Social Victorians/People/Rook

Also Known As

• Family name: Rook
• Clara Rook
• Clarence Rook: VIAF ID: 60521643 (Personal)
• Clara Wright Rook
• Clarence Henry Rook

Overview

Clara Rook was an illustrator for newspapers at the end of the 19th century, possibly illustrating fashion. In particular, she provided to the Queen drawings of some of the costumes worn to the Duchess of Devonshire's 1897 fancy-dress ball, signing them CRook.

Clara Wright Rook was the daughter of William John Wright and Janet McPhail Wright, both born in Scotland. By the time she was 19, in the 1881 census, Clara Wright is identified as an "artist in painting." In the 1891 census, she is an "Artist of Illustrated papers / sculp[tor]." On the Probate Calendar for Janet Wright's death, William John Wright is listed as having been a schoolmaster, and in earlier census forms, he was a builder and decorator, then a carpenter, then a head decorator by the end of his life.

Clarence Rook wrote individual — often humorous — articles as a journalist, with a byline, apparently, although his work for the daily column "The Office Window" was anonymous.

As the founder of the “Office Windows” columns in the "Daily Chronicle" he set a fashion in seasonable comment and humorous aside which been the mode for many similar columns. It aimed at a more intimate relationship between journal and reader than was then known in daily journalism. Mr. Rook had the light touch necessary and the wide curiosity in many phases of human activities to make him an admirable causeur [talker]. The success of his column is seen in the fact that not only did it please the ordinary reader but that Meredith had a good word for it.

In 1901, shortly after the success of his summer 1899 Hooligan Nights, the Tatler said of Clarence Rook that his was "a career which is essentially that of a wit. And a wit who contrives to be funny without ever being unkind or even censorious is Mr. Clarence Rook." Besides being reviewed in the press, Hooligan Nights was mentioned and occasionally even discussed, such that his name appears in print more and more often, both for that book as well as other things he wrote later. By around 1906, his name appears a number of times each year, noting his opinions or quotable sayings in some of his regular publications as well as his presence at social events. Clarence Rook's death occasioned a great deal of notice in the press. "V. V. V." in The Sphere gives a sense of Rook's personality:

I have met many journalists, but never one with a sweeter nature than Rook's. He wrote millions of friendly and informative paragraphs in his day, and one book, Hooligan Nights, which was very nearly a great document.

According to his death certificate, Rook had suffered from locomotor ataxia (causing difficulty controlling movement and suggesting tertiary syphillis) for 26 years, that is, since about 1889. He died of "paralysis, bed sores, and exhaustion," with Clara at his side. In his obituaries, Clarence Rook is said to have died "after a heroic struggle with an incurable malady." He "had been in poor health for some years, and had lately been completely incapacitated from work." He died in a nursing home, moved there about a month before his death on 23 December 1915.

In Clarence Rook's obituaries, Clara Rook is never named and is mentioned only as the "lady artist" he married. The Faversham and North East Kent News published 4 articles and notices about his death on 1 January 1916 because it was local news — he was born and went to grammar school in Faversham and his father still lived there. One of these articles ends with this: "With his aged father much sympathy will be felt in the loss of this, his only son."

Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies

William and Janet Wright

• Ann Coupland, visitor of the Wrights, 1881, born in Haddington, Scotland, where William Wright was born
• Edward Harte, lodger of the Wrights, 1881, accountant, born in Ireland

Clarence Rook

• George Crawford, Rook's partner in an "Army and Civil Service Tutor" business. George Crawford's mother was a jourrnalist whose byline was Mrs. Crawford. She died about the same time Clarence Rook did at the end of 1915:

  The death of Mrs. Crawford, for so long the Paris correspondent of The Daily News and Truth, reminds me of the decline which has come upon her special department in journalism. She was a woman of something like genius, with a great gift of vigour and vivacity of style, and whether her correspondence was scrupulously exact or not it was extraordinarily good reading, especially so in Truth, where she could be more her picturesque unguarded self. There is nothing like it to-day. The late Clarence Rook of The Daily Chronicle, when I first met him, was in partnership as an army coach with Mrs. Crawford's son [thus, about 1891]. I have met many journalists, but never one with a sweeter nature than Rook's. He wrote millions of friendly and informative paragraphs in his day, and one book, Hooligan Nights, which was very nearly a great document.

• Jerome K. Jerome
• Mr. R. F. Gibson, the Deputy Stipendiary Magistrate for Chatham and Sheerness
• Louis Frederic Austin
• George Bernard Shaw: C. Lewis Hind says, after having seen a performance of Shaw's Saint Joan:

  I own a small green book of some 30 pages, printed in America, Christmas 1923, 62 copies only, one of which was sent to me from Now York. It is called “Nine Answers by G. Bernard Shaw,” and it arose from the literary daring of my old friend, now gone, Clarence Rook, who for years was a distinguished member of “The Daily Chronicle" staff. He also did "outside work,” and one of his activities was a series of papers in the Chicago "Chap-Book" on eminent men. The editor especially wanted G. Bernard Shaw, so Clarence Rook, that gay scholar, who had much of G. B. S.'s valiant cheek, composed nine questions, on the lines of an Oxford examination paper, and submitted them to Mr. Shaw. He answered the nine questions at length, fully, freely, funnily, and honestly; here they are all printed in this little green book, and the compiler says, "It is one of the most intimate documents ever penned by a man of international reputation.” I, reading it, have my personal understanding of that elusive personality, G. Bernard Shaw — author of, and understander of “Saint Joan" — confirmed. Lot me give you two extracts, one from this book, the other from a letter he wrote once to Tolstoy:— “My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.” "I think the root reason why we do not do as our fathers advise us to do is that we none of us want to be like our fathers, the intention of the universe being that we should be like God.” This last is just the kind of thing that Shaw of Adelphi-terrace makes the Maid of Orleans say, but in her own words. He understands her because he looks into his own heart.

• C. Lewis Hind, editor of the Pall Mall Budget (when Harry Cust was the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette), who in 1921 said

The New Offices.

We had moved into the spacious building in Charing Cross-road — new machines, new everything — and the "Pall Mall Gazette" had become the most talked of, the most admired, and the most popular evening paper in London. Facing Charing Cross-road was the Editor’s immense drawing-room office, furnished, without estimate, by Maple, and usually fragrant with bowls of flowers. Harry Cust, whose full title was Henry Cockayne Cust, M.P., heir-presumptive to the Earldom of Brownlow, had, with airy / grace and delightful all-things-to-all-men manner, linked up Society and Journalism. Ah! we who lived and flourished in the nineties were favoured.

Happy Hours.

Halfway down the long corridor that ranged from the Editor’s room to the stairway leading to the library — such a library, the best reference books, bought regardless of cost — was the editorial department or writers' room, as the printers called it. About noon on most days I would leave the chamber, not quite as well furnished as Harry Gust’s, where, with the assistance of Clarence Rook and G. R. Halkett — dear fellows, both now gone — l edited the "Pall Mall Budget,” and stroll towards the writers’ room. The "Gazette” would have gone to press; the writers would be relaxing, ready for laughter and talk. Great days! White days! All are gone, yet they seem, even now, vivid, so present!

• G. R. Halkett

Organizations

Clara Rook

• Marylebone Presbyterian Church, Westminster, baptized 22 September 1861 (listed, thus, on the Non-Conformist Register)

Clarence Rook

• Oxford, Merton College, supported by a scholarship
• University in Leipzig, supported by a scholarship
• University in Bonn, supported by a scholarship
• The Arundel, "a famous Bohemian club, when it had its house on the Adelphi Terrace"
• Argonaut's Club, "meeting at the Trocadero (1895–1898). Other members:
  • Rudolph (Rudi) Lehman (a connection to Punch, "who knew everyone on the middle-brow London literary and journalistic scene and was elected to Parliament in the 1906 Liberal landslide"
  • Florence Marryat (novelist)
  • Bernard Partridge (cartoonist and a connection to Punch)
  • John Alfred Spender (editor of the Westminster Gazette)
  • George Paston (novelist Emily Symonds)
  • Ethel Tweedie (author)
  • William Henry Wilkins (novelist)
  • Alice M. Williams ("probably a popular songwriter")
• The Globe, under Mr. E. V. Lucas
• The Pall Mall Gazette, assistant editor, under C. Lewis Hind (late 1880s)
• The Pall Mall Budget, assistant editor, under C. Lewis Hind (–1895), which in 1895 became the New Budget and then failed about a year later
• The Daily Chronicle, under Mr. W. P. Donald, where he founded and edited the daily column "The Office Window" for 15 years (1895–)
• The Academy newspaper

Timeline

1857, Janet McPhail and William Wright married.

