The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs

CHAPTER VII

Yates and Shuter – Cat Harris – Mechanical Singing Birds – Lecture on Heads – Pidcock’s Menagerie – Breslaw, the Conjuror – Reappearance of the Corsican Fairy – Gaetano, the Bird Imitator – Rossignol’s Performing Birds – Ambroise, the Showman – Brunn, the Juggler, on the Wire – Riot at Bartholomew Fair – Dancing Serpents – Flockton, the Puppet-Showman – Royal Visit to Bartholomew Fair – Lane, the Conjuror – Hall’s Museum – O’Brien, the Irish Giant – Baker’s Theatre – Joel Tarvey and Lewis Owen, the popular Clowns.

The relations between Yates and Shuter in the last two or three years of their appearance as showmen at Bartholomew Fair are somewhat doubtful; but all the evidence that I have been able to obtain points to the conclusion that they did not co-operate subsequently to 1758. In 1761 they seemed to have been in rivalry, for the former’s name appears singly as the director of the “company of comedians from both the theatres” that performed in the concert-room at the Greyhound, while an advertisement of one of the minor shows of the fair describes it as located in George Yard, “leading to Mr. Shuter’s booth.” I have not, however, been able to find an advertisement of Shuter’s booth.

Yates’s company performed The Fair Bride, which the bills curiously describe as “containing many surprising Occurrences at Sea, which could not possibly happen at Land. The Performance will be highly enlivened with several entertaining Scenes between England, France, Ireland, and Scotland, in the diverting Personages of Ben Bowling, an English Sailor; Mons. Soup-Maigre, a French Captain; O’Flannaghan, an Irish Officer; M’Pherson, a Scotch Officer. Through which the Manners of each Nation will be characteristically and humorously depicted. In which will be introduced as singular and curious a Procession as was ever exhibited in this Nation. The objects that comprise the Pageantry are both Exotic and British. The Principal Figure is the Glory and Delight of OLD ENGLAND, and Envy of our ENEMIES. With Variety of Entertainments of Singing and Dancing. The whole to conclude with a Loyal Song on the approaching Marriage of our great and glorious Sovereign King GEORGE and the Princess CHARLOTTE of Mecklenberg.”

There were two shows in George Yard, in one of which “the famous learned canary bird” was exhibited, the other consisting of a moving picture of a city, with an artificial cascade, and “a magnificent temple, with two mechanical birds which have all the exact motions of living animals; they perform a variety of tunes, either singular or in concert. During the performance, the just swelling of the throat, the quick motions of the bills, and the joyous fluttering of the wings, strike every spectator with pleasing astonishment.”

Shuter seems to have been the last actor who played at Bartholomew Fair while engaged at a permanent theatre. Some amusing stories are told of his powers of mimicry. When Foote introduced in a comedy a duet supposed to be performed by two cats, in imitation of Bisset’s feline opera, he engaged for the purpose one Harris, who was famous for his power of producing the vocal sounds peculiar to the species. Harris being absent one day from rehearsal, Shuter went in search of him, and not knowing the number of the house in which Cat Harris, as he was called, resided, he began to perform a feline solo as soon as he entered the court in which lived the man of whom he was in search. Harris opened his window at the sound, and responded with a beautiful meeyow.

“You are the man!” said Shuter. “Come along! We can’t begin the cats’ opera without you.”

There is a story told of Shuter, however, which is strongly suggestive of his ability to have supplied Cat Harris’s place. He was travelling in the Brighton stage-coach on a very warm day, with four ladies, when the vehicle stopped to receive a sixth passenger, who could have played Falstaff without padding. The faces of the ladies elongated at this unwelcome addition to the number, but Shuter only smiled. When the stout gentleman was seated, and the coach was again in motion, Shuter gravely inquired of one of the ladies her motive for visiting Brighton. She replied, that her physician had advised sea-bathing as a remedy for mental depression. He turned to the others, and repeated his inquiries; the next was nervous, the third bilious – all had some ailment which the sea was expected to cure.

“Ah!” sighed the comedian, “all your complaints put together are nothing to mine. Oh, nothing! – mine is dreadful but to think of.”

“Indeed, sir!” said the stout passenger, with a look of astonishment. “What is your complaint? you look exceedingly well.”

