[BITList] Tom Coffin, Sweet William

[John Feltham]

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Cooke,  Thomas Potter  (1786-1864), actor, was born on 23 April 1786 in Titchfield Street, Marylebone, Middlesex, the child of Joseph Cooke, a surgeon 'of great respectability'  (Actors by Daylight, 24, 1838, 186), and his wife, Mary. After Joseph Cooke's death in 1793 his wife seems to have gone into service, and Cooke himself to have become an errand boy; however, seeing a nautical melodrama fired him with enthusiasm to join the navy. Having been provided with clothing by the Marine Society, he was entered as a 'servant' under the name Thomas Cook on the muster-roll of HMS Raven on 30 July 1796, giving his age as thirteen, the minimum age for entry into the service. The Raven took part in the siege of Toulon and was under Admiral Jervis's command at the battle of Cape St Vincent (14 February 1797), when Cooke probably worked as a powder monkey. He narrowly escaped death when the Raven was later wrecked off Cuxhaven and the crew struggled to survive by clinging to the wreckage for two days and nights in intensely cold weather. Cooke managed to reach the shore but suffered a near-fatal attack of rheumatic fever. He was eventually able to return to sea, however, serving aboard HMS Prince of Wales, which took part in the blockade of Brest.

In 1802 came the peace of Amiens and on 27 April the end of Cooke's naval career. He joined a travelling circus 'at a modest salary of fifteen shillings a week'  (Stirling, 2.107), turned to the stage for a living, and made his first appearance in January 1804 at the Royalty Theatre in Wellclose Square, then used by Philip Astley as his winter quarters. Impressed no doubt by Cooke's fine physique and athletic prowess, Astley engaged him for several seasons at his Amphitheatre, and he also appeared at the Lyceum and in Dublin. Cooke had a talent for arranging pantomimes and theatrical spectacles, and in 1809 R. W. Elliston recruited him as stage manager for the Surrey Theatre. He first made his mark as actor there in the role of Roderick Dhu, a fierce highland chieftan, in T. J. Dibdin's The Lady of the Lake (24 September 1810). He stayed with Elliston until 1816 and thereafter obtained engagements at various London theatres, including Drury Lane, building up a reputation but without any very notable triumphs, apart from a German character Hans Ketzler, a 'wonderful admixture of cowardice and courage'  (ILN, 1853, 319), in George Soane's The Innkeeper's Daughter (Drury Lane, 7 April 1817). In 1819 he married Louisa Maria Ann Cremer of Brompton, who was, according to The Drama, 'a lady of great accomplishments and large property'  (Drama, 4, 58) and with whom he had one daughter.

In 1820 Cooke was engaged at the Lyceum Theatre (English Opera House), where he made a great hit as Ruthven, the demonic protagonist of Planche's The Vampire (9 August 1820) and again as Dirk Hatteraick in the same dramatist's adaptation of Guy Mannering, the Witch of Derncleugh (1821); in the latter role he finely displayed 'that determined ferocity that might be supposed to belong to the captain of a daring band of robbers'  (Drama, 1, 1821, 201). In July 1823, when he was still at the Lyceum, Cooke's skills as 'a pantomimist of the first rank'  (Stirling, 2.106) brought him sensational success in the non-speaking role of the Monster in Presumption, or, The Fate of Frankenstein (28 July 1823), R. B. Peake's adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel. He was to perform this role 365 times in all during his career, including eighty at the Porte St Martin Theatre in Paris in 1825-6 (during which time he suffered one of those attacks of gout that plagued him throughout his life). Another triumph in a similarly silent role, the spectral Vanderdecken in Fitzball's The Flying Dutchman at the Adelphi (4 April 1826), confirmed Cooke's excellence in supernatural roles. According to the Illustrated London News

others played ghosts and demons with unquestionable success; but how mechanically and solidly. ... It was he who first infused them with a true poetic element-gave them a dreamy indistinctness-a vague suggestive shadow, which, while it chained the senses, set the imagination loose. (ILN, 1853, 319)
Cooke was already noted for his excellence in sailor roles (the heroic British seaman Jack Gallant, for example, in Moncrieff's Shipwreck of the Medusa at the Coburg on 19 June 1820, and Philip in J. B. Buckstone's hugely successful Luke the Labourer at the Adelphi on 17 October 1826) before his reputation in this respect made a quantum leap with his creation of the role of the patriotic English coxswain Long Tom Coffin in Fitzball's The Pilot (Adelphi, 31 October 1825), adapted from Fenimore Cooper's novel. Cooke's performance in this role (which he was to play 562 times in all) was 'highly picturesque' and gave to the stage figure of the sailor 'a new feature of thoughtfulness and mystery, and a tinge of the romantic'  (The Stage, 8, 1829, 73). In his Road to the Stage (1827) Leman Rede mentions a 'characteristic touch' of Cooke's in his Coffin performance, 'invariably recognised, and applauded': 'previous to commencing his combat with the [American] Sergeant he pauses to take tobacco, and afterwards when he has driven his adversary from him, claps his sword into his mouth while he hitches up his trousers', thereby illustrating 'cool habitual bravery'  (Rede, 104). Even his Tom Coffin was eclipsed, however, by his Sweet William in Douglas Jerrold's Black-Eyed Susan. First performed at the Surrey on Easter Monday 1829, it had a phenomenal run of over 300 nights there and, from 30 November for over two weeks, Cooke also acted William at Covent Garden every night after finishing his Surrey performance: 'a hackney cab brought the triumphant William in his blue jacket and white trousers from the Obelisk to Bow Street'  (GM, 3rd ser., 16, 1864, 676). Cooke's William, featuring the superlative hornpipe which was one of his trademarks, became a veritable national institution, and in 1853, when he was giving a season at the Standard Theatre in the East End, the Illustrated London News recorded that he had played the part 785 times during his career. This tailor-made role brought out all his powers-his athleticism and heartiness and, in the final scenes, his ability to invest his sailor figures with both pathos and dignity. Above all, he embodied the nautical:

