Actor. He was a theatrical actor during Victorian England, who was known as the "eminent equestrian." In the summer of 1843, his father, William Cooke, advertised "Cooke's Royal Circus" to the people of Greenock, Scotland, and one of the featured performers was his son Alfred Cooke. The circus had been his family's property since his great grandfather's time and had been under management by various uncles as well as his father and later his brother, William. His stage was a circus ring. Standing on a horse's back and circling the ring at a slow canter, he entered costumed as Shakespeare's Falstaff as if leading his ragged recruits to slaughter at the Battle of Shrewsbury. From this position, he recited Falstaff's soliloquy about the follies and limitations of honor and then, still standing on his horse's back, shed the Falstaff costume to reveal a second attire, that of Shakespeare's Shylock, complete with prop knife and scales with which to extract his pound of flesh from Antonio's bosom. In the character of Shylock and declaiming a mixture of lines from several scenes of "The Merchant of Venice", Cooke continued his circling canter. For a second time he shed his costume, revealing beneath the Shylock robe the battle attire of Richard III, and in his final equestrian circles of the ring Alfred Cooke shouted out his desire to exchange his kingdom for a horse. As the Royal Circus playbill promised, "So far as can be portrayed on Horseback, Mr. Alfred Cooke will delineate the varied and conflicting feelings which moved the breasts of Jocund Falstaff, the Usurious and Relentless Jew, and the Ambitious and Cruel Richard." His equestrian grave marker was created by sculptor Thomas Milnes, yet in the 21st century, part of the horse's head has crumbled with time and three of the four legs of the horse are missing