No, no—a faulty cord, being drawn too tight
Hurried his soul on high to take her flight,
Which bid the body here beneath good night.’
The earliest advertisement of Sadler’s Wells which I have been able to find is one of 1739, which states that ‘the usual diversions will begin this day at five o’clock in the evening, with a variety of rope-dancing, tumbling, singing, and several new entertainments of dancing, both serious and comic; concluding with the revived grotesque pantomime called Happy Despair, with additions and alterations.’ An advertisement of the following year introduces Miss Rayner as a performer on the tight rope, who in 1748 appeared in conjunction with a younger sister. The acrobats of the latter period were Williams, Hough, and Rayner, the latter probably father or brother of the fair performers on the corde elastique.
The New Wells, at the bottom of Leman Street, Goodman’s Fields, were opened at this time, and introduced to the public a French rope-dancer named Dugée, who also tumbled, in conjunction with Williams, who had left the Islington place of entertainment, and another acrobat named Janno. Williams is announced in an advertisement of 1748 to vault over the heads of ten men. The admission here was by payment for a pint of wine or punch, which was the case also at Sadler’s Wells at this time; but in an announcement of a benefit the charges for admission are stated at eighteen-pence and half-a-crown, with the addition that the night will be moonlight, and that wine may be obtained at two shillings per bottle.
Twenty years later, we find announced at Sadler’s Wells, ‘feats of activity by Signor Nomora and Signora Rossi, and many curious and uncommon equilibres by Le Chevalier des Linges.’ In 1771 the rope-dancers here were Ferzi (sometimes spelt Farci) and Garmon, who was, a few years later, a member of the first company formed by the celebrated Philip Astley for the Amphitheatre in the Westminster Road.
The first equestrian performances ever seen in England, other than those of the itinerant exhibitors of performing horses, were given on the site of Dobney’s Place, at the back of Penton Street, Islington. It was then a tea-garden and bowling-green, to which one Johnson, who obtained a lease of the premises in 1767, added such performances as then attracted seekers after amusement to Sadler’s Wells. One Price, concerning whose antecedents the strictest research has failed to discover any information, gave equestrian performances at this place in 1770, and soon had a rival in one Sampson, who performed similar feats in a field behind the Old Hats.
About the same time, feats of horsemanship were exhibited in Lambeth, in a field near Halfpenny Hatch, which, it may be necessary to inform your readers, stood where a broad ditch, which then ran through the fields and market gardens now covered by the streets between Westminster Road and Blackfriars Road, was crossed by a swivel bridge. There was a narrow pathway through the fields and gardens, for the privilege of using which a halfpenny was paid to the owners at a cottage near the bridge. In one of these fields Philip Astley—a great name in circus annals—formed his first ring with a rope and some stakes, going round with his hat after each performance to collect the loose halfpence of the admiring spectators.
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, and after working 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 some feats of horsemanship from an itinerant equestrian named Johnson, perhaps the man under whose management Price introduced equestrian performances at Sadler’s Wells,—and often exhibited them for the amusement of his comrades. On his discharge from the army, he was presented by General Elliot with a horse, and thereupon he bought another in Smithfield, and commenced those open-air performances in Lambeth which have already been noticed.
After a time, he built a rude circus upon a piece of ground near Westminster Bridge which had been used as a timber-yard, being the site of the theatre which has been known by his name for nearly a century. Only the seats were roofed over, the ring in which he performed being open to the air. One of his horses, which he had taught to perform a variety of tricks, he soon began to exhibit, at an earlier period of each day, in a large room in Piccadilly, where the entertainment was eked out with conjuring and ombres Chinoises—a kind of shadow pantomime.