1879 October 15, Wednesday, Clarence Rook sat for Oxford local examinations and won 2 prizes: "Messrs. Cobb and Co's prize for the Highest Senior (Mommsen's History of Rome), and one of the Committee's prizes in the Senior 2nd Division (Conington's Virgil)."

1881 October 18, Clarence Rook matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford: “scholar 81–6, B.A. 86; HONOURS: 1 classical mods. 82, 2 classics 85.”

1891 Census, Clara Wright is living at 34 Cremorne St., Chelsea — probably as a lodger — with the Ernest W. T. Taunton family. Two other young women also listed as artists are living there, too, probably also as lodgers, one of whom is Joanna M. Macphail, possibly a relative of Clara's mother?

Clarence Rook is living in Bristol as George Crawford's partner in an "Army and Civil Service Tutor" business. Both Crawford (head of the household) and Rook are listed as employers, with Elizabeth Tarleton, housekeeper, as employed and two women as domestic servants. Five boarders lived at this address, all students under 20. A classified advertisement in October 1891 reads as follows:

COACHING in CLIFTON. — Mr. G. E. CRAWFORD, B.A. (of Paris and Cambridge), and Mr. C. H. ROOK, B.A. (Leipsic and Oxford), PREPARE for most EXAMINATIONS. Latest success. — ln June, Mr. F. A. Coleridge passed third into Sandhurst (infantry) with 7.924 marks. — Ask for terms, references, successes, and details of system at Wykeham House, Clifton.

1893 September 25, Clara Wright and Clarence Rook married at St. Luke’s, Chelsea, Middlesex. Her father had died by this time.

1895 March 28, Thursday, the day of the last issue of the Pall Mall Budget, C. Lewis Hind and Clarence Rook attended a meeting with Harry Furniss, who wanted the Budget to continue under a different name (Hind proposed The New Budget). Rook was to be Hind's assistant editor, as he had been at the Pall Mall Budget. Then Hind and Rook went to talk to the staff at the Lika Joko (a racist denigration of a Japanese accent in English), a humor magazine that did not successfully compete with Punch. That periodical also got saved, by being folded in as a humor section to the Pall Mall Budget. The Pall Mall Budget had its first issue out by the next Thursday.

1896, Clarence Rook began his career as a journalist.

1896 November 2, Monday, Clarence Rook attended the Black and White welcome-back dinner for Special Artist Charles M. Sheldon.

1896 December 9, Wednesday, Clarence and Clara Rook attended the Christmas Dinner of the New Vagabonds, Bohemian Club.

1897 March 10, Wednesday, Clarence Rook was one of the signatories to a "communication" from some authors, part of a larger demonstration of criticism of the treatment of Christian Cretan refugees in Greece by Turkish Muslims, this version from the Morning Leader:

FROM BRITISH AUTHORS.

The Greek Chargé d’Affaires has been requested to forward the following communication to the President of the Greek Chamber at Athens:

"Howard House, Arundel-st., London, W.C., Saturday, 6 March, 1897.

"We, the undersigned British authors, wish to convey to gallant Greece our sympathy with her brave attempt to rescue her Cretan brethren from oppression. (Slgned) Grant Allen, Francis Gribble, L. Zangwill, Fred Whishaw, William Sharp, William Edward Tirebuck, Robert Barr, John Mackie, Allen Upward, Coulson Kernahan, Frankfort Moore, G. B. Burgin, I. Zangwill, Jerome K. Jerome, P. W. Clayden, Justin M‘Carthy, Louis Becke, Roger Pocock, William Watson, J. Maclaren Cobban, Anthony Hope, Hall Caine, Clarence Rook, H. G. Wills [sic], F. W. Robinson.”

A similar version with the same 25 signatories appeared in the Westminster Gazette, the London Evening Standard, the Morning Post, and so on.

1897 July 2, the Duchess of Devonshire's fancy-dress ball. The Rooks did not attend, but Clara illustrated the article on the ball in the 10 July 1897 issue of the Queen with 29 line drawings with her signature "CRook" as part of the full-page illustration (beginning here: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0002627/18970710/137/0039). The 17 July issue has her signature for each of the 2 drawings (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0002627/18970717/283/0064).

1898 June 16, Thursday, Clarence and Clara Rook attended the "very smart wedding" of Mr. J . W. Boyce, of Stroud, with Mrs. E. Drinkwater, who had been Miss Bessie Brooke.

1899 June, Clarence Rook's The Hooligan Nights; being the Life and Opinions of a Young and Impenitent Criminal, Recounted by Himself, and Set Forth by Clarence Rook was released, at 6/ a copy.

1900 January 30, Tuesday, 1:30 p.m., Clarence Rook contributed a dramatized piece of Hooligan Nights for a benefit for John Hollingshead, manager of the Gaiety:

MR. JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD'S BENEFIT.

A very long programme is being arranged for this performance on the 30th inst. at the Empire Theatre. It will begin at 1.30. In a representation of the trial from "Pickwick" a number of well-known actors and actresses will appear; Mr. James Welch will take part in a new sketch called "The Hooligan,” by Mr. Clarence Rook, the author of "Hooligan Nights"; a variety entertainment will enlist the services of a great many popular performers; and there will be a tableau from "The Forty Thieves,” one of the best of the burlesques produced at the Gaiety Theatre under Mr. Hollingshead’s management, by those old Gaiety favourites, Miss Nellie Farren, Miss Kate Vaughan, Mr. E. W. Royce, and Mr. Edward Terry. The performance promises to be interesting, and there will certainly be plenty of it.

1901 January, a "[n]ew and cheaper edition" of Clarence Rook's The Hooligan Nights; being the Life and Opinions of a Young and Impenitent Criminal, Recounted by Himself, and Set Forth by Clarence Rook was released, at 3 shillings 6 pence a copy.

1901 March 31, 1901 Census, Clara and Clarence Rook were living in Brompton, Kensington, with a servant and housekeeper 40-year-old Eliza Taylor and her 10-year-old daughter Florence Taylor. Clara is not listed as having a profession or occupation. Janet McPhail Wright is living with her son, William J. Wright.

1901 June 1, Saturday, Clarence Rook took part in the annual "display" of women's gymnastics at Chelsea Polytechnic:

A GYMNASTIC DISPLAY.

Novelty is not usually to be expected of a gymnastic display. Yet novelty was certainly to be found at the annual performance of the lady students at the Chelsea Polytechnic on Saturday evening. There was novelty, to begin with, in the fact that literature and athletics had apparently joined hands; for Mr. Pett-Ridge was in the chair, while, among other literary men on the platform were Mr. R. Whiteing, Mr. W. J. Locke, Mr. Clarence Rook, and Mr. L. F. Austin. They all acknowledged their own complete incompetence as athletes, but that did not prevent them taking a keen interest in the performance, while their presence certainly lent it an unusual distinction. The programme, too, had much that was novel in it. Balancing-beams, for instance, are practically unknown in England; but they deserve to become popular, judging by the pretty exercises done on them the other evening by the students, who balanced themselves perfectly, and carried baskets of flowers on their heads at the same time. Window-jumping was another innovation; the way in which the jumpers slid between the two ropes, supposed to represent the limit of an open window, was most skilful, and might be a useful accomplishment in case of fire. Perhaps the best effect of all was produced by Fraulein Wilke — the well-known gymnastic teacher — in her clever solo with a pair of Indian clubs that were pierced most ingeniously with electric lights. Ladies’ gymnastics are of course a far less ambitious affair than men’s; but they are more artistic, and feminine athletes will always make up in style and physical grace what they lack in muscular strength.

