chief cities of the Union. Clever as he was, a delightful companion, brimming with anecdote, mirth, and song, sarcastic but not revengeful, he was frequently in quarrels owing to quick temper. The second of his three wives was Frances Sheppard, by whom he was the father of Sidney Francis, known afterwards as Mrs. Bateman [q. v.] On 24 July 1823 he left the Park Theatre. Early in February 1826 he was receiving warmest welcome at Charleston. In September 1827 he opened the Philadelphia Theatre at Wilmington, Delaware. In 1829 his son Samuel [q. v.], nine years old, appeared for his benefit at Boston. His other son, Joseph, distinguished himself as a scene-painter, but died in early manhood. When in 1844 Messrs. Harper Brothers of New York published the record of Joe Cowell's ‘Thirty Years of Theatrical Life,’ he was still a favourite among all classes. But he became weary of his profession, and desired nothing so much as a return to England and a retired life near London, at Putney, ‘up the Thames.’ This was the calm evening that he looked forward to with hope, and it was fulfilled in 1863. He had previously returned in 1846 and 1854. No man ever was more unselfishly and affectionately proud of the genius of his descendants than he was of Kate Bateman's ‘Leah.’ He married a third time in London, 1848 (Harriet Burke, who survived until 1886). He loved to welcome the younger actors, and sometimes painted or sketched for amusement. His own portrait was a convincing proof of his rare talent. The old man lingered until 13 Nov. 1863, and lies buried in Brompton cemetery, near London. A stone was erected by his son-in-law, H. L. Bateman [q. v.]
[Personal knowledge; obituary notice in the Era, by Leigh Murray; Thirty Years passed among the Players in England and America, theatrical life of Joe Cowell, comedian, written by himself, 1844.]
COWELL, SAMUEL HOUGHTON (1820–1864), actor and comic singer, son of Joseph Leathley Cowell [q. v.] by his first wife (a sister of William Henry Murray of Edinburgh, and thus connected with the Siddons family), was born in London on 5 April 1820, taken by his father to America in 1822, and educated in a military academy at Mount Airey, near Philadelphia. He made great progress in his few years of steady education, but at nine years of age first appeared on the stage at Boston, U.S., in 1829 as Crack in T. Knight's ‘Turnpike Gate,’ for his father's benefit, singing with him the duet ‘When off in curricle we go, Mind I'm a dashing buck, friend Joe.’ From that time onward he earned his own living, was hailed as ‘the young American Roscius,’ and acted in all the chief theatres of the United States; some of his other characters being Chick, Matty Marvellous, Bombastes Furioso, and one of the Dromios, his father playing the other, and. declaring that ‘Sam is me at the small end of a telescope.’ He went to England, and appeared at the Edinburgh Theatre Royal and the Adelphi, under the management of his uncle, W. H. Murray. He became an established favourite, not only as an actor, but as a comic singer between the acts. On 5 Nov. 1842 he married Emilie Marguerite Ebsworth, daughter of a highly esteemed dramatist and teacher of music. Nine children were the fruit of the union, of whom two daughters, Sydney and Florence, with one of the six sons, Joseph, afterwards adopted the stage professionally, and with success. After remaining four years in Edinburgh he went to London on an engagement for three years, with Benjamin Webster, at the Adelphi, but soon abandoned this, and made his first appearance on 15 July 1844 as Alessio in ‘La Sonnambula’ at the Surrey Theatre. Before 1848 he removed to the Olympic as stock comedian under Bolton's management; then for two years to the Princess's, under James Maddox, playing second to Compton; next to Covent Garden, under Alfred Bunn, taking Harley's class of business; and afterwards to Glasgow, under his old friend Edmund Glover, with other engagements at Belfast and Dublin. Everywhere a favourite, flattered and tempted towards conviviality, and naturally restless, he grew tired of dramatic study, always arduous in the provinces, where a frequent change of performances is necessary, and determined to devote himself to character singing. His ‘Billy Barlow,’ ‘Lord Lovel,’ ‘Yaller Busha Belle,’ ‘Corn Cobs,’ ‘Molly the Betrayed,’ ‘The Railway Porter,’ ‘The Ratcatcher's Daughter,’ ‘Clara Cline’ (one of the sweetest and best of his own compositions), ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ and the burlesque ditties of ‘Alonzo the Brave’ and ‘Richard the Third,’ &c., were embodied with so much dramatic spirit, in appropriate costume, with his rich voice and power of mimicry, that he virtually founded a new class of drawing-room entertainment, and gave such satisfaction that ‘Evans's’ of Covent Garden (‘Paddy Green's’) and Charles Morton's Canterbury Hall owed chiefly to him their popularity. He has been hailed as the virtual founder of the music-hall entertainment. He joined Conquest at the Royal Grecian, enacting ‘Nobody’ with a ‘buffo’ song in E. Laman Blanchard's extravaganza of ‘Nobody in London,’ playfully
