Maskelyne & Cooke:

the early years

presented by

Anne Goulden
at the 5th European Magic History Conference
Hamburg, Germany, August 2013

© Anne Goulden 2017

 Maskelyne & Cooke: the early years

This is a modified script of a talk which I gave at the European Magic History Congress in
Hamburg on 31 August 2013.

The story I have to tell you involves two pairs of entertainers: Maskelyne & Cooke and the
Davenport Brothers. Maskelyne & Cooke were magicians who came from Cheltenham in
England; the Davenport Brothers were fake spiritualists who came from the United States.
I’ll start by introducing the Davenport Brothers.

They came to London in 1864 and caused an enormous

amount of public interest. Initially they gave public and
private séances in London, but they soon began to appear
in the provinces. Many entertainers jumped on the
Davenport Brothers bandwagon, and Maskelyne & Cooke
were among them.

This poster illustrates a Davenport Brothers

seance. The brothers were tied up in their
cabinet – as we see here. The three doors
were closed and strange things began to
happen – hands appeared at the hole in the
centre door, bells rang inside the cabinet, a
tambourine rattled. The centre door opened
suddenly and objects came flying out. Each
time the side doors were opened, the two
brothers were found securely tied up – as if
nothing had happened. A public séance
might last two hours, so in effect it was a full-
evening show.
This poster was published in Charles &
Regina Reynolds’ book, 100 Years of Magic
Posters. Like many magic posters, it’s
misleading. The Davenport Brothers’
manifestations took place when the doors
were shut, not when they were open.
That’s the Davenport Brothers. I’ll
introduce Maskelyne & Cooke now.
 This cartoon appeared in the Entr’acte in 1874.
The man with the knife is J N Maskelyne and
the head belongs to George Cooke. It’s their
decapitation trick.
When this cartoon was published,
Maskelyne & Cooke had been presenting
magic shows in London for just over a year.
Their theatre was at the Egyptian Hall on
Piccadilly, in the fashionable West End of
London. They stayed at the Egyptian Hall for
another 31 years.

This photograph of the Egyptian

Hall was taken in 1903 or 1904,
shortly before J N Maskelyne
moved his theatre to St George’s
Hall. We know the date because
there’s a poster (outlined in red)
advertising “Mr Maskelyne’s
sensational romance, The
Philosopher’s Stone”. Maskelyne
& Cooke liked to present magic
in the form of short plays and
The Philosopher’s Stone was one of
them.
The Egyptian Hall was a high
class entertainment complex.
Maskelyne & Cooke’s theatre
was on the first floor.

J N Maskelyne & George Cooke both started life in Cheltenham, which was then a spa
town. They weren’t wealthy people by any means. George Cooke, it’s said, “was as poor a
lad as any in the town, with no relative but his mother” [W E Adams, Memoirs of a Social
Atom (Hutchinson, London, 1903) p137].
Maskelyne’s family had enough money to give him a good education and have him
trained as a watchmaker. By 1861 he’d set up shop on this street here (Rotunda Terrace), in
the spa district of Cheltenham. His shop still survives. Nowadays it’s a pharmacy and
there’s a plaque on the wall to the right of the door. “J N Maskelyne, illusionist and
watchmaker, lived and worked here.”
Much of my information about Maskelyne & Cooke’s early life in Cheltenham comes
from Sue Rowbotham. She’s a local historian and her research has been very helpful to me.

The Davenport Brothers came to Cheltenham in March 1865 and J N Maskelyne went to an
afternoon séance at the Town Hall (the performance was reported in Cheltenham Journal,
Sat 11 Mar 1865, p5). During the performance a curtain fell from a window and Maskelyne
saw something he wasn’t meant to see. He went away, got a cabinet built, and set to work
to replicate the Davenport Brothers’ performance. He enlisted the help of his friend,
George Cooke.
Maskelyne & Cooke gave their first public performance in June 1865 (reported in the
Cheltenham Examiner, 21 Jun 1865, p8). It was in the open air, on a platform in Jessop’s
Aviary Gardens. The performance was a Davenport Brothers séance, plus some extra
items. Among the extras was Maskelyne’s box escape, which in later years was the subject
of a famous court case. In this first performance, Maskelyne & Cooke’s finale was a rope
escape. We’re told that it took twenty minutes to tie them up, and fifteen minutes for them
to escape. Not, I suspect, good entertainment.
More shows followed in Cheltenham and this advertisement, from the Cheltenham Looker-
on, is dated 26 August 1865. Maskelyne & Cooke now had a pianist, and there was a new
item in the programme: a transformation scene entitled Le Dame et la Gorille (The Lady and
the Gorilla).
The plot of The Lady and the Gorilla was simple. Maskelyne and Cooke were tied up in
their cabinet. Shortly afterwards they came out, costumed as a lady and a gorilla. The
gorilla was tied up in a barrel and the lady in a box. Barrel and box were put in the
cabinet; after a short interval Maskelyne and Cooke came out, dressed in their ordinary
clothes.
Over the next few years The Lady and the Gorilla gradually evolved into Maskelyne &
Cooke’s best-known magical play, Will, the Witch and the Watch.