1901 August 14, Wednesday, the Tatler published a little piece introducing Clarence Rook:

Clarence Rook, whose recently published Hooligan Nights has attracted much attention, is thirty-eight years of age. He was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, and after a turn at army coaching at Clifton began his connection with journalism by writing turnovers for the Globe. Then he got an advantageous engagement — to be married — and came to London, where he "Piccarooned" for the Pall Mall Budget. "That witty touch of Rook's," one says, naturally adapting a saying of R. L. Stevenson's, in thinking of Mr. Rook's pretty wit as a paragrapher. Larger labours awaited him when Mr. Grant Richards asked him if he was interested in Hooligans. Mr. Rook was. Then the publisher produced The Confessions of Young Alf, whose acquaintance Mr. Rook made, whom he often met, and of whose fight with a rival in love Mr. Rook — with whom was Mr. Pett Ridge — was a spectator, and if not a supporter at any rate a reporter. Work on the World, stories in the Pall Mall Magazine and other publications are among the accidents of a career which is essentially that of a wit. And a wit who contrives to be funny without ever being unkind or even censorious is Mr. Clarence Rook.

1904 July 24 – August 3, Clarence Henry Rook took the ship Grossen Kunfarst from Southampton to New York, with a destination of St. Louis. On the departure form on 24 July 1904, he is listed as being 42 years and 7 months old, married, a journalist, English, and in good health. Clara Rook's name is not on the manifest with his.

1905 September 19, Tuesday, Clarence Rook attended the funeral of fellow writer L. F. Austin. The fact that Clara Rook is not mentioned in the newspaper story does not mean she did not attend.

THE LATE L. F. AUSTIN.

The funeral of the late Mr. Louis Frederic Austin took place on Tuesday in the extra-mural cemetery at Brighton. The chief mourners were Mr. Austin's three sons.

The coffin, with the simple inscription, "Louis Frederick Austin, born Oct. 9, 1852; died Sept. 15, 1905," was covered with wreaths. One was from his wife and family, another from his fellow-members of the Whitefriars Club, another from Sir Henry Irving. With Mr. [Austin] Brereton was Mr. Clarence Rook, who brought the tribute of "affectionate farewell from the staff of the Daily Chronicle," and was entrusted also with the wreath sent by Mr. Bruce-Ingram on behalf of the Illustrated London News.

1905 October 14, Saturday, "the other evening" before October 14, Clarence Rook attended a "send-off dinner" for Jerome K. Jerome at the Garrick Club.

1906 February 24, Saturday, Clarence Rook attended the Daily Chronicle Staff Dinner at the Gaiety Restaurant in the Duke of Connaught Hall.

1906 July 1, "Unfounded Rumours," a column in The Referee, reports

My friend Clarence Rook (registered telegraphic address Midriff, London) has been trying a Nature cure, more, I am inclined to think, in the interests of the Daily Chronicle than anything else, and the result is a column of delightfully humorous comment on cranks and their cures.

Or, perhaps Clarence Rook was beginning to experience some of the illness that would eventually kill him. Based on Benny Green's 1979 Introduction to Hooligan Nights, the article on Rook in Wikipedia says, "His death certificate suggests that he had suffered from locomotor ataxia, a symptom of advanced stage syphilis, for the last 26 years" before his death.

1906 October 23, first issue of a new penny weekly paper, the Reader, for which Clarence Rook was named "literary editor":

A NEW WEEKLY PAPER.

The proprietors of the “Daily Chronicle" and “Lloyd’s News” are about to publish a weekly paper on new lines, containing articles of topical interest, personal news, humorous notes, literary reviews, and high-class fiction, etc. The paper will be under the general direction of Mr. Robert Donald, with Mr. Clarence Rook as literary editor. The title is to be the "Reader,” and it will be published in October.

1907 June 22, Saturday, Clarence Rook attended the annual dinner of the Correctors of the Press held at De Keyser's Royal Hotel.

1907 December 10, Tuesday, likely both Clara and Clarence Rook were at this suffrage meeting of the Kensington Women's Social and Political Union:

DISORDER AT KENSINGTON.

A turbulent scene occurred last night at the Queen's-Gate Hall, South Kensington, where a meeting had been organized by the Kensington Women's Social and Political Union to demand the enfranchisement of women. No sooner had Miss Conolan, who presided, commenced to speak than two folding doors which opened into the front of the room were burst open, and a band of students rushed in pell-mell, and made their way, cheering, up the centre of the hall. Appeals to them to give a fair hearing were met by cries of “Rats” and bursts of derisive laughter. Armed with whistles and mouth organs and a trumpet, the students made the greater portion of the speakers’ remarks quite inaudible beyond the front row of seats.

After some ladies had struggled in vain to get a hearing, Mr. Clarence Rook rose, but was received with a perfect storm of groans, intermingled with laughter and the singing of “For we go marching home." For a short time he, too, resumed his seat, to the singing of "For he's a jolly good fellow." When the last speaker gave up the attempt the students sang "God save the King,” and the meeting in considerable confusion.

1908 April 9, Thursday, Clarence Rook attended the meeting of the Provisional Committee for the Shakespeare Memorial demonstration at the Lyceum Theatre at the Hôtel Métropole with a number of other well-known writers.

1908 May 19, Tuesday, Clarence Rook is listed as being one of many who "accepted an invitation to present" at the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre Demonstration at the Lyceum Theatre.

1908 June 5, Saturday, Clarence Rook attended the Inaugural Banquet of the Imperial Press Conference, of British journalists, at the Imperial Exhibition, Shepherd's-bush. In the list of "Guests and Hosts," his name appears (perhaps at a table?) with the following: Mr. C. Bennett (Evening News, Sydney), Mr. George Hussey, Mr. Charles Iggleston, Mr. W. J. Whyte, Mr. David Wilson, Mrr. J. Horton Ryley, Mr. D. P. Saunders.

1908 June 21, Sunday, Clara Rook took part in a very large demonstration for women's suffrage in Hyde Park. She rode in the 4-horse carriage that was part of the procession from Kensington.

1908 December 13, Sunday, Clarence Rook was to preside or speak at one of the regular Sunday recitals at the Camberwell Masonic Hall. At the December 6 event, however, it was announced that he "has unfortunately failed in health, but ... this difficulty has probably been surmounted."

1911 Census, Clara and Clarence Rook were living at 139 Coleherne Court, Earls Court, South Kensington, with 24-year-old general servant Mary Selden.

1915 October, Clarence Rook was so ill "he was obliged to relinquish it ["his journalistic work"] altogether."

1915 December 23, Clarence Rook died in a nursing home on, leaving £1301 7s. 8d. to his widow. "[F]or the last month or so he had been in [the] nursing home."

1915 December 28, Clarence Rook's remains were cremated at Golders Green.

1920 November 2, Tuesday: Harold Napier wrote in the Globe:

At the Forum Club, this week, Mrs. Clarence Rook and Miss Cicely Langhorne are showing a selection from their drawings in pastel and water-colour. The rapid portrait sketches of Mrs. Rook exhibit deft draughtsmanship, and in spacing and colour some of them are very pleasing.

...

A slight portrait of the late George Gissing, autographed by the sitter and Mr. H. G. Wells, at whose house the drawing was made, is of more than artistic interest.

1925 November 26, Thursday, the London Daily Chronicle reported that Clara Rook had work displayed in another exhibition:

A Lustre Show.

MRS. CLARENCE ROOK, whose late husband’s name was well known to “Daily Chronicle” readers, is an artist-potter, and now is exhibiting at 41, Cathcart-road, Kensington, a large number of pottery designs in lustre finish. The colour effects are produced mainly by the use of silver or copper, which, according to its position in the kiln, assumes a vast variety of lustres.

Demographics

• Nationality: British (English, but her parents were born in Scotland)

Residences

Clara and Clarence Rook

• 1989, 85 Drayton Gardens, S.W., South Kensington (Electoral Register)
• 1901, Brompton, Kensington; in the census he is listed as an "Author and Journalist," she is not listed with a profession or occupation.
• 1901, 7 Milborne Grove, S.W., South Kensington (Electoral Register)
• 1911, 139 Coleherne Court, Earls Court, South Kensington; he is listed as a "Journalist," but the census does not list a vocation for her.
• 1915 December 23, 96 St. George's-road, Belgravia, Middlesex

Clara Wright

• 1891, 34 Cremorne Rd.; she is listed as an "Artist of Illustrated papers, sculp[tor]." (Electoral Registers for 1891–1893 at this address.)
• 1893, 34 Cremorne Rd., when she and Clarence Rook married
• 41 Cathcart Road, Flat 2 [uncertainty high; codes not figured out on form: J after her name; O (instead of HO)] — 1918 through 1930
  • 1918, 1920, 1923

Clarence Wright

• 1893, Wykeham House, Clifton, when he and Clara Wright married

William and Janet Wright

• 1861, 1 Manchester St, Marylebone, Portman; he is a "builder[??]” and decorator.
• 1871, 1 Manchester St, Marylebone, Portman; he is a "carpenter."
• 1881, 1 Manchester St, Marylebone, Portman; he is a "head decorator." Clara Wright is living with them; she is an "Artist in painting."

