Robert Harbin: A magical genius entertains the troops
Robert Harbin was one of the most influential magicians of the Twentieth Century. Not only was he a superb performer, he was an inventive genius, and one of the most prodigious inventors of magical effects. During World War Two, he was tasked with bringing entertainment to thousands of war-weary troops in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East.
Robert Harbin - a master magician
(Source: whirligig-tv.co.uk)
The Boy Magician from Sunny South Africa
Robert Harbin (Edward ‘Ned’ Richard Charles Williams) was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in early 1909.
He first got interested in magic after an ex-serviceman appeared at his school with a magic show, which Harbin later described as “rather poor.” But, with his interest sparked, young Ned started learning magic. After watching British magician Clive Maskelyne perform in Durban, he travelled to England in 1928 – aged 19 – “to try his luck in the ‘old country’”.
Starting his British magic apprenticeship working in the toy department of Gamages, a London-based department store, Harbin quickly moved on to performing an act in the music halls.
Originally billed as Ned Williams - The Boy Magician from Sunny South Africa, he steadily made his presence felt as a performer during the early 1930s.
A Maskelyne magician
By 1932 he was a resident magician in Maskelyne’s Mysteries, a series of seasonal shows in various London theatres put on by the Maskelyne family. He changed his name from Williams to Harbin to avoid conflicting with Oswald Williams, another performer (and a director) of the Maskelyne’s business.
An early promotional photograph of Robert Harbin (c1935)
(Source: Will Goldston)
At the same time, he began to make his mark as an inventor of original magic, publishing many effects in magic periodicals and books.
Harbin worked in a bold and direct way. A contemporary newspaper critic aptly captured Harbin’s style when he wrote, “Robert Harbin is a great showman of the new school. There are no elaborate effects, no boastful patter or clowning – just a quiet, confident performance.” He combined demonstration style magic with an engaging, authentic persona.
One of Harbin’s early advertising flyers (1930s)
(Source: Potter and Potters)
Watch this British Pathe video of Harbin performing his original versions of the vanishing cane in newspaper and vanishing radio. Or, this video of him performing the torn and restored newspaper (1939).
The Battle of Britain and The Blitz… with a bit of magic on the side
When World War Two began in 1939, Robert Harbin registered for military service, as he was required to by the National Service Act (Armed Forces). He was called to serve his newly adopted country in Spring 1940. Aged 30, he first joined the army as a driver in the Royal Engineers.
From July 1940, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm fought the Battle of Britain against the German Luftwaffe [air force]. This was followed by the Blitz, where the Luftwaffe launched a stream of deadly raids, day and night, to compel Britain to sue for peace. During this period, the army assigned Driver Williams / Harbin to anti-aircraft work, attached to the Royal Artillery and stationed in Bristol.
Despite the ongoing battle in the skies, the army gave Harbin leave every Tuesday afternoon so he could travel to London to emcee a radio show for the B.B.C. from the Criterion Theatre. The show, Song-time in the Laager, was broadcast to British forces stationed in South Africa and Rhodesia. This continued through into 1941.
Driver Williams (aka Robert Harbin) on stage for a radio broadcast at the Criterion Theatre, London (1941)
(Source: B.B.C.)
Whenever Harbin was on leave, he used the opportunity to perform in cabaret, sometimes appearing in battle dress. One newspaper report around Christmas of 1940 stated, “Into just forty-eight hours leave over Christmas, conjurer Lance Corporal Robert Harbin will cram in two radio broadcasts and four performances at the Savoy, Berkeley and Mayfair.”
On 29 April 1941, the London Evening Standard reported, “Driver Robert Harbin, R.E., returns to his profession of a magician at the Berkeley and Savoy this week. He has found that all the pockets in his battle dress are excellent for carrying his stock-in-trade.”
Every Night Something Amazing!
In summer 1942, the army commissioned Harbin into the Royal Regiment of Artillery. Soon after, they transferred him to the Royal Army Service Corps, with a promotion to the rank of Major, so that he could become a military coordinator of E.N.S.A. units in the field.
E.N.S.A. is an abbreviation for the Entertainments National Service Association. This was a wartime civilian organisation established to entertain the British armed forces, at home and abroad. Entertainers were grouped into touring concert parties and dispatched to perform in venues as diverse as munition factory canteens, air-raid shelters, anti-aircraft sites, supply depots, and even front-line positions.
An E.N.S.A. concert party entertaining Allied troops
(Source: Public domain)
Although many servicemen referred to it as ‘Every Night Something Awful,’ when Harbin performed, it might better be called ‘Every Night Something Amazing!’
Major Williams, as he was known, was sent to the Middle East and worked throughout the Western Desert of North Africa and up into Palestine.
Williams / Harbin’s primary role was coordinating the myriad of touring shows and other entertainments sent by E.N.S.A. to the war zone. One of his most trying assignments was to Tobruk in late 1942 and early 1943, where he sought to bring relief through entertainment to the war-ravaged port city after the Second Battle of Alamein.
Performing a straitjacket escape in an E.N.S.A. show in Cairo (1942)
(Source: Robert Harbin)
Dorothy Harbin
Before the war, Harbin’s wife, Dorothy, looked after the business aspects of his career and acted as his on-stage assistant when he needed one.
In 1942, although not a magician herself, Dorothy put together a magic act to do her bit for the war effort. Accent on Music comprised a cigarette routine, torn and restored newspaper, the Cecil Lyle hat, the rope wand and silks, and Robert Harbin’s own vanishing radio trick. With her husband deployed overseas, she turned to magician friends to teach her the tricks.
