Formby began to develop his own stage act during the 1890s, and built a large fan base in Lancashire. He devised several characters with their own costumes, and composed a series of comic songs. By 1896 his assignment book records that he was buying and collecting comic songs and securing the singing rights. He was billed as J.H. Booth until 1897, when he changed his stage name to George Formby. Although rumoured to have picked his new surname after seeing it as a destination on a railway carriage, the main sources agree this story is likely to be apocryphal. The origin of the Formby name is more likely to have been a suggestion from Dennis Clarke, the manager of the Argyle Theatre in Birkenhead, while George was chosen in honour of the music hall star George Robey. Formby first used his new stage name in Birkenhead in 1897.