Comics, dancers, singers, entrepreneurs, writers, producers.
Charles William Cogill (-1903) and Harry Payon Cogill (ca. 1859-1903) first arrived in Australia in 1885 as members of Billy Emerson's Minstrels. During their fifteen or more years in Australia, the brothers occasionally worked for other variety organisations, including several engagements under the management of Williamson, Garner and Musgrove, but were largely associated in the minds of their contemporaries as minstrel and burlesque entrepreneurs. They also established reputations for their own creative works, specialising as writers of minstrel farce, burlesque, and songs. Over the course of the late 1880s and early 1890s, the Cogills set up operations in a number of Australian capital cities, and even joined forces with Harry Rickards on at least three occasions in order to stage special double minstrel company programmes. Although their own troupes were popularly received by audiences around the country, Melbourne was where the brothers found their greatest and most enduring support.
Despite their popularity, the Cogills (as with many other theatrical enterprises) were hit hard by the economic downturn of the late 1880s, and in 1890 they were forced into temporary bankruptcy. The brothers subsequently undertook employment wherever they could and within eighteen months were able to once again become involved in variety management, opening in Sydney over Christmas 1891 with a burlesque troupe that included W. Horace Bent. They followed that season with a much-anticipated return to Melbourne's St George's Hall in April 1892. The Cogills continued to operate as partners up until 1896, at which time their careers appear to have taken different paths.
Charles Cogill began a long-term engagement with Rickards in 1896, which lasted up until around 1900. It was not a full-time association, however. He is known to have staged a season of vaudeville and burlesque in Perth and Fremantle with Frank M. Clark in 1898. He returned to the USA in April 1901. He died in San Francisco in March 1903 from consumption. Harry Cogill, in the meantime, established his own minstrel company (known variously as Harry Cogill's Federal Minstrel Company, Harry Cogiil's Musical Comedy Company, and the Bright Lights Company). In April 1900 he went back to the USA, returning two months later with the rights to several hit musical comedies. He toured these around regional Australia up until November 1901 and then took his company to the East, playing engagements in India, China, Japan and Manila among other places. Cogill died in New York less than a month after the death of his brother.
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