pupil teacher. It was in that job that his father introduced him to the playwright Dion Boucicault who arranged for a friend to mentor Chevalier's start in the theatre.
Theatrical beginnings
thumb|right|upright|[[Madge Kendal and her husband William ]]
In 1876 Chevalier organised two amateur performances of The Quack Doctor and Handy Andy both of which he produced and starred in.