Family

• Clara Wright (6 August 1861 – )
• Clarence Henry Rook (1 December 1862 – 23 December 1915)

Clara Wright's Family of Origin

• William Wright (1827 – by 1893)
• Janet McPhail (1823– 25 October 1903)
  • Clara Wright (1862–3 – )
  • William J. Wright (1864–5 – )

Clarence Rook's Family of Origin

• Henry John Rook (1834 – 12 April 1920)
• Miriam Beall Rook (29 March 1834 – 28 October 1905)
  • Clarence Henry Rook (1863 – 1915)
  • Minnie Louisa Rook (1865 – )

Relations

• Mr. A. E. Rook, of Eastbourne
• Mr. Barnard Rook:

  Mr. Barnard Rook, the well-known Sittingbourne artist, who died when on the threshold of fame, was a cousin of Mr. Clarence Rook. It was a coincidence that while Faversham claimed its man of letters, Sittingbourne claimed its master of the brush. Many examples of his art are to be seen in the town, notably the striking portrait of the late Mr. George Payne, which hangs in the Town Hall, which the artist painted and presented to Mr. Payne, who afterwards donated it to his native town.

• Rev. H. J. Rook, pastor of the Faversham Congregational Church (1829–1865), Clarence Rook's grandfather

Works, Clara Rook

With respect to the Duchess of Devonshire's 1897 fancy-dress ball, Clara Rook — as CRook — worked as a fashion illustrator for The Queen, providing line drawings of 31 costumes, with the wearers sketched in. Her images are fashion illustrations, showing details of the costumes' design, and not portraits of the people who wore the costumes (different, then, from the photographs taken of them by Lafayette or one of the 19 other professional photographers who made portraits of some of the guests in their costumes).

• The 10 July 1897 issue of the Queen printed 29 line drawings with her signature "CRook" as part of the full-page illustration (beginning here: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0002627/18970710/137/0039).
• The 17 July issue of the Queen has her signature for each of the 2 drawings (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0002627/18970717/283/0064).
• Rook, Clara (Mrs. Clarence). "A Sketch of the Late Mr. George Gissing. Drawn from Life by Mrs. Clarence Rook." "A Literary Letter." The Sphere 09 January 1904, Saturday: 24 [of 30], Col. 2b [of 3]. British Newspaper Archive https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001861/19040109/027/0024. Print p. 48. The drawing is signed by both George Gissing and H. G. Wells, at whose house it was made.

Works, Clarence Rook

The works listed in this section are ones found published in newspapers (that have been digitized for the British Newspaper Archive). Rook published in a number of kinds of periodicals, but his name does not appear in the Curran Index to Nineteenth-Century Periodicals or its foundation, the older Wellesley Index to Nineteenth-Century Periodicals. This is by no means a complete list of his works.

In its obituary, the Daily Chronicle (now the London Daily Chronicle), which had published his "The Office Window" column for 15 years, said,

Though Mr. Rook's name was frequently printed as the author of articles — always distinguished by a sprightly humour — which appeared in the leading page of "The Daily Chronicle," by a paradox it was his anonymous work that made him best known to the readers of our columns. For he was the originator and long the presiding genius over the illuminating space which is now known as The Office Window. Mr. Rook had just that light touch and wide acquaintance with affairs which made him the ideal man for collaborating with many occasional contributors in the production of a daily column of gossip — grave and gay — which has always maintained a high level of interest.

Books

1. Rook, Clarence. The Hooligan Nights; being the Life and Opinions of a Young and Impenitent Criminal, Recounted by Himself, and Set Forth by Clarence Rook, a novel. Grant Richards, 1899.
2. Rook, Clarence. A Lesson for Life. (Serialized in Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper in 7 weekly installments, 1899.) Ward, Lock & Co., 1901.
3. Rook, Clarence. Switzerland and Its People. Effie [Mrs. James] Jardine, illustrator. Chatto and Windus, 1907.
4. Rook, Clarence. London Sidelights. Arnold, 1908.

Hooligan Nights

The Hooligan Nights; being the Life and Opinions of a Young and Impenitent Criminal, Recounted by Himself, and Set Forth by Clarence Rook (Grant Richards, 1899) has an ambiguous genre — it purports to be true and not fictional, and yet it seems also to have been marketed as a novel. The Illustrated London News reported on 15 December 1900 that the "hero" of Rook's book, Young Alf, had "died a soldier's death in South Africa," which was mentioned in some of the earlier reviews. Rook published shorter pieces featuring Young Alf and Hooligan London separately from the novel. After the success of Hooligan Nights, Rook became associated with a new "realism" called the the "Slum Movement in Fiction," described by Mrs. Jane Findlater in her Stones from a Glass House:

In interesting fashion, too, does the clever author [Findlater] trace the evolution of the "Slum Movement in Fiction" from the days when "Dickens prefaced his great excursion into Slumland with something very like an apology." From Dickens to Pett Ridge is a far cry; there have been many steps before we reached the new standpoint, the latest but not necessarily the last of the slum "schools." Mrs. Findlater divides the various methods of dealing with the subject into five classes: (1) As a moral lesson; (2) As a social problem; (3) As an object of pity and terror; (4) As a gladiatorial show; (5) As an amusing study. And in Mr. Pett Ridge, Mr. Clarence Rooke, and their followers she believes we find "more nearly the ultimate truth about slum-dwellers" than in any of the writers that have preceded them.

The ambiguity of the genre — whether fictional or "drawn from life" — supports the sense of increased realism.

Hooligan Nights seems to have been reviewed and discussed in every significant paper in July and August 1899, each one in the important London papers is original to that paper, although the same story is printed in a number of regional papers around Lambeth, the home of the protagonist Young Alf. A few examples are here including this long review in the London Echo:

MR. CLARENCE ROOK

OF “HOOLIGAN NIGHTS” FAME.

Were it not that most of the journalism of the present day happened to be anonymous, the name of Mr. Clarence Rook would be more widely known than it is. From time to time he has contributed articles, essays, and stories to nearly every London paper, and his range is a wide one; for he is by turn a serious reviewer, a writer on politics, on sport, and indeed on any subject which offers itself as a vehicle for his point of view, which is sometimes grave, sometimes gay, and not infrequently humorous.

[A line-drawing portrait of Clarence Rook, signed in the lower right corner, perhaps CR, although the C is not clear like it is in the 1897 drawings if the artist is Clara Rook.]

As surely as the chrysalis becomes the butterfly, so surely does your modern journalist turn book writer, and Mr. Rook has just joined the ranks of the latter. His book is one of those strange and realistic studies of the lower class, for which there seems to be a vast reading public. It was but a month or two ago that Mr. Rook published some of the leaves of his book in the "Daily Chronicle” under the heading of "Hooligan Nights.” These were just enough to whet the appetite for the volume which was to follow; for they opened the book of life at a hitherto unopened page, and one which made queer, eerie, but fascinating reading. The story Mr. Rook had to tell concerned the doings of Young Alf, a youth who took to deeds which take men to prison as easily as a duck takes to water. It is an extraordinary study of humanity, to which the term unmoral applies; for Alf is devoid of any sort of morality; he is a product of to-day, when need makes wits sharp, and generations of cunning seem to become articulate on one body. It is to be doubted whether Young Alf would have revealed himself to the extent he did in less skilful hands; for we know him through and through before Mr. Rook has done with him.

