Comic, endman, farce writer, singer, horse trainer and breeder.
Will Whitburn built a reputation in Australia during the 1890s and early 1900s as one of the country's most popular blackface minstrel comics, in the same league as Charles Fanning. Only W. Horace Bent could be said to have made a more significant contribution to the local industry. Remembered now largely for his long association with Harry Rickards, Whitburn spent more than five years with Frank M. Clark (ca. 1885 -1990) before moving on work with J. Billin's US Minstrel and Specialty Co (1890-1892) and the Cogill Brothers (ca. 1892-1893). Between the mid-1890s and 1907, however, Whitburn worked almost exclusively for Rickards, mostly in Melbourne. That he was one of the very few Australian-based minstrel performers able to establish his career in one city over an extended period of time indicates that his versatility as a comic and entertainer should be considered extraordinary.
As a performer, Whitburn was a specialist cornerman in the first part of the minstrel show and an eccentric blackface performer in the second part, delivering comedy routines and lectures (aka 'stump speeches'), songs, and dialect characterisations. During the late 1880s and early 1890s, he also affected a larrikin-type persona on the stage, taking advantage of the upsurge in interest from the expanding middle-class demographic in this largely blue-collar social element. Whitburn's forte was a specialty act that saw him narrate a comic story while changing the letter 'n' in words to an 'l.' Another classic routine that he performed regularly over the years was a burlesque railway porter sketch. Whitburn's physical appearance also distinguished him from his peers, in that he was the only high-profile blackface comedian to have a moustache. Some of his biggest song successes were the larrikin-inspired numbers written for him by Lance Lenton, including 'The Larrikin Hop' and 'Woolloomooloo.'
Away from the theatre, Will Whitburn's great passion was for horses. A more than proficient jockey during his younger years, he turned to training and breeding trotters following his retirement from the variety industry (ca. 1907). He did, however, occasionally return to the stage, with one of his final feature appearances occurring a few years before his death in 1928. Aside from his solo comedic work, Whitburn is known to have appeared in many other farces, burlesques, and the occasional pantomime, as well as writing several minstrel farces, including A Dreadful Tragedy (1885), The Bushrangers and The Coachman (both 1888), and Justice Outdone and The Twins (both 1892).