“Ah, sir!” responded Shuter, shaking his head, “looks are deceitful; you must know, sir, that, three days ago, I had the misfortune to be bitten by a mad dog, for which I am informed sea-bathing is the only cure. For that purpose I am going to Brighton; for though, as you observe, I am looking well, yet the fit comes on in a moment, when I bark like a dog, and endeavour to bite every one near me.”

“Lord have mercy on us!” ejaculated the stout passenger, with a look of alarm. “But, sir, you are not in earnest – you – ”

“Bow-wow-wow!”

“Coachman! coachman! Let me out! – let me out, I say!”

“Now, your honour, what’s the matter?”

“A mad dog is the matter! – hydrophobia is the matter! open the door!”

“Bow-wow-wow!”

“Open the door! Never mind the steps. Thank God, I am safe out! Let those who like ride inside; I’ll mount the roof.”

So he rode to Brighton outside the coach, much to the satisfaction of Shuter and his fair companions who were very merry at his expense, the former repeating at intervals his sonorous bow-wow-wow!

Theatrical booths and puppet-shows were again prohibited in 1762, and, as the jugglers, the acrobats, and the rope-dancers who attended the fairs did not advertise their performances, only casual notices are to be found in the newspapers of the period of the amusements which that generation flocked into Smithfield in the first week of September to witness, and which lead them somewhat earlier to the greens of Camberwell and Stepney. Some of the entertainers of the period are mentioned in an anonymous poem on Bartholomew Fair, which appeared in 1763. The names are probably fictitious.

“On slender cord Volante treads;The earth seems paved with human heads:And as she springs aloft in air,Trembling they crouch below for fear.A well-made form Querpero shows,Well-skilled that form to discompose;The arms forget their wonted state;Standing on earth, they bear his weight;The head falls downward ’twixt the thighs,The legs mount upward to the skies;And thus this topsy-turvy creatureStalks, and derides the human nature.Agyrta, famed for cup and ball,Plays sleight of hand, and pleases all:The certainty of sense in vainPhilosophers in schools maintain;This man your sharpest wit defies,He cheats your watchful ears and eyes.Ah, ’prentice, well your pockets fence,And yet he steals your master’s pence.”

In 1765, “the celebrated lecture on heads” was advertised to be given, during the time of Bartholomew Fair, “in a large and commodious room near the end of Hosier Lane.” The name of the lecturer was not announced, but the form of the advertisement implies that the lecture was Steevens’s. The lecturer may, however, have been only an imitator of that famous humorist; for the newspapers of the preceding week inform us that a similar announcement was made at Alnwick, where the audience, finding that the lecturer was not Steevens, regarded him as an impostor, and demanded the return of their money, with a threat of tossing him in a blanket. The lecturer attempted to vindicate himself, but the production of a blanket completed his discomfiture, and he surrendered, returning to the disappointed audience the money which they had paid for admission.

In 1769, the chief attraction of the London fairs was Pidcock’s menagerie, which was the largest and best which had ever been exhibited in a temporary erection, the animals being hired from Cross’s collection at Exeter Change. Pidcock exhibited his animals at Bartholomew Fair for several successive years, and was succeeded by Polito, whose zoological collection attracted thousands of spectators every year.

Breslaw, the conjuror, appeared in 1772, in a large room in Cockspur Street, where his tricks of legerdemain were combined with a vocal and instrumental concert by three or four Italians, imitations by a young lady announced as Miss Rose of “many interesting parts of the capital actresses in tragedy and comedy,” and imitations by an Italian named Gaetano of the notes of the blackbird, thrush, canary, linnet, bull-finch, sky-lark, and nightingale. In 1774, the entertainment was given on alternate days in the large ball-room of the King’s Arms, opposite the Royal Exchange. In 1775, it was given in Cockspur Street only, and in the following year at Marylebone Gardens. He then appears to have been absent from London for a couple of years, as he always was during a portion of each year, when he made a tour through the provinces.

Caulfield says that Breslaw was superior to Fawkes, “both in tricks and impudence,” and relates an anecdote, which certainly goes far to bear out his assertion. Breslaw, while exhibiting at Canterbury, requested permission to display his cunning a little longer, promising the Mayor that if he was indulged with the required permission, he would give the receipts of one night for the benefit of the poor. The Mayor acceded to the proposition, and Breslaw had a crowded house; hearing nothing about the money collected on the specified evening, the Mayor called upon Breslaw, and, in as delicate a manner as possible, expressed his surprise.