Dorothy successfully auditioned for E.N.S.A. and they soon dispatched her overseas. When her show played in Cairo (no doubt with some string-pulling by Harbin) the couple were reunited for a short time.
PAIFORCE
As the war progressed, military commanders noticed Harbin’s organisational skills and promoted him to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
In August 1942, Churchill split the Middle East Command, creating a new Persia and Iraq Command (PAIFORCE). The army assigned Harbin to this command, based in Baghdad, and tasked him to build up E.N.S.A.’s entertainment services there. He organised twenty static cinemas, arranged nineteen mobile cinemas and put on eleven different live shows for troops. He later described his experience of working with PAIFORCE:
“Every couple of weeks I would meet the heads of the Army, Navy and R.A.F. Welfare. We would sit in my office, allocating shows and working out how to get them to places. The shows were all sent to Cairo and then routed up to me. I was told exactly what I could have – I could never just get shows I wanted – and what arrangements would be necessary; whether it was a big or small company, whether there were more men than women, and so on. The biggest show we ever had was 'No, No, Nanette’ but most of them were small groups with a comedian, accompanied by his wife, probably, who was a soubrette, a juggler, a young conjuror and two little dancers. Very occasionally, one had to bribe the R.A.F. to transport people for you; bribe them by sending some girls for a dance or providing a band. If you did, then you suddenly found three Dakotas at your disposal with Air Vice-Marshals to fly them!”
Magic for diplomacy
While in Baghdad, Harbin became friendly with the Royal Family of Iraq and their staff. The King, H.M. King Faisal II, was a boy. His father, Faisal I, had been killed in a car accident.
H.M. King Faisal II of Iraq (c.1944)
(Source: Public domain)
On the event of the boy-king’s tenth birthday in 1945, Harbin arranged for one of his concert parties to entertain at the reception. He didn’t appear himself, as he was ill, so asked fellow entertainer Bill Budd to stand in:
“Bill Budd, was also a conjuror, of sorts, and Bob said to him, ‘You’ll have to go on.’ Bill didn’t know a good trick to finish so Bob told him to end with paper-tearing: making shapes from one piece of paper. ‘I don’t know paper-tearing,’ said Bill. ‘Don’t worry,’ Bob said. ‘I’ll mark the paper and you just tear along the marks. It’ll be all right.’ Bill did this, tore along the lines Bob had marked – and threw away the wrong bit! When he opened the paper, instead of there being a little line of figures, all he had was a mass of torn holes.”
Despite this on-stage hiccup, King Faisal enjoyed the show and Harbin made follow-on private appearances for the Royal Family, spurring an interest in magic for the boy-king.
The importance of this relationship should not be under-estimated. This was because in a 1941 coup, nationalist elements in the country seized power with at the help of the Germans and Italians, leading to the Anglo-Iraqi War of May 1941. This war restored King Faisal II and his regent to power. Thereafter, maintaining strong links between the government regime and the British was essential.
Magic for the troops
While deployed, Harbin’s focus was coordinating entertainment services, but he took every opportunity to perform in shows himself.
For a short time, while with PAIFORCE, he developed a double act with Leslie Welch. Welch possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge of sport and although a bookkeeper with the British Eighth Army by day, he performed with Harbin in their Magic and Memory double act in the evening.
Harbin also continued to invent and write about magic, contributing a regular column for the Demon Telegraph (a magazine published by Lewis Davenport, a magic dealer). ‘Robert Harbin’s Page’ featured a new trick idea in each edition.
An enamel badge worn by performers who worked for ENSA
(Source: Authors’ collection)
Indian magic
After his tour in Baghdad and the wider PAIFORCE region, and with victory declared in Europe, Lieutenant Colonel Williams returned to Cairo, and was then posted to India where he remained until his eventual return to U.K.
His biographer, Eric Lewis, wrote that, “In India [Harbin] was in his element, for this was the fabled land of many mysteries. He used this opportunity to see the Indian magicians, to futilely seek out the Indian Rope Trick and to make plans for an act he intended to do when his army career ended."
For several months, Major Will Ayling (another British magician) worked alongside Harbin, who was ostensibly his superior. Ayling led E.N.S.A. operations in one of India’s military areas. The two magicians became firm friends, spending their spare time devising new tricks and presentations.
Harbin was demobilised from the army in October 1946, although during his final eighteen months of his peace-time service – the latter part of which was back in the U.K. – he had been increasingly allowed to take on private engagements.
Post-war
After the war, Robert Harbin’s popularity as a performer and his contribution to magic continued to grow, as he appeared in the theatre, and regularly on radio and television.
Robert Harbin performing a Super X levitation with actress Marvyn Parkes
(Source: Mirrorpix)
Dorothy’s foray into solo performing didn’t last and, after the war, she returned to assisting Robert, (until she suffered a nasty accident which forced her to retire from the stage).
Stills of Robert Harbin performing the Super X illusion on stage
(Source: Potter and Potter)
The Sensational Harbins - The Modern Mystifiers, Robert and Dorothy’s post-war act (1949)
(Source: The Regal Theatre, Southend)
Robert Harbin performing his famous Zig Zag Girl illusion at The London Palladium (1966),
with an introduction by Geoffrey Durham
(Source: ITV's Best of Magic)
Harbin was also a world renown expert on origami, the Japanese art of paper-folding. He wrote many books on the subject, presented a TV series on it in the 1970s and was the first President of the British Origami Society.
A magical genius, Robert Harbin kept performing, inventing and writing until he died in 1978.
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