This report appeared in a

newspaper called The Orchestra
on 2 September 1865. Translated
into modern English, it says
that the Davenport Brothers’
séances were boring, but
Maskelyne & Cooke’s show was
entertaining. It adds that their
transformation scene, The Lady
and the Gorilla, was particularly
funny.
After only a short time on the
stage, Maskelyne & Cooke had
found that they could make
people laugh.
By the beginning of 1866 they’d turned professional. For the next seven years or so they
toured the British provinces, gaining experience as performers and gradually improving
their show. I’ve been using the British Newspaper Archive to investigate this seven-year
apprenticeship.
By the spring of 1866 Maskelyne & Cooke had acquired a manager, J Francis Collins. He
was with them for about a year and at one time the show was known as Maskelyne, Cooke
and Collins. So he must have been important to Maskelyne & Cooke’s early career, but all
I know about him is his address: 21 Castle Street, Bristol.
Under Collins’ management, the Maskelyne & Cooke show included a much elaborated
version of The Lady and the Gorilla. There were now two cabinets, one of which represented
the Gorilla’s den. The Gorilla chased the Lady into the den and various vanishings and
reappearances took place.

This photograph belongs to The

Magic Circle Archive and it
puzzled me for a long time. In fact
it illustrates the Lady and the
Gorilla, as performed in 1866 and
later. At the beginning of this
item, Maskelyne and Cooke were
locked in these stocks and lifted
into one of the cabinets. The doors
were shut. Soon afterwards the
two performers came out as the
Lady and the Gorilla.
George Cooke – on the left – is said to have been a short, slim man. It’s clear from the
photograph that Maskelyne and Cooke were both very supple.

In the spring of 1869 Maskelyne & Cooke had a four-

week season in Liverpool. While they were there they
met this gentleman here, William Morton, and he
became their manager. This photograph is the
frontispiece to Morton’s autobiography, which he
wrote when he was in his nineties. When he met
Maskelyne & Cooke in Liverpool he was a relatively
young man of 31. He stayed with them for many
years. If you have one of the early Egyptian Hall
programmes, you’ll find William Morton’s name on
the front.
By Morton’s account, Maskelyne & Cooke were doing rather badly in Liverpool. In fact
they were struggling against stiff competition.
Frederick Maccabe was in the middle of a six-month season in Liverpool, with a very
successful show entitled Begone Dull Care. Maccabe was an actor, musician and
ventriloquist, and a polished performer. He’d already had a season at the Egyptian Hall in
London. Maskelyne & Cooke didn’t have his experience and it must have shown.
Charles Dickens was on his farewell tour and he gave four performances in Liverpool
while Maskelyne & Cooke were there. Dickens was immensely popular and his fans had
to pay very high ticket prices in order to see him. His farewell tour must have been a
disaster for all competing entertainments, including Maskelyne & Cooke’s.
It’s no wonder Maskelyne & Cooke did badly in Liverpool – but they came out of the
experience with William Morton as their manager. It was under his management that they
established themselves in London.
The following January Maskelyne & Cooke were asked to do a show at Berkeley Castle
in honour of a visit by the Prince of Wales – Queen Victoria’s eldest son. The plan was to
have a day of hunting and two days of shooting, with an entertainment by M&C on the
evening of the second day. The programme for M&C’s show was printed on silk.
Unfortunately it all went wrong. At the very last minute the Prince of Wales sent word
that he couldn’t come because he had a bad cold. There was a houseful of guests at
Berkeley Castle, and Maskelyne & Cooke’s show went ahead. But because the Prince
wasn’t there, they couldn’t call themselves Royal Illusionists – or could they?
They did, of course. This is a poster that
they used after the Berkeley Castle show -
it’s on display in Davenports Magic
Kingdom. Near the top are the words
“Maskelyne and Cooke, the Royal
Illusionists.”
The Berkeley Castle performance is
mentioned at the top of the poster:
“Special patron: His Royal Highness the
Prince of Wales, by whose gracious
command the entertainment was given
at Berkeley Castle, Jan 20th 1870.”
This is very clever. It says that they were
asked to appear before the Prince of
Wales – which is true – but it doesn’t say
that he was actually present at the
performance – so it doesn’t tell a lie.
 This represents one of the people who helped Maskelyne & Cooke on
their way. I don’t know his name. He was a solicitor by profession
and a Quaker by religion. Quakers lived quiet, godly lives and didn’t
go to the theatre, so this man was likely to disapprove of theatrical
entertainments like Maskelyne & Cooke’s. Nevertheless, he owned a
hall in a northern town where Maskelyne & Cooke performed for a
week.
William Morton’s book tells us that it was summertime and
business was bad– so bad that he couldn’t pay the rent of the hall. He didn’t expect much
sympathy from its Quaker owner. But he went to see him anyway and explained the
problem. He offered to leave the piano behind as security for the unpaid rent.
He needn’t have worried. The Quaker hadn’t seen Maskelyne & Cooke’s show, but he’d
heard about their anti-spiritualist activities and thoroughly approved of them. He was
happy to accept whatever rent Morton could pay.
Morton said that this generous act turned bad luck into good. By the next post he
received a letter from the manager of the Crystal Palace, offering a protracted engagement.
It was this engagement which led to Maskelyne & Cooke establishing themselves in the
West End of London.