“Mr. Mayor,” said the conjuror, “I have distributed the money myself.”

“Pray, sir, to whom?” inquired the Mayor, still more surprised.

“To my own company, than whom none can be poorer,” replied Breslaw.

“This is a trick!” exclaimed the Mayor indignantly.

“Sir,” returned the conjuror, “we live by tricks.”

In 1773, the Corsican fairy reappeared, having probably made the tour of Europe since her first exhibition in London in 1748, which has been overlooked by some writers, though there is no doubt that the girl exhibited at the latter date was the same person. Two years later, the Turkish rope-dancer, who had displayed his feats in 1744, reappeared at Bartholomew Fair. In the same year, Rossignol exhibited his performing birds at Sadler’s Wells, and afterwards at the Smock Alley theatre, in Dublin. He returned to Sadler’s Wells in 1776, where his clever feathered company attracted as many spectators as before. Twelve or fourteen canaries and linnets were taken from their cages, and placed on a table, in ranks, with paper caps on their heads, and tiny toy muskets under their left wings. Thus armed and accoutred, they marched about the table, until one of them, leaving the ranks, was adjudged a deserter, and sentenced to be shot. A mimic execution then took place, one of the birds holding a lighted match in its claw, and firing a toy cannon of brass, loaded with powder. The deserter fell, feigning death, but rose again at the command of Rossignol.

Breslaw had formidable competitors this year in Ambroise and Brunn, who gave a variety entertainment in a large room in Panton Street, of which we have the following account in their advertisements: —

“On the part of Mr. Ambroise, the manager of the Ombres Chinoises, will be performed all those scenes which, upon repeated trial, have had a general approbation, with new pieces every day; the whole to be augmented with a fourth division. By the particular desire of the company, the danses de caractère in the intervals are performed to the astonishment of all, and to conclude with the comic of a magician, who performs metamorphoses, etc. He had the honour to represent this spectacle before his Most Christian Majesty Louis XVI. and the Royal Family; likewise before His Serene Highness the Prince d’Orange and the whole Court, with an approbation very flattering for the performer.

“The Saxon Brunn, besides various tricks of his dexterity, will give this day a surprising circular motion with three forks and a sword; to-morrow, with a plate put horizontally upon the point of a knife, a sword fixed perpendicularly, on the top of which another plate, all turning with a remarkable swiftness; and on Saturday the singular performance with a bason, called the Clag of Manfredonia; all which are of his own invention, being the non plus ultra for equilibriums on the wire. The applause they have already received makes them hope to give an equal satisfaction to the company for the future. To begin at seven precisely. Admittance, five shillings.”

In 1778, a foreigner exhibited in Bartholomew Fair the extraordinary spectacle of serpents dancing on silken ropes to the sound of music, which performance has never, I believe, been repeated since. The serpents exhibited by Arab and Hindoo performers, of whose skill an example was afforded several years ago in the Zoological Gardens in the Regent’s Park, dance on the ground. It was in this year that the fair was visited by the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, who entered at Giltspur Street, and passing the puppet-shows of Flockton and Jobson, the conjuring booths of Lane and Robinson, and several other shows the names only of whose proprietors – Ives, Basil, Clarkson, – have been preserved, rode through Cow Lane into Holborn.

This year appears to have been the first in which puppet-shows were allowed to be set up in Smithfield after being excluded for several years; as in 1776 a more than ordinary degree of irritation was produced by their exclusion, “Lady Holland’s mob” proclaiming the fair without any restriction, and a disturbance arising afterwards, in the course of which the windows of nearly every house round Smithfield were broken by the rioters. Flockton and Jobson attended the fair regularly for many years. The former used to perform some conjuring tricks on the outside of his show to attract an audience, but Strutt says that he was a very poor conjuror. Lane’s performances were varied by posturing and dancing by his two daughters. The following doggrel appears in one of his bills: —

“It will make you laugh, it will drive away gloom,To see how the egg it will dance round the room;And from another egg a bird there will fly,Which makes the company all for to cry,‘O rare Lane! cockalorum for Lane! well done, Lane!You are the Man!’”