Having made the acquaintance of Young Alf in the columns the “Chronicle," the opportunity came to better it; and that was when Mr. Rook read some chapters from "Hooligan Nights” at the Passmore Edwards Settlement on a recent Sunday, when the book was still unpublished. I found the room very full, and, failing to get a seat where I could see the reader, I planted myself behind him, and so had a good view of the faces of his audience. They made a study in expressions as they followed the adventures of Young Alf with far more attention than they would have given to the career of a Cabinet Minister. Mr. Rook took us with him to see Alf's first attempt at burglary — a chapter full of quaintest humour — then to look on as he made the acquaintance of Billy the Snide, a maker of false coins. Later we went to form a part of the audience as our hero fought Ginger for Alice — a scene realised with quiet force and wonderful vividness. We left Alf, where Mr. Rook left him, on the day of his marriage with Alice.

This last episode is, perhaps, the strongest in the whole book; it is full of clever touches, and shows observation of a microscopic order. Nothing in the scene escaped Mr. Rook, and he has set it down with a simplicity and naturalness which makes it doubly effective. There is no false colour anywhere; everying is uniformly grey, even the atmosphere; and this is a clever touch, for a scene gets hold of you much more quickly when Nature seems to be in sympathy with the drama of life. And more than one of those who listened as Mr. Rook told how the wind whistled through the trees, and tore their little twigs from them, shivered, forgetful that it was a warm June evening.

Later that same evening I asked the author of “Hooligan Nights” to tell me how he came to write the story of Young Alf, and if it was really true; and this is what he told me.

“Some account of various exploits in which Young Alf bad been engaged came into the hands of Mr. Grant Richards. These were written at the dictation of Alf himself, and they were so extraordinary that Mr. Richards was interested. He spoke of the possibilities in the subject to Mr. Bernard Shaw, who, being a friend of mine, suggested that I should be asked to go in search of Young Alf. I brought his revelations home with me, and when I had gone through them decided that I should like to follow up his career. It did not take me long to unearth him; when I found him a more extraordinary specimen of humanity than I had supposed; fascinating in his way too, when you had grown used to him. I have added nothing to the stories he told me; and there is no question as to their truth; I was amongst his audience on a good many occasions. I have not used the names of the people I met, of course; that would hardly be fair, would it?

“Yes, I found him a little difficult at first; but he wanted to know whether I could be trusted before he gave himself away. When he found out that I was safe, he talked quite freely to me, there was no reserve about him then. No, I did not have a single adventure during my various meetings with him; provided your escort is a responsible person you can go almost anywhere, and Young Alf was very well known. I think the most remarkable scene I witnessed was his fight with Ginger; that took place exactly as I have written it; even to the continued fight with the raw ‘uns, when Alf came off victorious and won his bride. No, I have not had the pleasure of meeting him since his marriage, but some day I may renew my acquaintance with him.

“There is not much to choose between the men and the women; but the men have a decided sense of humour, and the women none. They are very ‘cute,' and not generally criminal. They suspect that their boys go on the crooked, but prefer to know nothing about it. Alice, for example, does not take any interest in bits of jewellery that Young Alf has given her because she knows he must have sneaked them, and she knows well enough that he has no honest employment. If it comes to a struggle between love and the law, love wins every time; and you would not catch Alice ‘narking.’ But you must please remember that my observations were not general; Alf was my.especial study, and the rest I knew only in so far as they affected him.”

“One more question and I have done, Mr. Rook. Did not you find it horribly depressing work?”

"Not in the least. When you really get to know a boy like Young Alf you find thet he has a lovely time. Not a dull moment. Young Alf is never bored. Happiness is relative: a from a more to a less uncomfortable state; and when Young Alf has nicked & red 'un he is [5c/6a] as happy as the rich stockbroker who has got into a good thing at Kempton Park. It's practically the same thing. There's no more difference between a thousand and a thousand to one than there is between nothing and one. Not so much, indeed. I am sure that the Hooligan boy gets as much pleasure out of life as you or I. But perhaps I am a criminal manqué myself."

N. J.-S.

Another long review essay from the Queen:

TWO BOOKS OF THE WEEK* [*1. "The Hooligan Nights." Edited by Clarence Rook. (Grant Richards.)]

MR ROOK'S "HOOLIGAN NIGHTS."

IT IS ALWAYS REFRESHING to come across a book of light and amusing reading, dealing with a subject far afield from the path of the popular novelist. "The Hooligan Nights" is a sort of literary oasis in the wilderness of library fiction, a green spot in the long trail of colourless love romances which confronts us in the autumn publishing season. It is not easy to classify "The Hooligan Nights." It is not a novel nor is it professedly a book of humour, which by the very confidence of its claim to amuse has generally the contrary effect of depressing the reader, and it is not a serious book, but it has the essential elements of success in all these three classes, for in this strange and fascinating history of crime and criminal Mr Rook very often strikes high notes of pathos and romance. We have human nature, if it be only the human nature of Lambeth-walk, in a nutshell. These Lambeth lads and lasses who are familiar to us only through the police columns of a newspaper and belong to the lowest of our city, when we see them through young Alf's glasses are made very much the same as we are, differing only in circumstances. They would be as we are, and we should not be one whit better than they, had our circumstances been reversed. As for the humour of the book, it is of the best sort, for it consists in the author's reflections upon human nature, and he is like young Alf, he does not often laugh, but he sometimes melts the lump in the reader's throat with some sudden flash of human understanding, which, if slightly cynical, is never ill-natured.

The popularity which "The Hooligan Nights" is almost certain to achieve is patent to the reader at the very outset of the book. Although it deals with the sordid lives of the criminal classes of Lambeth, and the confessions of young Alf are plain tales of vice and sin, there is barely a distasteful paragraph in the book. Everything which might have been lurid and harrowing has been tempered with the pen of a true artist. In the character of Alf the vice is there, the animal cunning is there, the absolute want of morals rather than gross immorality, characteristic of the class from which young Alf imbibed his views of life, is there, and they are all fully and unblushingly laid bare to the reader, and yet Mr Rook has invested this impertinent young criminal with so fascinating a personality that there is a danger (for the editor asserts young Alf to be a living personality) that the Hooligan of this biography will be inundated with invitations from blasées dames of society. But Mr Rook alone knows the real name and number of young Alf's kip in Lambeth. Young Alf had a habit, one of the habits of his class, of spitting on the floor, either to relieve or express his feelings; sometimes it was to express pride at the success he had achieved in some extra daring feat of burglary, but only once, I think, is it recounted that it expressed shame (for there is a code of honour among Hooligans). It was after he had told Mr Rook the story of how he had robbed a widow's till of all her earnings when she had left her shop to go upstairs and provide him with a coat which had once belonged to her son, but, as young All explained, "When a boy gets hanked by soft-heartedness he is better off the business." To give the reader a better understanding of the nature of the book, I will quote from the preface:

HOOLIGANISM AS A PROFESSION.

I do not know that there is any particular moral to be drawn from this book, and in any case I shall leave you to draw it for yourself. But please do not accuse it of being immoral. When the Daily Chronicle published portions of the history of young Alf early in the year, the editor received numerous complaints from well-meaning people who protested that I had painted the life of a criminal in alluring colours. They forgot, I suppose, that young Alf was a study in reality, and that in real life the villain does not invariably come to grief before he has come of age. Poetic justice demands that young Alf should be very unhappy; as a matter of fact, he is nothing of the sort. And when you come to think of it, he has had a livelier time than the average clerk on a limited number of shillings a week. He does not know what it is to be bored. Every day has its interest, and every day has its possibility of the unexpected, which is just what the steady honest worker misses. He need not consider appearances, being, indeed, more concerned for his disappearances; he has ample leisure, and each job he undertakes has the excitement of novelty, and the promise of immediate and usually generous reward. It would, I think, be very difficult to persuade young Alf that honesty is the best policy. l am not responsible for the constitution of the universe, and if under present conditions of life a Lambeth boy can get more fun by going sideways than by going straight, I cannot help it. I do not commend the ways of my young friend, or even apologise for them. I simply set him before you an a fact that must be dealt with. Young Alf has interested me hugely, and I trust he will not bore you.

Young Alf's love affair with Alice, Alice of the soft voice, Alice of Lambeth-walk, whose influence over the young criminal had its softening touches, inasmuch as it made him reflect one evening, while leaning over London Bridge, on the possibilities, or rather impossibilities, of a Lambeth Hooligan going straight, even if he determined to, is very charmingly described, and his eventual marriage on Boxing Day, when the editor of these records acted as best man, is one of the best chapters in the book. Young Alf, among other things, confided to his interviewer his opinion of an average Lambeth lass. Alice, of course was not an average lass, else Alf would not have married her, for our hero was very particular in his own line.

