The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs Part 9

The sneering tone, and the disposition to write down the fair, perceptible in this account, are more strongly exhibited in the 'Public Advertiser' of the 5th of September, in the following year:--

"Sat.u.r.day being Bartholomew Fair day, it was, according to annual custom, ushered in by Lady Holland's Mob, accompanied with a charming band of music, consisting of marrow-bones and cleavers, tin kettles, &c., &c., much to the gratification of the inhabitants about Smithfield; great preparations were then made for the reception of the Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs, and other City officers, who, after regaling themselves with a cool tankard at Mr. Akerman's, made their appearance in the fair about one o'clock, to authorise _mimic_ fools to make _real_ ones of the gaping spectators. The proclamation being read, and the Lord Mayor retiring, he was saluted by a flourish of trumpets, drums, rattles, salt-boxes, and other delightful musical instruments. The noted Flockton, and the notorious Jobson, with many new managers, exhibited their tragic and comic performers, as did Penley his drolls. There were wild beasts from all parts of the world roaring, puppets squeaking, sausages frying, Kings and Queens raving, pickpockets diving, round-abouts twirling, hackney coaches and poor horses driving, and all Smithfield alive-o! The Learned Horse paid his obedience to the company, as did about a score of monkeys, several _beautiful young_ ladies of forty, Punches, Pantaloons, Harlequins, Columbines, three giants, a dwarf, and a giantess. These were not all who came to Smithfield to gratify the public; there were several sleight-of-hand men and fire-eaters; the last, however, were not quite so numerous as those who eat of the deliciously flavoured sausages and oysters with which the fair abounded. The company were _remarkably genteel_ and crowded, and the different performances went off with loud and unbounded bursts of applause; they will be repeated this day and to-morrow for the last times this season." Reports similar in tone to the foregoing continued to appear in the newspapers for many years.

That the fairs were visited at and from this time almost exclusively by the lower orders of society is tolerably obvious from the fact that, though the number and variety of the shows were greater, and advertising was more largely resorted to every year as a medium of publicity, the showmen had ceased to use the columns of the London press for this purpose. Bills were given away in the fair, or displayed on the outsides of the shows, but few of these have been preserved, though the few extant are the only memorials of the London fairs during several years.

The only bill of 1787 which I have succeeded in finding announces a dwarf with the remarkable name of Kelham Whiteland; he is said to have been born at Ipswich, but his height, strange to say, is not stated, a blank being left before the word _inches_. Probably he was growing, and his exhibitor deemed it advisable, as a matter of financial economy, to have a large number of bills printed at one time.

Flockton, who was the leading showman of this period, was the sole advertiser of 1789, when he put forth the following announcement:--

"MR. FLOCKTON'S Most Grand and Unparallelled Exhibition. Consisting, first, in the display of the Original and Universally admired ITALIAN FANTOCCINI, exhibited in the same Skilful and Wonderful Manner, as well as Striking Imitations of Living Performers, as represented and exhibited before the Royal Family, and the most ill.u.s.trious Characters in this Kingdom. MR. FLOCKTON will display his inimitable DEXTERITY OF HAND, Different from all pretenders to the said Art. To which will be perform'd an ingenious and Spirited Opera called The PADLOCK. Princ.i.p.al vocal performers, Signor Giovanni Orsi and Signora Vidina. The whole to conclude with his grand and inimitable MUSICAL CLOCK, at first view, a curious organ, exhibited three times before their Majesties."

In this clock nine hundred figures were said to be shown at work at various trades.

In the following year, two wonderful rams were exhibited in Bartholomew Fair. One of them had a single horn, growing from the centre of the forehead, like the unicorn of the heralds; the other had six legs. One of the princ.i.p.al shows of this year was advertised as "the Original Theatre (Late the celebrated Yates and Shuter, of facetious Memory), Up the Greyhound Inn Yard, the only real and commodious place for Theatrical Performances. The Performers selected from the most distinguished Theatres in England, Scotland, &c. The Representation consists of an entirely New Piece, called, The Spaniard Well Drub'd, or the British Tar Victorious."

This clap-trap drama concluded with "a Grand Procession of the King, French Heroes, Guards, Munic.i.p.al Troops, &c., to the Champ de Mars, to swear to the Revolution Laws, as established by the Magnificent National a.s.sembly, on the 14th of July, 1790." There was "hornpipe dancing by the renowned Jack Bowling," and an "Olio of wit, whim, and fancy, in Song, Speech, and Grimace."