One of the chief shows of the fair in 1779 was the fine collection of preserved animals of Hall, of the City Road, who was famous for his skill in that art. This museum did not prove so attractive as Pidcock’s menagerie, however, the frequenters of the fair preferring to see the animals living; and in the following year even the expedient of parading a stuffed zebra round the fair did not attract spectators enough to induce Hall to attend again. His museum remained open in the City Road, however, for many years.

Breslaw, the conjuror, had a room in 1779 at the King’s Head, near the Mansion House, as well as in Cockspur Street (opposite the Haymarket), and a bill of this year shows, better than any of his earlier announcements, the nature of the tricks which he performed. His exposition of “how it is done” was probably not more intelligible than Dr. Lynn’s. “Between the different parts,” says the bill, “Mr. Breslaw will discover the following deceptions in such a manner, that every person in the company shall be capable of doing them immediately for their amusement. First, to tell any lady or gentleman the card that they fix on, without asking any questions. Second, to make a remarkable piece of money to fly out of any gentleman’s hand into a lady’s pocket-handkerchief, at two yards distance. Third, to change four or five cards in any lady’s or gentleman’s hand several times into different cards. Fourth, to make a fresh egg fly out of any person’s pocket into a box on the table, and immediately to fly back again into the pocket.”

Breslaw had Rossignol in his company at this time, as will be seen from the following programme: – “1. Mr. Breslaw will exhibit a variety of new magical card deceptions, particularly he will communicate the thoughts from one person to another, after which he will perform many new deceptions with letters, numbers, dice, rings, pocket-pieces, &c., &c. 2. Under the direction of Sieur Changee, a new invented small chest, consisting of three divisions, will be displayed in a most extraordinary manner. 3. The famous Rossignol, from Naples, will imitate various birds, to the astonishment of the spectators. 4. Mr. Breslaw will exhibit several new experiments on six different metals, watches, caskets, gold boxes, silver machineries, &c., &c.”

Rossignol (said to be an assumed name) afterwards obtained an engagement at Covent Garden Theatre, where he attracted attention by an imitation of the violin with his mouth; but, being detected in the use of a concealed instrument, he lost his reputation, and we hear of him no more. Breslaw filled up the vacancy in his company by engaging Novilli, who played “at one time on the German flute, violin, Spanish castanets, two pipes, trumpet, bassoon, bass, Dutch drum, and violin-cello, never attempted before in this kingdom.” I have not been able to discover anything that would throw some light upon the manner in which this extraordinary performance was accomplished. He engaged for his London season this year a large room in Panton Street, probably the one in which Ambroise and Brunn performed in 1775. The entertainment commenced, as before, with a vocal and instrumental concert, between the parts of which lyrical and rhetorical imitations were given by “a young gentleman, not nine years of age;” the concluding portion consisting of the exhibition of Breslaw’s “new invented mechanical watches, sympathetic bell, pyramidical glasses, magical card deceptions, &c., &c.,” and particularly “a new grand apparatus and experiments never attempted before in this kingdom.”

It was in this year that the famous Irish giant, Patrick O’Brien, first exhibited himself at Bartholomew Fair, being then nineteen years of age, and over eight feet high. His name was Cotter, that of O’Brien being assumed when he began to exhibit himself, to accord with the representation that he was a descendant of the ancient royal race of Munster. His parents, who were both of middle height only, apprenticed him to a bricklayer; but, at the age of eighteen, his extraordinary stature attracted the attention of a showman, by whom he was induced to sign an agreement to exhibit himself in England for three years, receiving a yearly salary of fifty pounds. Soon after reaching England, however, on his refusing his assent to a proposed cession of his person to another showman, his exhibitor caused him to be arrested at Bristol for a fictitious debt, and lodged in the city goal.

Obtaining his release, and the annulment of the contract, by the interposition of a benevolent inhabitant of Bristol, he proceeded to London, and exhibited himself on his own account in Bartholomew Fair, realising thirty pounds by the experiment in three days. He exhibited in this fair four or five successive years, but, as he made money, he changed the scene of his “receptions,” as they would now be called, to public halls in the metropolis, and the assembly-rooms of provincial hotels. He attained the height of eight feet seven inches, and was proportionately stout, but far from symmetrical; and so deficient in stamina that the effort to maintain an upright attitude while exhibiting himself was painful to him.

