1889 - 1941 (51 years)
Set As Default Person
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Name Frank Douglas GROUNDSELL Relationship 
with Henry Walter ROLFE Birth 26 Jul 1889 Southampton, Hampshire, England 
Gender Male Census1891 27 Graham Road, Southampton, Hampshire, England Census1901 Dorchester Arms, 40 Onslow Road, Southampton, Hampshire, England Census1911 54 Ackroyd Street, Morley, City of Leeds, Yorkshire, England Census1921 2nd Floor Upper St Martins Lane, Soho, London, Middlesex, England Occupation Musician Death 26 Feb 1941 Stobhill Hospital, Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland Stobhill was originally a Poor Law hospital, commissioned by the Glasgow Parish Council. The design competition, which was judged by John James Burnet, was won by Glasgow architects, Thomson & Sandilands. The foundation stone was laid in September 1901 by Lord Balfour of Burleigh, the then Secretary of State for Scotland, and Stobhill Hospital was formally opened on 15 September 1904, the same day as the Western District Hospital at Oakbank in Maryhill and the Eastern District Hospital at Duke Street. The original buildings are now graded as category B listed buildings.
It was built with 1,867 beds organised in eighteen two-storey red brick Nightingale ward blocks on a sprawling, 47-acre campus on the edge of Springburn Park. The Hamiltonhill Branch of the Lanarkshire and Dumbartonshire Railway, which ran past the northern boundary of the hospital grounds, facilitated the transport of coal and supplies to the hospital. The cost of the building was £250,000. It featured a large clocktower at the centre of the site, which has become a dominant landmark in the north of the city. The motto of the new hospital was Health is Wealth.
During the First World War, the building was requisitioned by the War Office to create the 3rd and 4th Scottish General Hospitals, facilities for the Royal Army Medical Corps to treat military casualties. Wounded servicemen arrived by specially converted hospital trains that terminated at a temporary railway platform built within the hospital grounds. A staff of 240 Territorial Force nurses as well as volunteers from the St. Andrew's Ambulance Association cared for over 1,000 patients at a time, suffering from battlefield wounds to venereal disease, until the return of the hospital to civilian use in early 1920.
In 1928 a new radiology department was opened and Stobhill became a general hospital in 1929. In 1930 Stobhill came under the control of the Glasgow Corporation and changed from being a Poor Law Hospital to become a Municipal Hospital due to the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929. In 1931 a new maternity unit opened. In 1935, on the death of Sir Hugh Reid of the North British Locomotive Company in Springburn, he bequeathed the family's mansion at Balgrayhill, Belmont House, to the hospital in memory of his wife, and it was converted to become the Marion Reid Home for the care of babies and very young children in 1936. Stobhill became a teaching hospital in 1937 with the arrival of Noah Morris, Professor of Materia Medica at the University of Glasgow Medical School.
Patriarch & Matriarch 
Person ID I60349 Rolfe Family Tree Last Modified 31 Mar 2026
Father Bernard GROUNDSELL, b. 26 Jun 1864, Bembridge, Isle of Wight, Hampshire, England d. 1922, Southampton, Hampshire, England (Age 57 years) Mother Evelyn Elizabeth PEGGE, b. 22 Oct 1865, Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England d. 6 Sep 1946, 35 Ashley Avenue, Ilford, Redbridge, Essex, England (Age 80 years) Marriage 14 Nov 1888 St. Peter & St. Paul's Church, Rustington, Arun, Sussex, England 
Marriage Record (1888 Oct-Nov)
St. Peter & St. Paul's Church, Rustington
St. Peter & St. Paul's Church
Rustington, Arun, SussexFamily ID F1996 Group Sheet | Family Chart
Family 1 Violet May Emma NORMAN, b. 1891, Northampton, Northamptonshire, England
Marriage St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster, London, Middlesex, England 
Marriage Banns (1911 Jun-Jul)
St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster
St Martin-in-the-Fields
Westminster, London, MiddlesexFamily ID F21710 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 31 Mar 2026
Family 2 Elsa FLEISCHER, b. 1892, Germany
Marriage 1924 Marylebone, London, Middlesex, England Family ID F21711 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 31 Mar 2026
Family 3 Henrietta C. JAMES Marriage 1935 Islington, London, Middlesex, England Family ID F21712 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 31 Mar 2026
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Event Map 
Birth - 26 Jul 1889 - Southampton, Hampshire, England 
Census - 1891 - 27 Graham Road, Southampton, Hampshire, England 
Census - 1901 - Dorchester Arms, 40 Onslow Road, Southampton, Hampshire, England 
Census - 1911 - 54 Ackroyd Street, Morley, City of Leeds, Yorkshire, England 
Marriage - 1924 - Marylebone, London, Middlesex, England 
Marriage - 1935 - Islington, London, Middlesex, England 
Death - 26 Feb 1941 - Stobhill Hospital, Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland 
Marriage - - St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster, London, Middlesex, England = Link to Google Earth Pin Legend 
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Photos 
Music
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Notes - Frank Groundsell (born 1 July 1889 in Southampton ; died 26 February 1941 in Glasgow ) was a British comedian and entertainer (conductor), who also performed in Europe under the names Frank Wagner and Mr. Maseltop; in 1919, as F. Groundzell, he was the "creator of the first German jazz record".
Life and work
Groundsell performed as a clown in his father's tavern as a young man, sang in a choir, and learned to play the banjo and cornet. In 1900, his father sent him as a cadet on the training ship Mercury, where he received both academic and military training. He then worked for a time in a chemical factory before joining The Zerbinis, a variety troupe of acrobats and musicians, in 1903. In 1904, while on tour, the troupe encountered the orchestra of John Philip Sousa. Impressed by their marches and ragtime numbers, an imitation was added to the program, with Groundsell mimicking the conductor.
In 1911, Groundsell founded his own troupe, The Four Wagners, in which he conducted and played cornet. Influenced by Houdini, he also worked as a magician and in 1913 secured an engagement at the Kerkau-Palast in Berlin, where he conducted an orchestra in a highly eccentric manner and performed numbers such as Alexander's Ragtime Band, Dixie, and Baby Doll. In 1914, Max Winter featured him in a report for the Arbeiter-Zeitung (Workers' Newspaper). During the war, Groundsell managed to obtain an American passport. According to his autobiography, in 1915/16, during a short trip from Berlin to Amsterdam, he was recruited as an agent by British intelligence, for whom he then worked until the end of the war. In 1916, he performed as part of a circus show in Rotterdam, and then, until early 1919, toured primarily in the Netherlands with his own orchestra. He then worked in Berlin, where in December 1919 he recorded "Tiger Rag" and other German jazz records with his Original Excentric Band for the Berlin record company Homokord , which were released from January 15, 1920, and sold well. At the end of 1920, he was working with his orchestra in Prague.
From February 1921, Groundsell was again in London, where he continued to perform as an eccentric conductor. Performances from Brussels in 1923 are documented, as are those from Berlin in the spring of 1927. At the end of the 1920s, he ran the Bieber Café in Hamburg. Due to the Great Depression, he returned to Great Britain in the early 1930s. After founding and subsequently failing a boarding house, he went to sea and worked in various professions before becoming involved in criminal activity. In 1935, he published his autobiography, * The Lunatic Spy *, with Jarrolds . He died in 1941 at Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow, a poorhouse.
- Frank Groundsell (born 1 July 1889 in Southampton ; died 26 February 1941 in Glasgow ) was a British comedian and entertainer (conductor), who also performed in Europe under the names Frank Wagner and Mr. Maseltop; in 1919, as F. Groundzell, he was the "creator of the first German jazz record".
