Celebrity for the week ending
Saturday, 16 November 2002

Sam Cowell (1819-1864)
English music hall comic vocalist

Sam Cowell

Sam Cowell

(photo: unknown, circa 1855)

‘Sam Cowell was another talented singer who nightly attracted crowds to hear him. He was, indeed, one of the cleverest character vocalists who has ever delighted an English audience, and, previous to confining himself to purely vocal efforts, had achieved no small success on the boards of the legitimate stage… Among the old school of singers who continued for a while to keep abreast of the growing competition Sam Cowell occupies a conspicuous place. His artistic finish, incomparable style, and effervescent humour were not easily matched. Sam was born in America on the 5th of April [1819], his father, Joseph Cowell, being an actor of some rank and standing. Young Cowell came to England at an early age, and possessing a good voice, turned his attention to "singing parts" on the London stage, his début in the Metropolis being made at the Surrey theatre, during a summer season, when an English Opera Company performed there. His first appearance was made as Alessio in La Somnambula on July 15th, 1844. From this engagement he went to the Olympic, and afterwards for some time filled original parts at various London theatres. He then joined Mr. [George] Conquest at the Royal Grecian, making his appearance there as Nobody in the extravaganza entitled Nobody in London, written by the late Mr [E.L.] Blanchard to illustrate the eventful period of the great Exhibition of 1851. It was his success as a buffo vocalist in these pieces which drew his attention to the use he might make of his talents as a singer. About the year 1861 he went to America, after a highly successful provincial tour in this country; but the success he obtained in New York was dearly purchased by his loss of health, which, soon after his return to England, became painfully manifest. The seeds of consumption sown in his frame rapidly developed, and, after some months of painful suffering, he expired at the little village of Blandford, in Devonshire, on March 11th, [1864]. A benefit was immediately got ready on behalf of his widow and children, who were left by his untimely death, after many financial misfortunes, in comparative destitution. On the committee formed for this purpose were J.L. Toole, Paul Bedford, G.W. Anson, Leigh Murray, Howard Paul, [Charles] Morton, and several other well known and influential gentlemen. The concert took place on June 7th, at the St James’s Hall [in London], among the artistes appearing being Sims Reeves, who contributed to the programme the immortal "Come into the Garden, Maud," and the "Bay of Biscay," with encores. Toole gave "A Norrible Tale," and Miss Braddon, the popular novelist, just then rising into fame, wrote some special verses, which were read by Mrs Alfred Mellon [Sarah Woolgar], and in which occur the lines:-

‘"Many, it may be, will recall the face
Of him whose genial voice can never more
Be heard amongst us, save when echoing faint
And fitful from the realms of memory."

(Charles Douglas Stuart and A.J. Park, The Variety Stage, T. Fisher Unwin, London, pp.20, 95-97)

Elise Holt Bessie Wentworth

Sam Cowell

(photos: H.N. King, Bath, England, circa 1859)

‘Who were the artistes popular with the London public of those days [i.e. the 1850s], or, rather should it be said, nights? There was the Caulfield family, the father, quite an excellent warbler of the sentimental type, the mother an actress, and the son one of those adaptable youths who could play the betrayed heroine or the poor unwanted orphan with a pathos calculated to wring the withers of a West End moneylender. Haydn Corrie, the father of Eugene Corri, afterwards so well-known in the boxing world, was a favourite singer at the Canterbury [music hall], as were, in the comic line, Tom Penniket and Sam Cowell – the latter a gentleman who sang Cockney songs in the dialect then being popularised by Charles Dickens. Possibly the best of these doleful ditties Sam sang – the really comic ones were as yet unknown – was "The Ratcatcher’s Daughter" [circa 1852].
‘Briefly may just one verse be quoted:

Not long ago in Vestminster,
There lived a Ratcatcher’s Daughter,
But she didn’t quite live in Vestminster,
For she lived t’other side of the vater.
Her father caught rats, and she cried Sprats,
All about and over the quarter;
And the gentlefolk, they all bought their sprats,
Of the pretty little Ratchatcher’s daughter.

‘In the absence of the melody, long lost to posterity, we shall never know how this pathetic tale became the rage of London. But it did; we were a simple folk in the far-off ’fifties. The Canterbury prospered so famously that [Charles] Morton now found himself compelled to build a still better hall. A picture of the period shows an elaborately decorated auditorium, the ground floor crowded with tables and top-hatted patrons quaffing the beverages of the day, and along the gallery running all round the interior, a choice collection of the fair sex in evening dress. Undoubtedly the Canterbury was gaining ground! … No doubt Sam Cowell was the key man of this new Canterbury. Ha had a whimsical way with him, and from all accounts could crack a saucy one when "the guv’nor," otherwise Morton, happed to be away.’
(S. Theodore Felstead, Stars Who Made the Halls, T. Werner Laurie Ltd, London, 1946, pp.22-24)

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‘Singers who thrived at Evans’s [Song-and-Supper Rooms in Covent Garden, London] on "a guinea a week and supper each night," ran to the devil on thirty or forty pounds a week at music-halls. Sam Cowell, who cam from the Grecian and Cremorne (where revellers in the dining-room poured champagne from the balconies upon crowds below), was one. From Evans’s, where he sang "Villikins And His Dinah," "The Rat-Catcher’s Daughter," "Billy Barlow" … and burlesques of "Alonzo," "Blue Beard," and "Macbeth," he went to the newly opened Canterbury and was offered engagements at the Oxford before it was built. Thus he would have been the father of music-hall comedians had he not toured America, where the spirits he drank when times were bad, and the illness he contracted while starving on long journeys when times were worse still, ruined his health before his return. His end was told in this account from Blandford, near Pool [sic], in Dorset :

‘"Sam Cowell had constant engagements and was well paid. What more? Only the common story – ‘unbounded applause,’ unwholesome living, drink, broken health. Said our host of the Crown one day (being up in London and knowing all these celebrities) ‘You’re not looking well, Sam; come down to Blandford and we’ll set you right again.’ Some months after which, a ghostly, pale man arrived at the Crown in the railway omnibus, and this was the celebrated Mr. Cowell. The waiter and chambermaids regarded him with curiosity: the stablemen talked of him over their beer: his arrival made more or less sensation throughout the town. He was very ill, grew worse and worse; consumed a bottle of brandy per diem, when he could get it, and was somewhat noisy. At length, the Crown’s hospitality being worn out, though not the host’s kindness, a lodging was taken in the town and the sick man’s wife brought from London. He was carried downstairs in an armchair: and next and lastly, before many days, his body was laid in the cemetery, among those Dorset fiends and orchards. A little subscription was made for his wife and children, and a stone placed over his grave. Some well-meaning people had administered ghostly consolation of the usual kind to the poor Grotesque, and his last words were: ‘Safe! Safe!’ On his tomb is engraved: ‘Here lies all that is mortal of Sam Cowell. Born April 5th, 1819. Died March 11th, 1864.’"’
(M. Willson Disher, Winkles and Champagne, B.T. Batsford Ltd, London, 1938, p.13)

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Sam Cowell’s granddaughter was the well-known English character actress, Sydney Fairbrother (1872-1941), who is probably best remembered for partnering Fred Emney in the music hall sketch, A Sister to Assist ’er.

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© John Culme, 2002