Two years later, the London Fairs were visited by a couple of dwarfs, almost as famous in their day as Tom Thumb and his Lilliputian bride in our own. These were Thomas Allen, described in the bill of the show as "the most surprising small man ever before the public," and who had previously been exhibited at the Lyceum, where he was visited by the Duke of York and the Duke of Clarence; and, again to quote the bill, which seems to have been based on the announcements of the Corsican Fairy, some of the pa.s.sages being identical,--

"MISS MORGAN, the Celebrated WINDSOR FAIRY, known in _London_ and _Windsor_ by the Addition of LADY MORGAN, a t.i.tle which His Majesty was pleased to confer on her.

"This unparallelled Woman is in the 35th year of her age, and only 18 pounds weight. Her form affords a pleasing surprise, and her admirable symmetry engages attention. She was introduced to their MAJESTIES at the _Queen's Lodge, Windsor_, on Sat.u.r.day the 4th of August, 1781, by the recommendation of the late Dr. _Hunter_; when they were pleased to p.r.o.nounce her the finest Display of Human Nature in _miniature_ they ever saw.--But we shall say no more of these great Wonders of Nature: let those who honour them with their visits, judge for themselves.

"Let others boast of stature, or of birth, This glorious Truth shall fill our souls with mirth.

'That we now are, and hope, for years, to sing, The SMALLEST subject of the GREATEST King!'

"[Pointing Hand] Admittance to Ladies and Gentlemen, 1_s._ Children, Half Price.

"[Asterism] In this and many other parts of the Kingdom, it is too common to show deformed persons, with various arts and deceptions, under denominations of persons in miniature, to impose on the public.

"This little couple are, beyond contradiction, the most wonderful display of nature ever held out to the admiration of mankind.

"N.B. The above Lady's mother is with her, and will attend at any Lady or Gentleman's house, if required."

Flockton died in 1794, at Peckham, where he had lived for several years in comfort and respectability, having realised what was then regarded as a considerable fortune. He had attended the London Fairs, and many of the chief provincial ones, for many years, retiring to his cottage at Peckham in the winter. His representation of Punch was not only superior in every way to that of the open air puppet shows, but famous for the introduction of a struggle between the mimic representative of the Prince of Darkness and a fine Newfoundland dog, in which the canine combatant seized the enemy by the nose, and finally carried him off the stage.

Flockton had no children, and probably no other relatives, for he bequeathed his show, with all the properties pertaining to it, to Gyngell, a clever performer of tricks of sleight of hand, and a widow named Flint, both of whom had travelled with it for several years; and between these two persons and other members of his company he divided the whole of his acc.u.mulated gains, amounting to five thousand pounds. His successors were announced next Bartholomew Fair as "the Widow Flint and Gyngell, at Flockton's original Theatre, up the Greyhound Yard." Gyngell exhibited his conjuring tricks, and performed on the musical gla.s.ses; and his wife sang between this part of the entertainment and the exhibition of the _fantoccini_ and Flockton's celebrated clock, which seems either to have been over-puffed by its original exhibitor, or to have fallen out of repair, for it was now said to contain five hundred figures, instead of the nine hundred originally claimed for it. Perhaps, however, the larger number was a misprint.

Widow Flint seems to have died soon after Flockton, or to have disposed of her share in the show to Gyngell; for the bill of 1795 is the only one I have found with her name as co-proprietor. Gyngell attended the London fairs, and the princ.i.p.al fairs for many miles round the metropolis, for thirty years after Flockton's death, and is spoken of by persons old enough to remember him as a quiet, gentlemanly man.

Jobson, the puppet-showman, who had been in the field as long as Flockton, was prosecuted in 1797, with several other owners of similar shows, for making his puppets speak, which was held to be an infraction of the laws relating to theatrical licences. This circ.u.mstance proves Strutt to have been in error in describing Flockton as the last of the "motion-masters,"

the latter having been dead three years when his contemporaries were prosecuted. I have not found Jobson's name among the showmen at the London fairs in later years, however; and Gyngell's puppets appear to have dropped out of existence with the musical clock, during the early years of his career as a showman.

The suppression of Bartholomew Fair was strongly urged upon the Court of Common Council in 1798, and the expediency of the measure was referred by the Court to the City Lands Committee, but nothing came of the discussion at that time. It was proposed to limit the duration of the fair to one day, but this suggestion was rejected by the Court of Common Council on the ground that the limitation would cause the fair to be crowded to an extent that would be dangerous to life and limb. It is doubtful, however, whether the showmen would have found the profits of one day sufficient to induce them, had the experiment been tried, to incur the expense of putting up their booths.

