Gustavus Vaughan Brooke ‘toured the provincial theatres of England, Scotland and Ireland, playing the great tragic parts of Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and the nineteenth century melodramatic heroes. He appeared in London mainly in the minor houses.’ In 1851, Brooke ‘sailed for the United States, making his début at New York's Broadway Theatre in his best part, Othello.’
On his return to England in 1853, Brooke was ‘engaged by George Selth Coppin to give two hundred performances in the principal towns of Australia and New Zealand’. Brooke, with a small company, arrived in Melbourne on 23 February 1855. Following his first Melbourne season, Brooke toured Geelong, Sydney, the Victorian goldfields, Hobart and Adelaide, returning to some places for further seasons.
Alcohol increasingly took a hold on Brooke. As episodes of intoxication on stage increased, the tolerance of theatre managers and audiences decreased. Brooke left Melbourne in mid-1861, but found his acting style out of favour with English audiences on his return to London.
Brooke’s one-time partner, George Coppin, was prevailed upon to offer the actor a further engagement in Australia. Brooke left England in early January 1866 but the ship on which he was travelling sank on 11 January. Brooke remained on board to assist other passengers into lifeboats. According to some sources, his last words, as the final lifeboat pulled away, were: ‘If you succeed in saving yourself, give my farewell to the people of Melbourne’.
Major source: H. L. Oppenheim, 'Brooke, Gustavus Vaughan (1818–1866)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published in hardcopy 1969, accessed online 27 August 2014.
Shipboard quote: Parsons, Philip & Chance, Victoria (1997). Concise Companion to Theatre in Australia. Currency Press, Sydney, p. 49
