Harry Barton Edwards
(1885-1970)

was born on December 2nd 1885 at Brierley Hill, Birmingham, into an age of great magicians. His performing career overlapped those of John Nevil Maskelyne (1839-1917), David Wighton (1868-1941), who performed as David Devant, Sigmund Neuberger (1871-1911), who was the celebrated illusionist The Great Lafayette, William Elsworth Robinson (1861-1918), who died on stage performing his bullet-catching illusion as Chung Ling Soo, the 'Marvellous Chinese Conjurer' and Erich Weiss (1874-1926), who became world famous as Harry Houdini.
He became Barton Turner at the age of 3, when his mother, a widow with three young sons, remarried. Henri Deville had a compact build and he was something of an athlete in his younger days, winning prizes for distance races – both attributes serving him well in his career as an escapologist. The postcard with the picture that became his trade mark [left & featured on the Front Page] shows him in 1908 in a typical Houdini-influenced pose [see next picture] during the early part of a career that was interrupted twice by world wars.
   He married Lucy Alice Parker (1895/11/04-1975/02/20) on March 10th 1915 at St. Paul's church in Manchester. Deville was called up for military service in the latter part of the Great War and served as Private 24683.

Deville billed himself as the Wizard Of The Army when performing in the music halls in the 1920s and 1930s. His act included both escapology and illusions. Going into the theatre seems to have been a family tradition; Deville's brother Percy (1884-1971) made a career as a theatrical producer.

The trunk escape described in the Magic Wand review above seems rather tame compared to his escape from the Electrocution Chair in the Cage ALIVE With Electricity [see poster above] and his escapes from a set of manacles similar to those shown on the Deville postcard while sealed in a tank full of water.

   His stage illusions involved feats such as chopping his sister-in-law, Pat Parker, alias Mdlle. Victoire, into a dozen pieces in the presence of an on-stage committee of members of the audience.

Deville's jobs when not touring included working as an insurance agent. He sold equipment for escapes and illusions from the middle 1930s on. During the Second World War, he built aircraft for the Fairey Company, but he returned to performing after the war, working at the now defunct Belle View Amusement Park in Manchester until well into the 1950s. His act as an illusionist at this period included his Human Wireless Illusion.

Retinal detachments after cataract operations brought his performing career to a close, but he continued to sell handcuffs, chain sets, electrical illusions, books on magic and instructions for illusions until well into the 1960s. He died at his home in Romiley in 1970, four days after his eight-fifth birthday.