THE AVERAGE LAMBETH LASS.

The average Lambeth lass, as young Alf avers, is neither a prostitute nor a criminal. The former class is regarded with disfavour by young Alf and his friends, for when the toff has been picked clean by the female thief there is very little left for the Lambeth lad. One may honour young Alf's sentiments if one overlooks their origin. Woman in Lambeth-walk, as elsewhere, throws her influence into the right scale. She earns her living by hard work in the factories where they make pickles, jam, or mineral waters. Sometimes, too, she sells flowers in the streets. She associates with criminals, but her share in crime is a passive one. Doubtless she suspects that the young man who takes her to the Canterbury, and regales her on sausages and mashed afterwards, is more slippy with his hooks than behoves an honest lad. But she does not know or trouble her head about the sort of jobs in which he is engaged, though, on the whole, she would rather he went straight than sideways. And if by chance she is compelled to choose between the law and her lover, she may be forgiven if she plumps for the lover. She is not, if we must speak with absolute strictness, virtuous, but she rather virtuous, if you will admit degrees in feminine virtue. She is loyal, strong, and courageous, pos [sic] essing all the virtues but virtue. Rough and coarse, if you please, and foul of tongue when the fit seizes her, but we may call the roughness honesty and the foulness slang without being far wrong.

The incident which brought about Alf's proposal, and his determination, in spite of her father's opposition, to marry [ 2c/3a ] Alice, is very true to the life which surrounded him and formed his character, and yet it showed that somewhere in this determined criminal nature there was a spark which reverenced and was touched by the fierce love and loyalty of a woman's devotion. Alice had wronged her mother to save her lover humiliation, and Alf "thought a lot of that." When the author went to see the house to which young Alt was to bring his bride Alice was there to receive them. The scene is worth quoting.

ALICE AT HOME.

As we went along he confided to me something of his plans for the future, when he should have settled down in his own kip with a wife and such sticks as he could collect. He had by some means acquined a pony and a barrow, and with these he would make his way in the world. With a barrow and a pony a boy may do a lot. He has a stake in the country, and is no longer as the proletariat. By what means had he acquired the pony and barrow? The question elicited no reply, and I feared the worst. He would go in for selling green-stuff. "Then do you mean to go straight now?" I asked. "I dessay I shall sneak a bit now an' then," replied young Alf. "Stan's to reason. See, there's lots o' boys makes a good livin' gettin' on to the tail o' market waggons, an' rollin' off wiv somefink they can sell wivout a loss. Peas a tanner a peck. See?" He contemplated but half a reformation at most. He would sell green stuff, which is a sufficiently honest employment. But he did not intend to buy it first. "We're close there," said young Alf, placing a hand on my arm. "When you come in, don't you arst me where I got the fings. You swank as I 'ad 'em give me. See?" "But," I said, "doesn't Alice — l mean, does Alice think?" "It's awright if she doesn't know," he replied rather impatiently. "An' she never arsts no questions. Knows 'ow to 'old 'er tongue, Alice does. On'y if she knows I've got anyfink on the crooked — like a bit of jool'ry I give 'er — she doesn't seem to take no interest in it. See?" He stopped by a ground floor window, put his ear to it for a moment, and tapped. Awright," he said. He drew me back a step or two, to where a door fronted immediately upon the street. We waited. In a few moments it was opened by Alice. " What ho!" said young Alf. "I was listenin'," said Alice. Where did that girl get her voice of liquid gold? We entered, and Alice resumed her seat, drawing her shawl round her. A single candle, already nearly at its last flicker, lightened her vigil. The room contained three chairs, a table, a few odd pieces of crockery, a strip of carpet, and the bedstead of which young Alf had spoken. But Alice directed my attention to the mantelpiece. "I've jest been puttin' 'em up," she said. "Seems to brighten up the place — makes it more 'omelike, don't it?" Young Alf walked over to the mantelpiece. "Can't 'ardly see 'em," he said; "let's 'ave annuver candle." "Got a penny?" said Alice. Young Alf hunted in his pockets and drew blank. But the lack was supplied, and Alice went out in search of another candle. Young Alf picked up the guttering light from the table, and held it aloft so that I might see and admire the pictures. Nailed to the middle of the wall over the mantelpiece was a framed engraving of a pigeon, which young Alf has certainly not acquired by honest purchase. But there was a sentimental interest about it. For he had started the serious business of life, as you may remember, by sneaking pigeons. Beneath this, the photograph of a horse. "That's a 'awse I got at Brighton," said young Alf, holding the candle with one hand and with the other turning the light on to the picture. "Sold it up 'ere in Lambef. It's workin' 'ere now." A photograph of young Alf and Alice arm in arm, in very low tone, taken in Epping Forest. Another photograph of the bookmaker with the unbridled temper (Alice's father). No, certainly not a lovable man. A man to keep at a respectful distance. This piece of decoration was clearly Alice's idea, and young Alf swept the candle past it. To right and left of the bookmaker a pair of coloured prints representing Christ Blessing the Fishes and Christ on the Sea of Galilee. Alice returned, and the illumination was increased by a candle. "Alf bought them," said Alice, indicating the representations of Our Lord, "'cause I liked 'em." "Give a penny each for 'em," said young Alf, in apology for being reduced to purchase. Alice had resumed her seat by the table, and sat with her shawl drawn closely round her. In the clearer light of the extra candle I had my first view of her face. Fair hair, dressed low over the forehead and the ears, after the fashion in vogue among the girls engaged in the manufacture of aerated waters; soft grey eyes — long recovered from the imprint of young Alf's fist; a mouth somewhat too large for absolute beauty, but well shaped a figure; which in a few months would be slim again. Altogether the sort of girl you may find by the hundred wherever there are streets and tramcars and factories. But her voice marked her off. I wanted to hear it again, but my stock of small talk was unready. I could converse readily enough with young Alf, but when confronted with Alice I realised that in all that related to the minor interests of life we were very far apart. She sat quietly by the table, looking straight before her. Young Alf busied himself by shifting the respective position of the pigeon and the horse over the mantelpiece. It's awright, isn't it?" said young Alf. I said that it seemed very comfortable. To Alice I added that I wished her much happiness and that I thought I must be going. Alice rose and we shook hands. "Did I hear you was comin' — Monday?" she said. "Alf'd be glad." Monday was Boxing Day, the day fixed for the wedding. "And I'd be glad, too," added Alice. I promised my presence and ascertained the place and hour of the ceremony. Young Alf accompanied me to the door, as Alice returned to her chair. As we stood in the doorway he explained that the unbridled bookmaker was due at some race meeting or other on Boxing Day; consequently the pony and cart could be abstracted without difficulty, and the wedding ceremony carried out without the infliction of the threatened bashing. "Half-past nine then," I said. "I shall be there punctually." Young Alf looked back, and pulled the door behind him. "What you fink if I didn't turn up?" he asked, with an oblique glance. "I think you wouldn't get the little present I'm going to give you — when you're married," I replied. He said nothing for a few moments. I watched his eyes, as they glanced quickly this way and that way up and down the street. "Once before," he said, "I've bin as far as the church door wiv a gal — and come away."

Perhaps some readers of this review will say, how can the history of a life of crime, told in criminal language, be either interesting or profitable reading? In answer, I would advise them to get the book and read it, and they will immediately understand, for, as I have said before, its charm lies in the delicate art of the writer and the sensitive personality which refines the book. It is Mr Rook's art which makes young Alf, in spite of his genuine unworthiness, a very human, lovable character. To the reader who does not agree, one feels inclined to say that Mr Rook's fine art is wasted upon him, because he is unable to share the author's fuller and very much more human understanding of the unfortunate half of the world who come into it "without 'alf a chance," as young Alt put it. "The Hooligan Nights" is by no means a tract, and yet the lesson it teaches by its humour and its vividly realistic sketches of life in Lambeth Walk is of no doubtful value.