The Crystal Palace was a vast entertainment complex. It was originally built in central
London to house the 1851 Great Exhibition. After the exhibition was over, the Crystal
Palace was dismantled and
rebuilt at Sydenham in South
London. This lithograph was
published in 1854.
Maskelyne & Cooke had a
very short engagement at the
Crystal Palace in 1869, soon
after they met William
Morton. Their second, longer
engagement started on
Monday 3 March 1873.
 This is the Crystal Palace
programme for the Wednesday of
that week. Maskelyne & Cooke’s
entertainment was sandwiched
between an organ recital at 1 o’clock
and a band concert at 4.30.
The first item in their show was
“An Exposition of Spiritualists’
Manifestations, a la Home”. The
main feature of this anti-spiritualist
sketch was the levitation of Elizabeth
Maskelyne – J N’s wife.
By this time the Davenport
Brothers had gone back to America.
Maskelyne & Cooke’s current target
was Daniel Dunglas Home, the
society medium.

This is the levitation of Elizabeth Maskelyne, as

depicted on Maskelyne & Cooke’s posters. The
usual artist’s license applies.
In most levitations the person rises in a
reclining position. Mrs Maskelyne’s levitation
seems to have been in an upright position. We’re
told that she rose three or four feet in the air, on a
fully-lit stage. It must have been impressive. [See
reports in The Graphic, 15 Mar 1873, p243, the
Standard, Thu 3 Apr 1873, p3, col 6, and The Times,
5 May 1873, p9, col E – all quoted in a Maskelyne & Cooke brochure].
The second item in Maskelyne & Cooke’s Crystal Palace show was J N Maskelyne in
Chinese Plate Dancing – his plate-spinning speciality.
This photograph is carefully posed, with the plates propped up, but it gives the general
idea. Most of the plate dancing took place on the table on the left.
I’ll quote a description from one of M&C’s brochures:
Mr Maskelyne keeps six dessert plates spinning … They waltz, they galop, they
dance quadrilles; and one plate is … taken, spinning, down an inclined plane
only four inches wide, then up a spiral, whence it is spun back again, safe and
sound, to the table. [A gallop is a type of dance.]
So, only one plate went up and down the spiral – not three, as this photograph suggests.
Maskelyne presented the plate-spinning many times over the years. It was a juggling
feat, not a magic trick.

The next item was a magical

play entitled Bodkin. Bodkin
was a bear played by
George Cooke. The core of
this play was a drawing
room performance which
included comedy by George
Cooke in his bear’s costume
and magic by J N Maskelyne. After Bodkin there was a five-minute interval.
 The main item in the
second half of the
Crystal Palace show was
the best-known of
Maskelyne & Cooke’s
magical plays, Will, the
Witch and the Watch. It
included Maskelyne’s
box escape, first seen in
Cheltenham in 1865.

After the Crystal Palace, Maskelyne &

Cooke took bookings at other London
venues, then on 26 May 1873 they opened
at the Egyptian Hall. This is the poster for
their opening show. It was the same
programme that they gave at the Crystal
Palace, with the addition of a midget tenor
named Henry Collard.
At the bottom of this poster, The Mystic
Freaks of Gyges was a fancy name for Will,
the Witch and the Watch.

So, Maskelyne & Cooke had made it to the Egyptian Hall. They stayed there for 32 years –
a remarkable achievement by two fine entertainers.

© Anne Goulden 2017