The fair went on as before, therefore, and Rowlandson's print sets before us the scene which it presented in 1799 as thoroughly and as vividly as Setchel's engraving has done the Bartholomew Fair of the first quarter of the century. Gyngell's "grand medley" (a name adopted from Jobson) was there; and the menageries of Miles and Polito, the Italian successor of Pidc.o.c.k, and very famous in his day; and Abraham Saunders, whom we meet with for the first time, with the theatre which he appears to have sometimes subst.i.tuted for the circus, perhaps when an execution had deprived him of his horses, or a bad season had obliged him to sell them; and Miss Biffin, who, having been born without arms, painted portraits with a brush affixed to her right shoulder, and exhibited herself and her productions at fairs as the best mode of obtaining patronage.

Down to the end of the last century there are no records of a circus having appeared at the London fairs. Astley is said to have taken his stud and company to Bartholomew Fair at one time, but I have not succeeded in finding any bill or advertis.e.m.e.nt of the great equestrian in connection with fairs. The amphitheatre which has always borne his name (except during the lessees.h.i.+p of Mr. Boucicault, who chose to call it the Westminster Theatre, a t.i.tle about as appropriate as the Marylebone would be in Sh.o.r.editch), was opened in 1780, and he had previously given open air performances on the same site, only the seats being roofed over. The enterprising character of Astley renders it not improbable that he may have tried his fortune at the fairs when the circus was closed, as it has usually been during the summer; and he may not have commenced his season at the amphitheatre until after Bartholomew Fair, or have given there a performance which he was accustomed to give in the afternoon at a large room in Piccadilly, where the tricks of a performing horse were varied with conjuring and _Ombres Chinoises_, a kind of shadow pantomime.

But though Astley's was the first circus erected in England, equestrian performances in the open air had been given before his time by Price and Sampson. The site of Dobney's Place, at the back of Penton Street, Islington, was, in the middle of the last century, a tea-garden and bowling-green, to which Johnson, who leased the premises in 1767, added the attraction of tumbling and rope-dancing performances, which had become so popular at Sadler's Wells. Price commenced his equestrian performances at this place in 1770, and soon had a rival in Sampson, who performed similar feats in a field behind the Old Hats public-house. It was not until ten years later, according to the historians of Lambeth, that Philip Astley exhibited his feats of horsemans.h.i.+p in a field near the Halfpenny Hatch, forming his first ring with a rope and stakes, after the manner of the mountebanks of a later day, and going round with his hat after each performance to collect the largesses of the spectators, a part of the business which, in the slang of strolling acrobats and other entertainers of the public in bye-streets and market-places, and on village greens, is called "doing a n.o.b."

This remarkable man was born in 1742, at Newcastle-under-Lyme, where his father carried on the business of a cabinet maker. He received little or no education--no uncommon thing at that time,--and, having worked a few years with his father, enlisted in a cavalry regiment. His imposing appearance, being over six feet in height, with the proportions of a Hercules, and the voice of a Stentor, attracted attention to him; and his capture of a standard at the battle of Emsdorff, made him one of the celebrities of his regiment. While serving in the army, he learned many feats of horsemans.h.i.+p from an itinerant equestrian named Johnson, and often exhibited them for the amus.e.m.e.nt of his comrades. On his discharge from the army, being presented by General Elliot with a horse, he bought another in Smithfield, and with these two animals gave the open air performances in Lambeth, which have been mentioned.

CHAPTER IX

Edmund Kean--Mystery of his Parentage--Saunders's Circus--Scowton's Theatre--Belzoni--The Nondescript--Richardson's Theatre--The Carey Family--Kean, a Circus Performer--Oxberry, the Comedian--James Wallack--Last Appearance of the Irish Giant--Miss Biffin and the Earl of Morton--Bartholomew Fair Incidents--Josephine Girardelli, the Female Salamander--James England, the Flying Pieman--Elliston as a Showman--Simon Paap, the Dutch Dwarf--Ballard's Menagerie--A Learned Pig--Madame Gobert, the Athlete--Cartlich, the Original Mazeppa--Barnes, the Pantaloon--Nelson Lee--Cooke's Circus--The Gyngell Family

With the present century commenced a period of the history of shows and showmen specially interesting to the generation which remembers the London fairs as they were forty or fifty years ago, and to which the names of Gyngell, Scowton, Samwell, Richardson, Clarke, Atkins, and Wombwell have a familiar sound. It introduces us, in its earliest years, to the celebrated Edmund Kean, "the stripling known in a certain wayfaring troop of _Atellanae_ by the name of Carey," as Raymond wrote, and whom we find performing at the London fairs, sometimes tumbling in Saunders's circus, and sometimes playing juvenile characters in the travelling theatres of Scowton and Richardson. The early life of this remarkable man is as strange as any that has ever afforded materials for the biographer, and the mystery surrounding his parentage as inscrutable a problem as the authors.h.i.+p of the letters of Junius.