From The Bookseller:

From Mr. Grant Richards:— The Hooligan Nights. By Clarence Rook.— “Young Alf,” the hero of these ‘‘Nights,” which are quite as diverting, if not more so, as those of Schererazade, has under Mr. Rook's chaperonage already figured in the public press, and now gives us in more extended form some experiences and opinions gathered by his precocious seventeen years of life that are certainly worth the attention of the jaded novel-reader and — the police. The “Prophet" and founder of the Hooligans was the famous Patrick of that ilk, and the "young and impenitent criminal” of these pages is his lineal descendant and disciple. What Alf does not know in the way of utilising the opportunities of daily life hardly seems worth the knowledge; what those eyes cannot see, ‘‘which seem to look all round his head like a bird’s,” cannot be said to lie within the range of human vision, and what those hands cannot make off with, given elbow room, and ten minutes’ start of the "cop,” may be safely left alone by rival aspirants. A large three-horse wagon, loaded with building material, does not seem at first sight a thing that could be easily converted into ready cash. Yet our hero is equal to the occasion. Waiting till the two men in charge are safe inside the "pub,” he mounts the dicky and conducts the team to the owner’s yard, where he represents his prize has having been found "wandering about the streets,” and, accordingly, obtains an immediate ten shillings and the offer of a post as driver. “Do the duty that lies nearest" is Alfred's maxim, "not asking if it be a small matter or a big one, and your reward will be many little bits of splosh.” As Johnson needed his Boswell, so the Hooligan lives by Mr. C. Rook, who has not only photographed the species, but preserved his vernacular expression with unerring fidelity.

A mention of the publication of The Hooligan Nights:

BOOK CHAT.

"The Hooligan Nights," by Clarence Rook, published by Messrs. Grant Richards at 6s., deals with the exciting adventures of a young Hooligan of the most decided type. We are told that young Alf, the hero of the book, is by no means an imaginary character, but is at the time a "leader of Hooligans" in Lambeth.

A Lesson for Life

Rook, Clarence. 1899. A Lesson for Life. Serialized in Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper in 7 weekly installments:

1. 14 May 1899, Sunday: Ch. I–III, p. 16 (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000079/18990514/080/0016)
2. 21 May 1899, Sunday: Ch. IV–VI, p. 16 (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000079/18990521/070/0016)
3. 28 May 1889, Sunday: Ch. VII–IX, p. 16 (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000079/18990528/073/0016)
4. 4 June 1899, Sunday: Ch. X–XII, p. 16 (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000079/18990604/076/0016)
5. 11 June 1899, Sunday: Ch. XIII–XV, p. 16 (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000079/18990611/078/0016)
6. 18 June 1899, Sunday: Ch. XVI–XVIII, p. 16 (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000079/18990618/078/0016)
7. 02 July 1899, Sunday: Ch. XXII–XXV [end], p. 16 (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0000079/18990702/076/0016)

Ward, Lock & Co. published A Lesson for Life in volume form in 1901, at 1/.

Switzerland and Its People

Rook, Clarence. Switzerland and Its People. Effie [Mrs. James] Jardine, illustrator. Chatto and Windus, 1907.

London Sidelights

Rook, Clarence. London Sidelights. Arnold, 1908.

The positive review in the Queen mentions chapters on "Constables," "London Justice" and "Unlicensed Premises," and it quotes from "The County Court":

BOOKS AND THEIR WRITERS

A NEW ROOK by Mr Clarence Rook is always rather an event. Humorists must, of course, start with a sense of the ridiculous, and Mr Rook has a very keen sense of the ridiculous. His Hooligan Nights was a really great book; it described a certain section of London life more truthfully than it has been described before or since, and it was an extremely entertaining book. The present volume is also excellent. The chapters on "Constables" and "London Justice" are written exactly as they should be written, and the dens where the street arabs learn to box are described to the life. Occasionally Mr Rook lets himself go, and then he runs Mr Jerome close; but the subjoined is Mr Rook's genera! way of describing the life of mean streets, and I think it is excellent:

THE COUNTY COURT.

Into the court we filter through the dingy passage. Here we are Jews, Gentiles, men and women, contending over questions of a pound or two. I begin to realise the value of money. Seven barristers, many solicitors with their clerks, officials solemnly writing at the long table under the bench, plaintiffs, defendants, witnesses, and an interested crowd of spectators with a judge at £l500 a year. Surely these must be important matters. And the usher! All the morning I had admired the dignity — flecked with fierceness — of the usher, and trembled when his eye fell upon me. But the usher was late. He rushed in from his refreshment as the judge took his seat, and he had a struggle with his gown. "I can't find the bloomin' 'ole!" murmured the usher to my neighbour, evidently a friend. And the friend helped him into his gown and his dignity. "Silence!" shouted the usher. "Take that baby out!" A minute later the box labelled "Plaintiff" is filled by a portly Hebrew, while the box labelled "Defendant" contains a man of middle age, and an English made in Germany and flavoured with Yiddish. "What is your Christian name?" asks the counsel. The plaintiff replies — without resentment — that his Christian name is Moses. "Are you the plaintiff in this case?" He is. Counsel seems quite gratified at having hit upon the very man he was looking for. It is a question of liability under an alleged guarantee. Defendant is said to have guaranteed payment on behalf of his son-in-law. And the disagreements as to questions of fact are amazing. The Regius Professor of History should note that his premises rest on two or more unstable planks. After a day in a County Court I refuse to believe in anything. For the defendant swore that he did not know the handwriting of his daughter who wrote all his letters. He was asked where his son-in-law lived, what were his means, had he ever had any. Blank ignorance. "Vot you tink? How I know vot my son-in-law do? You ask Mr Solomon. He know all it. He lend my son-in-law ze monish." About his financial position the defendant is unduly modest, though he would probably be indignant if one called him a "journeyman tailor" outside the County Court. "Vot you call shop?" he protested, when confronted with his own advertisement. "It is room that I use for myself. I am sherndyman tailor I know nozzing. You ask Mr Solomons. He know." Mr Solomons is asked. And presently the judge, sitting between and holding the scales, says that he is not at all satisfied with the veracity of either but on the whole, the plaintiff has told the fewer lies. It matter of £3. 10s.

"Unlicensed Premises" is a very pretty and amusing story. Mr Rook's present volume, London Sidelights, which is published by Mr Edward Arnold (price 6s.), shows immense knowledge of London, but is never dull or heavy. We could do with a great many more such books.

Shorter Works

• "The Office Window," a daily column for the Daily Chronicle that Rook ran for 15 years
• "Under the Clock," "conducted" by Clarence Rook for the Daily Chronicle: "one of the most readable features in London journalism .... Many of us would read this, by far the best feature in the Daily Chronicle, with greater interest if only Mr. Fisher, the editor, could be persuaded to give it larger type." Perhaps this is the same column or feature as "The Office Window"?
• Short Stories
  1. "A Match at Billiards." Hal Hurst, R.B.A., illust. Black and White 02 May 1896, Saturday: 20 [of 39], Col. 1a–2c [of 2] – 21, Col. 2b. British Newspaper Archive https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004617/18960502/064/0020. Print pp. 563–564.
  2. Rook, Clarence. 1897. Story in The Humours of Cycling. "Stories and Pictures by Jerome K. Jerome, H. G. Wells, L. Raven-Hill, Barry Pain, J. F. Sullivan, G. B. Burgin, Clarence Rook, Fred Whishaw, W. Pett Ridge, &c. &c. Illust., 4to, sd., pp. 96. J. Bowden. 1/." New edition, 1904.
  3. "The Ambition of Eva." Charles M. Sheldon, illust. Black and White 13 February 1897, Saturday: 18 [of 34], Col. 1a–2c [of 2], 19, Col. 1a–b. British Newspaper Archive https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004617/18970213/071/0018.
  4. "Unlicensed Premises." Black and White 21 August 1897, Saturday: 11 [of 37], Cols. 1a–2c [of 2]. British Newspaper Archive https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004617/18970821/046/0011. P. 230 in the print periodical.
  5. "In the Verandah." Black and White 27 November 1897, Saturday: 12 [of 38], Cols. 1a–2c [of 2]. British Newspaper Archive https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0004617/18971127/042/0012. P. 670 of the print periodical.
  6. Rook, Clarence. "The Stir Outside the Cafe Royal: A Story of Miss Van Snoop." Harmsworth Magazine, 1898. Rpt. In Classic Scary Stories. Eds., Molly Cooper, Glen Bledsoe and Karen Bledsoe. Lowell House, 1999: 280–. https://archive.org/details/classicscarystor0000unse/.
  7. "The Telegram." 1899. A "sparkling trifle" by Rook performed on 1 July 1899 at a recital by Miss Laura Boyle:

     The selections of Miss Laura included an amusing monologue entitled "The Telegram," by Clarence Rook, the moral of which seemed to be that it is sometimes dangerous to be too economical in the words of a wire. A notoriously unpunctual lady, a widow, who is awaiting her bridegroom, receives a message from him, which runs as follows:— "Don't come too late." She considers this to be a put-off, and is, accordingly, much distressed. After a great deal of vituperation of the sender, she discovers that she has punctuated his message; and that, by leaving out the pause, it is simply a reminder to her to be in time. Miss Laura displayed a good deal of animation throughout the sparkling trifle, and presented a capital portrait of the thoughtless, but always charming widow.

