Gustavus Brooke

Gustavus Vaughan Brooke (1818-1866), tragedian, grew up in Dublin, where he was destined for Trinity College and the bar. By his teens, however, he was a seasoned theatre performer; at fourteen, he played Richard III. Determined on a thespian life, he toured provincial theatres of England, Scotland and Ireland before making his Broadway debut as Othello in late 1851. Having appeared at Drury Lane and across the United States, where he had leased a theatre, in June 1853 he was engaged by George Selth Coppin to tour Australia and New Zealand. He began as Othello, his signature role; turns as Hamlet, Macbeth, Rob Roy, Richard III, Shylock, Iago and Romeo followed. He played Geelong, Melbourne and Sydney (where he was Henry IV and Lear); in 1856 he toured the goldfields, Hobart, Adelaide and Sydney again. Having laid the foundation stones of the Olympic Theatre in Melbourne and the Ballarat Theatre Royal, he became sole lessee of the Theatre Royal in Melbourne in 1860. Even in 1858, however, a Sydney correspondent had noted his ‘descending most abominably from the lofty pedestal of the sweet swan of Avon’, and he eroded his popularity with too many farewells from the stage, as well as on-stage drunkenness. He returned to England in 1861. Derisive notices ensued, and his career dribbled out in provincial theatres, ending in Belfast in 1865. Coppin’s having engaged him for a further two-year tour of Australia, he embarked on the London in January 1866, but it sank six days out from Plymouth, with a loss of 220 lives. Brooke helped other passengers onto the lifeboats, but stayed behind, himself, to die; his last words were reported to be ‘Give my last farewell to my kind friends in Australia’. In this way, his reputation in this country ended on a high note.