His hitch, his swing, his back-handed wipe, his roll-in short, his every look, gesture and motion are redolent of the blue water and the lower deck; and all this is qualified by ... a degree of feeling which is far more like truth than acting. (London Literary Gazette, 3 Oct 1829, 654)
After William, he created only one more major role, another sailor, Harry Hallyard in J. T. Haines's My Poll and my Partner Joe (Surrey Theatre, 31 August 1835). His immense popularity continued unabated, however, and he generally took short engagements at different theatres to perform the repertory of his most celebrated roles.

In 1849 Cooke applied for, and was awarded, the naval general service medal with a St Vincent clasp in respect of his service aboard the Raven. In 1857 Henry Morley considered his Tom Coffin at the Adelphi 'a marvel': 'the singing voice has gone, and that is all ... For about five minutes of hornpipe the veteran's breath is good and his feet are as nimble as they were when they twinkled for the pleasure of our forefathers'  (Morley, 164). His last appearances were at Covent Garden on 29 October 1860, for the benefit of the Dramatic College, founded as a retirement home for actors (Cooke was deputy master), and at the Princess's Theatre on 2 May 1861 for the benefit of an actor's widow. His wife's death in 1863 shook him severely, and he moved from his home at 38 Woburn Square to live with his married daughter, Mrs Hugh Cumming, at 37 Thurloe Square, where he died (from what the death certificate describes as 'decay of nature') on 4 April 1864. He was buried in Brompton cemetery, London on 10 April. His obituary in The Era acclaimed him as someone who, 'by the high character of his private life, has reflected so much credit on the Profession he adorned'  (The Era, 10 April 1864). Having always practised 'strict economy' he had 'amassed a large fortune'  (Stirling, 2.107), and in his will left £2000 to the Dramatic College to be invested to provide a prize for 'the best Drama on a Nautical or National subject', the copyright to be retained by the college, with a further £1000 to fund an annual dinner for the college's inmates and officers on 23 April, the birthday he proudly shared with Shakespeare. A. R. Slous's True to the Core: a Story of the Armada (Surrey Theatre, 8 September 1866) was the first prize drama, and there was another award in 1868 (J. S. Dilley and James Albery's unperformed The Mate of the Mountjoy), but funds proved insufficient to sustain the competition, and the college itself came to a rather ignominious end in the late 1870s.

Michael Slater 

Sources  The Era (10 April 1864) + ILN (15 Oct 1853), 319 + Drama, or, Theatrical Pocket Magazine, 4 (1823), 58-9 + K. Douglas-Morris, Naval medals, 1793-1856 (1987) + W. J. Nichols, 'The acting of T. P. Cook', Nineteenth Century Theatre Research, 5/2 (1977) + E. Fitzball, Thirty-five years of a dramatic author's life, 2 vols. (1859), vol. 1, pp. 136ff., 154ff. + The Stage, 8 (1829), 73f. + The biography of the British stage, being correct narratives of the lives of all the principal actors and actresses (1824) + GM, 3rd ser., 16 (1864), 676 + J. Winton, Hurrah for the life of a sailor! (1977), 45-51 + Actors by Daylight, 1/24 (1838), 185-7 + E. Stirling, Old Drury Lane, 2 (1881), 105-11 + R. Foulkes, 'The Royal Dramatic College', Nineteenth Century Theatre Research, 13 (1985), 63-83 + H. Morley, The journal of a London playgoer from 1851 to 1866 (1866) + L. Rede, The road to the stage (1827) + LMA, X023/015
Archives Bath Central Library, corresp. + Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth
Likenesses  C. Baxter, miniature, 1835; Sothebys, 11 Oct 1994, lot 121 [see illus.] · Mayall, photograph, 1853 (as Long Tom Coffin in The pilot), NMM; repro. in Theatre Notebook, 34 (1980) · H. Watkins, print, c.1856-1859, NPG · engraving, repro. in Actors by Daylight, 135 · engraving (as William; after photograph by Mayall), repro. in ILN, 320 · photograph (in old age), repro. in F. Whyte, Actors of the century (1898), facing p. 130 · prints, Harvard TC
Wealth at death  under £25,000: probate, 13 July 1864, CGPLA Eng. & Wales