The shows were very numerous this year. There were four menageries, the proprietors of which are not named in the newspapers of the day, which inform us further that there was “the usual variety of conjurors, wire-dancers, giants, dwarfs, fat children, learned pigs, albinoes, &c.” Ballard, Wombwell, and Atkins were probably among the menagerists, though I have found no bill or other memorial of either of the two great menageries of the second quarter of the eighteenth century of an earlier date than 1825.
Gyngell, like Richardson, never missed Bartholomew Fair in those days; and he was now supported by a clever grown-up family, consisting of Joseph, who was a good juggler and balancer; Horatio, who, besides being a dancer, was a self-taught artist of considerable ability; George, who was a pyrotechnist; and Louisa, a very beautiful young woman and graceful tight-rope dancer, who afterwards fell, and broke one of her arms, in ascending from the stage of Covent Garden Theatre to the gallery. Nelson Lee joined Gyngell’s company on the termination of his engagement with Richardson; and, having learned the juggling business from a Frenchman in the troupe, shortly afterwards exhibited his skill at the Adelphi, and other London theatres.
CHAPTER X.
Saker and the Lees—Richardson’s Theatre—Wombwell, the Menagerist—The Lion Fights at Warwick—Maughan, the Showman—Miss Hipson, the Fat Girl—Lydia Walpole, the Dwarf—The Persian Giant and the Fair Circassian—Ball’s Theatre—Atkins’s Menagerie—A Mare with Seven Feet—Hone’s Visit to Richardson’s Theatre—Samwell’s Theatre—Clarke’s Circus—Brown’s Theatre of Arts—Ballard’s Menagerie—Toby, the Learned Pig—William Whitehead, the Fat Boy—Elizabeth Stock, the Giantess—Chappell and Pike’s Theatre—The Spotted Boy—Wombwell’s “Bonassus”—Gouffe, the Man-Monkey—De Berar’s Phantasmagoria—Scowton’s Theatre—Death of Richardson.
Nelson Lee had just completed a round of engagements at the London theatres when, in 1822, his brother, having terminated his engagement with Bannister’s circus, came to the metropolis, and fitted up an unoccupied factory in the Old Kent Road as a theatre. Nelson joined him in the enterprise, which for a time was tolerably successful; but they had omitted the requisite preliminary of obtaining a licence, and one night a strong force of constables invaded the theatre, and arrested every one present, audience as well as actors, with one exception. Saker, who afterwards won some distinction as a comedian, ascended into a loft on the first alarm, and drew up the ladder by which he had escaped. When all was quiet, he descended, and left the building through a window. The watch-houses of Southwark, Newington, Camberwell, and Greenwich were filled with the offenders, most of whom, however, were discharged on the following day, while the Lees, who pleaded ignorance of the law, escaped with a small fine.
The same year witnessed the final performances of “Lady Holland’s Mob.” About five thousand of the rabble of the City assembled in the neighbourhood of Skinner Street, about midnight of the eve of St. Bartholomew, and roared and rioted till between three and four o’clock next morning, without interference from the watch or the constables. From this time, however, this annual Saturnalia was not observed, or was observed so mildly that the newspapers contain no record of the circumstance.
In 1823, Richardson presented his patrons with a drama called The Virgin Bride, and an extravaganza entitled Tom, Logic, and Jerry, founded upon Moncrieff’s drama, and concluding with a panorama of the metropolis. On the third day, a romantic drama called The Wanderer was substituted.
Wombwell’s menagerie comes prominently into notice about this time. Its proprietor is said to have begun life as a cobbler in Monmouth Street, Seven Dials, then a famous mart of the second-hand clothes trade, and now called Dudley Street. The steps by which he subsequently advanced to the position of an importer of wild animals and proprietor of one of the largest and finest collections that ever travelled are unknown; but that he preceded Jamrach and Rice in the former vocation is proved by the existence of a small yellow card, bearing the device of a tiger, and the inscription—