     The monologue was performed again on Friday, 8 December 1899 by Greta Hahn.
  8. "The Work of a Lifetime," a story in the Christmas Number of the Illustrated London News, illustrated by Mr. A. J. Balliol Salmon.
  9. "St Patrick's Hooligan." 1901 January 21. The Anglo-Saxon Review, ed. Lady Randolph Churchill [Mrs. George Cornwallis-West]. Vol. VII (21 January 1901).
  10. "Hooligan London." 1902. Living London: Its Work and Its Play, Its Humour and Its Pathos, Its Sights and Its Scenes, ed. George R. Sims. Vol. II. (Cassell, 1902.)

      In the chapter, "Hooligan London" (which he has made his study), Clarence Rook writes with intimate knowledge of our street desperadoes, albeit with more sympathy for their blighted upbringing than most of us who are liable to street attacks may feel. The following picture is rather vivid than pleasing:

      Imagine a couple of boys, brought up to the street fighting in which there are no rules, with no fear of God, man, or constable before their eyes, and with no money in their pockets — imagine them face to face with a lonely wayfarer in evening dress, carrying presumably a watch and a sovereign-purse. It is the simplest thing in the world. One boy whips the overcoat back and imprisons the victim’s arms; the other goes through the pockets. The work of a moment, and so easy! No wonder the Hooligan turns this sport to account! The sandbag, too, is handy. It an American importation, and has made some reputation in New York. Unlike the bludgeon, it leaves no visible mark; unlike the cheap pistol, it makes no noise. It is easily hidden up the sleeve till required; and a well-directed crack over the head with a sandbag — especially if the sand has been damped — will stun the strongest man for several minutes.

  11. Rook, Clarence. "He Who Waits: A Study from Life." Black and White 24 December 1904, Saturday: 83 [of 91], Col. 2ab and 85, Cols. 1ab–2a. British Newspaper Archive https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0004617/19041224/273/0085. Print pp. 40, 42.
  12. Rook, Clarence. Cassell's Magazine April 1906.
  13. Rook, Clarence. "A Judge of Cigars." "A Novel in a Nutshell." The Sketch 26 October 1910, Wednesday: 22, 24 [of 50]. British Newspaper Archive https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001860/19101026/024/0022, https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001860/19101026/024/0024. Print pp. 86, 88.

Humor

The little articles for the 1903 St. James's Gazette always appear in the same place in the paper, as part of a section called Obiter Scripta.

1. Rook, Clarence. "The Judgment of Paris." St. James's Gazette 17 February 1903, Wednesday: 5 [of 20], Col. 2a–c [of 2] – 6, Col. 1a. British Newspaper Archive https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001485/19030217/032/0005. Print pp. 5–6.
2. Rook, Clarence. "The Power of the Pocket." St. James's Gazette 01 April 1903, Wednesday: 5 [of 20], Col. 2a–c [of 2] – 6, Col. 1a. British Newspaper Archive https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001485/19030401/051/0005. Print pp. 5–6.
3. Rook, Clarence. "The Right Time." St. James's Gazette 12 May 1903, Tuesday: 5 [of 20], Col. 2a–c [of 2] – 6, Col. 1a. British Newspaper Archive https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001485/19030512/043/0005. Print pp. 5–6.
4. Rook, Clarence. "Women and Laughter." Hongkong Telegraph 10 August 1906, Friday: 3 [of 8], Col. 4a–c [of 6]. Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/NPTG19060810/.
5. Rook, Clarence. "The Present Season." Pall Mall Gazette 23 December 1911, Saturday: 5 [of 12], Col. 1b–c [of 2]. British Newspaper Archive https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000098/19111223/047/0005. Print p. 5.

Articles

1. Rook, Clarence. 1897, "on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee." In 1907 Rook says,

   No one who wishes to get a clear view of the Victorian era, its clothes, its manners, its politics, can afford to overlook the volumes of "Punch," which is practically contemporaneous with King Edward VII. When some few years ago, I was called upon suddenly to write a sketch of sixty years of dress, on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee, I found that the volumes of “Punch” provided me with the best mirror of the outward aspect of the men and women who had dressed, and dined, and died during the Nineteenth Century.

2. Rook, Clarence. "General Booth and His Army." The World's Work and Play, ed. Henry Norman, M.P. August 1904. "With full-page portraits of General Booth and Miss Eva Booth."
3. Last published work, a week after he died: “Debris.” Derry Journal 31 December 1915, Friday: 2 [of 9], Col. 4c [of 7]. British Newspaper Archive https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001123/19151231/045/0002.
4. Rook, Clarence. Prefatory Note and ed. In F. L. Austin, Points of View. John Lane, 1906.
5. Rook, Clarence. "American Manners." Temple Bar March 1906.

Unknown Genre

1. The 1896 Idler Christmas number, edited by Jerome K. Jerome: Clarence Rook, "A Moving Incident" — "'We shall be able to drop the Higginsons.' — Martin and I watched their arrival from the window."
2. The December 1896 Ludgate.
3. Phil May's Annual for December 1898.

Biographical Material

1. Biography Index. A cumulative index to biographical material in books and magazines. Volume 20: September, 1994-August, 1995. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1995. [The entry for Clarence Rook points to the entry in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, below.]
2. "Clarence Rook." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Rook (last revised: 7 January 2024).
3. Colin (2013-10-28). "Clarence Rook's Hooligan Nights". Oxford Sociology. Retrieved 2024-08-31. http://oxfordsociology.blogspot.com/2013/10/clarence-rooks-hooligan-nights.html.
4. Levy, Anita. "Clarence Rook." Dictionary of Literary Biography. Volume 135: British Short-Fiction Writers, 1880-1914: The Realist Tradition. Ed., William B. Thesing. Detroit: Gale Research, 1994: 304–308.

Notes and Questions

1. Janet McPhail Wright, Clara Wright Rook's mother, was born in Easdale, Argylshire, Scotland.
2. The 27 February 1909 Sphere published a photograph of Clarence Rook taken by Elliott & Fry: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001861/19090227/038/0028.
3. Several of Clarence Rook's obituaries published this description of his education, which apparently came from "A contemporary (writing in the 'North East Kent Times')":

   He was one of a circle of clever boys who were at the Grammar School during the memorable headmastership of the Rev. S. M. Croathwaite, considerably over thirty years ago. Rook was captain of the school. He was endowed with a bright, subtle imagination and an artistic temperament. No task seemed impossible to him in the way of learning, and he was especially strong in classics and languages. He was always brilliant at the annual "Speech Day" of the school. He was equally successful in Greek recitations, in French plays, and in English comedies. Nothing could have been finer than his impersonation of Lord Duberley in "The Heir-at-Law," or his representation of Bob Acres in "The Rivals.” He also showed considerable ability as a humorous singer, a la Corney Grain, and pleased his audiences immensely with "Pete," and "I am so volatile." Mr. R. F. Gibson, the Deputy Stipendiary Magistrate for Chatham and Sheerness, was a contemporary at the school, and was inimitable in the character of Dr. Pangloss, the noted pedant in Colman's play. Clarence Rook was a prince of good fellows, and those who knew him thirty or forty years ago never seemed to lose touch with him.

4. The British Newspaper Archive has 2 erroneous links to mentions of Clarence Rook in The Sketch, for 17 March 1897 and 19 May 1897. Both links (results of a standard search) are supposedly to a regular several-page column called "Small Talk."
5. What was called the Daily Chronicle in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is now called the London Daily Chronicle in the British Newspaper Archive.