The Davenport Brothers visited Cheltenham on 9 March 1865 and unintentionally launched Maskelyne & Cooke on their long career as public entertainers. Two members of the Maskelyne family published accounts of that visit. They portrayed J N Maskelyne as the lone genius who unmasked the Davenport Brothers. For many years the Maskelyne version of the story was the best that was available and historians were forced to rely on it. Nowadays, however, we have online access to the newspapers of the time.
Anne has used these contemporary press reports to follow the Davenport Brothers around England in the months leading up to their Cheltenham visit. The story which unfolds is much more complicated and much more interesting than the Maskelyne version. Read all about it in Anne’s article.
The Davenport Brothers in Britain 1864-1865
By Anne Goulden
Item Details
Year | 1864, 1865 |
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Date | 1st edition published October 2024 |
People | George Cooke, J.N. Maskelyne, The Davenport Brothers |
Category | Articles |
Ref no | N3396 Article58 |