Phippen, the earliest biographer of Kean, says that he was born in 1788, and was the illegitimate offspring of _Aaron_ Kean, a tailor, and Anne Carey, an actress. Proctor, whose account is repeated by Hawkins, states that his parentage was unknown, but that, according to the best conclusion he was able to form, he was the son of _Edmund_ Kean, a mechanic employed by a London builder, and Anne Carey, an actress. Raymond says, on the authority of Miss Tidswell, who was many years at Drury Lane Theatre, that he was the son of _Edward_ Kean, a carpenter, and Nancy Carey, the actress. While these various writers agree as to the name and profession of the future great tragedian's mother, and the patronymic of his father, they give us the choice of three baptismal names for the latter, and at least two occupations. There seems no doubt, however, that his father, whether he was a carpenter or a tailor, was the brother of Moses Kean, a popular reciter and imitator of the leading actors at the beginning of the present century.

No register of his birth or baptism has ever been discovered, and it is even a matter of doubt whether he was born in Westminster or in Southwark.

Miss Tidswell seems to have been the only person who possessed any knowledge of his birth and parentage that was ever revealed, a circ.u.mstance which caused her to be suspected of herself standing in the maternal relations.h.i.+p to him. Kean, when a child, called her sometimes mother, and sometimes aunt; but, according to her own account, she was in no way related to him, but had adopted him on his being deserted by his real mother, Anne Carey.

His first appearance in public was made in the character of a monkey, in the show of Abraham Saunders, at Bartholomew Fair, probably in 1801. He was then twelve or thirteen years of age, and already innured to a wandering and vagabond mode of life; being in the habit of absenting himself for days together from the lodging of Miss Tidswell, in order to visit the fairs, and sleeping under the trees in St. James's Park, to avoid being locked up by his guardian, and thus prevented from gazing at the parades of Saunders and Scowton on the morrow.

Proctor says, somewhat vaguely, though probably with as much exactness as the materials for a memoir of Kean's boyhood render possible, that when about fourteen years of age, he was sometimes in Richardson's company, and sometimes in Scowton's or Saunders's; and that, besides tumbling in the circus of the latter, he rode and danced on the tight-rope. In performing an equestrian act at Bartholomew Fair, he once fell from the pad, and hurt his legs, which never quite recovered from the effects of the accident.

In 1803, another notability of the age made his appearance at Bartholomew Fair, namely, Belzoni, afterwards famous as an explorer of the pyramids and royal tombs of Egypt. He was a remarkably handsome and finely proportioned man, and of almost gigantic stature, his height being six feet six inches. His muscular strength being proportionate to his size, he was engaged by Gyngell to exhibit feats of strength, as the young Hercules, _alias_ the Patagonian Samson, in which character he lifted four men of average weight off the ground, and held out prodigious weights at arm's length. He afterwards went to Edmonton Fair, where he performed in a field behind the Bell Inn. Of his engagements during the following six or seven years we have no account, but in 1810 he sustained the character of Orson at the Edinburgh theatre, when he was hissed for not being sufficiently demonstrative in his attentions to the maternal bear. Five years later, he was exploring the pyramids and sarcophagi of Egypt, as a.s.sistant to the British Consul at Alexandria, and in 1820 his name was famous.

In the same year that Belzoni performed his feats of strength in Gyngell's show, there was exhibited in Bartholomew Fair, together with a two-headed calf, and a double-bodied calf, "a surprising large fish, the Nondescript," which "surprising inhabitant of the watery kingdom was,"

according to the bill, "drawn on the sh.o.r.e by seven horses and about a hundred men. She measured twenty-five feet in length and about eighteen in circ.u.mference, and had in her belly when found, one thousand seven hundred mackerel."

The first mention of Richardson's theatre in the annals of the London Fairs occurs in 1804. Of his early career there is no record; probably it did not differ much from that of his pupil, Kean, or his successor, Nelson Lee, or of the famous "roving English clown," Charlie Keith, and numerous others whose lives have been pa.s.sed in wandering from place to place, amusing the public as actors, jugglers, conjurors, acrobats, etc. Whatever his antecedents may have been, there is no doubt as to his character, all who knew him concurring in representing him as illiterate and ignorant, but possessing a large fund of shrewdness and common sense; irritable in temper, but agreeable in his manners so long as nothing occurred to excite his irascibility; sensitive to any unprovoked insult, which he never failed to revenge, but always ready and willing to lend a helping hand to those who had been less fortunate than himself.