Theatrical booths again appeared at Bartholomew Fair in 1782, when Mrs. Baker, manageress of the Rochester Theatre, took her company to Smithfield. Tradition says that Elizabeth Inchbald was at this time a member of Mrs. Baker’s company, but I have not been able to discover any ground for the belief. The diary of the actress would have set the matter at rest; but she destroyed it before her death, and Boaden’s memoirs of her were based chiefly upon her letters. They show her to have performed that year at Canterbury, and it is within the limits of probability that she may have performed at Rochester also; though it would still remain doubtful whether she accompanied Mrs. Baker to Bartholomew Fair. According to Boaden, she proceeded to Edinburgh on the termination of her Canterbury engagement.

Lewis Owen, who was engaged by Mrs. Baker as clown for her Bartholomew Fair performances, was a young man of reputable family and good education, who had embraced the career of a public entertainer from choice, as more congenial to his tastes and habits than any other. His eccentric manners and powers of grimace, joined with a considerable fund of natural wit, caused him to be speedily recognised as a worthy successor of Joel Tarvey, who, after amusing more than one generation, as the Merry Andrew of various shows and places of amusements, had died at Hoxton of extreme old age in 1777.

CHAPTER VIII

Lady Holland’s Mob – Kelham Whiteland, the Dwarf – Flockton, the Conjuror and Puppet-Showman – Wonderful Rams – Miss Morgan, the Dwarf – Flockton’s Will – Gyngell, the Conjuror – Jobson, the Puppet-Showman – Abraham Saunders – Menageries of Miles and Polito – Miss Biffin – Philip Astley.

While the character of the theatrical entertainments presented at the London fairs declined from the middle of the eighteenth century, when Yates and Shuter ceased to appear in Smithfield “during the short time of Bartholomew Fair,” the various other shows underwent a gradual improvement. Menageries became larger and better arranged, while with the progress of zoological science, they were rendered better media for its diffusion. Panoramas and mechanical exhibitions began to appear, and, though it is impossible to estimate the degree in which such agencies were instrumental in educating the people, it is but fair to allow them some share in the intellectual progress of the latter half of the century.

The good or evil arising from the amusements of any class of the people can only be fairly judged by comparing the amusements with those of other classes at the same period; and those who will study the dramas and novels, and especially the newspapers of the last century, will not find more to commend in the manners and pursuits of the upper and middle classes than in those of the lower orders of society, as exemplified in the London fairs. The hand that painted Gin Lane for the contemplation of posterity left an instructive picture of the morals and manners of the upper strata of society in the ‘Rake’s Progress’ and the ‘Midnight Conversation.’

The amusements of the people partake of the mutability of all mundane matters, and the newspapers of the period show that the London fairs had begun, at the beginning of the last quarter of the eighteenth century, to be regarded by the educated portion of society much less favourably than they had been in earlier times. When St. James’s ceased to patronize them, Bloomsbury voted them low, and Cornhill declared them a nuisance. Journalists, having as yet no readers in the slums, and therefore writing exclusively for St. James’s, or Bloomsbury, or Cornhill, as the case might be, adapted their tone to the views current in those sections of London society. If we first place a paragraph of the ‘Times’ of the present day recording a cock-fight or a pugilistic contest, by the side of a report of a similar encounter in a journal of thirty years ago, we shall have no difficulty in understanding why Bartholomew Fair was described by the ‘Morning Chronicle’ in 1784 in language so different to that used by Pepys and Evelyn a century before.

After recounting the misdoings of “Lady Holland’s mob,” the paragraphist tells his readers that: —

“The elegant part of the entertainment was confined to a few booths. At the Lock and Key, near Cloth Fair, a select company performed the musical opera of the Poor Soldier, with Columbine’s escape from Smithfield. Mr. Flockton, whose name can never be struck off Bartholomew roll, had a variety of entertainments without and within. The King’s conjuror, who takes more money from out the pocket than he puts in, made the lank-haired gentry scratch their pates; the walking French puppet-show had hired an apartment, with additional performers; Punch and the Devil, in his little moving theatre, were performing without doors, to invite the company into the grand theatre. Men with wooden mummies in show-boxes were found straggling about the fair; tall women in cellars, dropping upon their knees to be kissed by short customers; dwarfs mounted on stools for the same civil purposes; and men without arms writing with their feet.”