Many stories are current among showmen and the theatrical profession of Richardson's goodness of heart and his occasional eccentricities of conduct. On one occasion, while his portable theatre was at St. Albans, a fire occurred in the town, and many small houses were destroyed, the poor tenants of which by that means lost all their furniture, and almost everything they possessed. A subscription was immediately opened for their relief, and a public meeting was held to promote the benevolent purpose.

Richardson attended, and when the Mayor, who presided, had read a list of donations, varying in amount from five s.h.i.+llings to twice as many pounds, he advanced to the table, and presented a Bank of England note for a hundred pounds.

"To whom is the fund indebted for this munificent donation?" inquired the astonished Mayor.

"Put it down to Muster Richardson, the showman," replied the donor, who then walked quietly from the room.

He often paid the ground-rent of the poorer proprietors of travelling shows, booths, and stalls, whose receipts, owing to bad weather, had not enabled them to pay the claims of the owner of the field, and who, but for Richardson's kindness, would have been obliged to remain on the ground, losing the chance of making money elsewhere, until they could raise the required sum. He never seemed to expect repayment in such cases, and never referred to them afterwards. Saunders, who seems to have pa.s.sed through an unusually long life in a chronic condition of impecuniosity, once borrowed ten pounds of him, and honourably and punctually repaid the money at the appointed time. Richardson seemed surprised, but he took the money, and made no remark. No very long time elapsed before Saunders wanted another loan, when, to his surprise, Richardson met his application with a decided refusal.

"I paid you honourably the money you lent me before," observed Saunders with an aggrieved air.

"That's it, Muster Saunders," rejoined Richardson. "You did pay me that money, and I was never more surprised in my life; and I mean to take care you don't surprise me again, either in that way, _or any other way_."

In recruiting his company, he preferred actors who had learned a trade, such being, in his opinion, steadier and more to be depended upon than those who, like Kean, had been strollers from childhood. His pay-table was the head of the big drum, and his way of discharging an actor or musician with whom he was dissatisfied was to ask him, when giving him his week's salary, to leave his name and address with the stage-manager, who was also wardrobe-keeper and scene-s.h.i.+fter. This post was held for many years by a man named Lewis, who was also the general servant of Richardson's "living carriage," and at his winter quarters, Woodland Cottage, Horsemonger Lane, long since pulled down, the site being occupied by a respectable row of houses, called Woodland Terrace.

He always strengthened his company, and produced his best dresses, for the London fairs, where his theatre, decked with banners and a good display of steel and bra.s.s armour, presented a striking appearance. His wardrobe and scene-waggon were always well stocked, and the dresses were not, as some persons imagined, the off castings of the theatres, but were made for him, and, having to be worn by daylight, were of really excellent quality.

Cloaks were provided for the company to wear on parade when the weather happened to be wet.

It was a frequent boast of Richardson, that many of the most eminent members of the theatrical profession had graduated in his company, and it is known that Edmund Kean, James Wallack, Oxberry, and Saville Faucit were of the number. Kean always acknowledged that he made his first appearance in a princ.i.p.al part as Young Norval in Richardson's theatre; but it is obvious from what is known of his boyhood that he must have been in the company several years before he could have essayed that character. So far as can be made out from his supposed age, he seems to have joined Richardson's company in 1804, to the early part of which year we must a.s.sign the story told by Davis, who was afterwards a.s.sociated in partners.h.i.+p with the younger Astley in the lessees.h.i.+p of the Amphitheatre.

"I was pa.s.sing down Great Surrey Street one morning," Davis is reported to have said, "when just as I came to the place where the Riding House now stands, at the corner of the Magdalen as they call it, I saw Master Saunders packing up his traps. His booth, you see, had been standing there for some three or four days, or thereabouts; and on the parade-waggon I saw a slim young chap with marks of paint--and bad paint it was, for all the world like raddle on the back of a sheep--on his face, tying up some of the canvas. And when I had shook hands with Master Saunders, he turns him right round to this young chap, who had just threw a somerset behind his back, and says, 'I say, you Mr. King d.i.c.k, if you don't mind what you're arter, and pack up that wan pretty tight and nimble, we shan't be off afore to-morrow; and so, you mind your eye, my lad.' That Mr. King d.i.c.k, as Master Saunders called him, was young Carey, that's now your great Mr. Kean."