Successors of Scowton and Richardson—Nelson Lee—Crowther, the Actor—Paul Herring—Newman and Allen’s Theatre—Fair in Hyde Park—Hilton’s Menagerie—Bartholomew Fair again threatened—Wombwell’s Menagerie—Charles Freer—Fox Cooper and the Bosjesmans—Destruction of Johnson and Lee’s Theatre—Reed’s Theatre—Hales, the Norfolk Giant—Affray at Greenwich—Death of Wombwell—Lion Queens—Catastrophe in a Menagerie—World’s Fair at Bayswater—Abbott’s Theatre—Charlie Keith, the Clown—Robson, the Comedian—Manders’s Menagerie—Macomo, the Lion-Tamer—Macarthy and the Lions—Fairgrieve’s Menagerie—Lorenzo and the Tigress—Sale of a Menagerie—Extinction of the London Fairs—Decline of Fairs near the Metropolis—Conclusion.
The change in the proprietorship of the travelling theatres conducted during so many years by Scowton and Richardson may be regarded as a stage in the history of the people’s amusements. The decline which showmen had noted during the preceding years had not been perceptible to the public, who had crowded the London fairs more densely than ever, and found as many showmen catering for their entertainment as in earlier years. But while the crowds that gazed at Wombwell’s show-cloths, and the parades of Richardson’s theatre and Clarke’s circus, became more dense every year, the showmen found their receipts diminish and their expenses increase. The people had more wants than formerly, and their means of supplying them had not, at the time of the decadence of the London fairs, experienced a corresponding increase. The vast and ever-growing population of the metropolis furnished larger crowds, but the middle-class element had diminished, and continued to diminish; and the showmen found reduced charges to be a necessity, without resulting in the augmented gains which follow a reduction of prices in trade.
Scowton’s theatre was sold by private contract to Julius Haydon, who, after expending a considerable sum upon it, making it rival Richardson’s in size, found the results so little to his advantage that he disposed of the whole concern a year afterwards to the successors of Richardson.
These were the showman’s old friends, John Johnson, to whom he left a legacy of five hundred pounds, and Nelson Lee, who, after the unfortunate speculation with his brother in the Old Kent Road, had travelled for a time with Holloway’s show, then gone to Scotland with Grey’s fantoccini, and, after a turn at Edinburgh with Dodsworth and Stevens’s automatons, had returned to London, and was at the time of Richardson’s death managing Sadler’s Wells theatre for Osbaldiston. When he saw Richardson’s property advertised for sale, he conferred with Johnson on the subject of its purchase by them, which they effected by private contract, Lee resigning his post at Sadler’s Wells to undertake the management.
The new proprietors furnished the theatre with a new front, and provided new dresses for the ballet in Esmeralda, which was then attracting large audiences to the Adelphi. They did not propose to open with this drama, but they thought the ballet would be a success on the parade outside, which managers of travelling theatres find it necessary to make as attractive as possible, the public forming their anticipations of the entertainment to be witnessed inside by what they see outside, as they do of tenting circus performances by the extent and splendour of the parade round the town and neighbourhood which precedes them. I once saw a very pretty harvest-dance of reapers and gleaners on the parade of Richardson’s theatre, and on another occasion a fantastic dance of Indians, who held cocoa-nuts in their hands, and struck them together, assuming every variety of attitude, each dancer sometimes striking his own nuts together, and sometimes his own against those of his vis-à-vis.
They were in time for the Whitsuntide Fair at Greenwich, where the theatre stood at the extreme end of the fair, near the bridge at Deptford Creek. The Esmeralda dance was a great success, and Oscar Byrne, who had arranged the ballet for the Adelphi, visited the theatre, and complimented Lee on the manner in which it was produced. The drama was The Tyrant Doge, and the pantomime, arranged by Lee for the occasion, had local colour given to it, and the local title of One Tree Hill. The season opened very favourably, though both the management and the public experienced considerable annoyance from a party of dissolute young men, of whom the Marquis of Waterford was one, and who threw nuts at the actors, and talked and laughed loudly throughout the performance.
Delamore had succeeded Lewis as stage-manager, scene-shifter, and wardrobe-keeper, a few years before Richardson’s death, and he was retained in that position by the new proprietors. John Douglass and Paul Herring were in the company at this time; also Crowther, who was subsequently engaged at Astley’s, and married Miss Vincent, who was for so many years a popular favourite at the Victoria as the heroine of a series of successful domestic dramas.
Among the minor shows attending the fairs of the southern counties at this period was the portable theatre of Newman and Allen, which, towards the end of the summer, was pitched upon a piece of waste ground at Norwood, and remained there two or three weeks. The fortunes of the company seemed at low ebb, and the small “houses” which they had nightly, with a charge for admission of twopence to front seats, and a penny to the back, did not place the treasury in a very flourishing condition. Small as the company was, they aimed at a higher performance than was usually given in a portable theatre, for on the two occasions that I patronised the canvas temple of Thespis the plays were Virginius and John Bull, considerably cut down, as was to have been expected, the smallness of the company rendering it necessary to excise some of the characters.
Only one performance was given each night, and a farce preceded the play, the interval between the pieces being filled up with a comic song, sung by the low comedy man, and an acrobatic performance by a young lady whose name I learned was Sarah Saunders. Whether she was related to old Abraham Saunders, I do not know; but the tendency of show-folks to make their vocations hereditary renders it very probable. She was the first female acrobat I ever saw, and an actress besides; and the peculiarity of her acrobatic performance was, that she did not don trunks and tights for it, like Madame Stertzenbach and others of her sex at the present day, but did her “flips,” etc., in her ordinary attire, like the little drabs from the back slums of Westminster who may sometimes be seen turning heels over head in St. James’s Park.
When the brief season of the canvas theatre was brought to a close, and the fittings, scenery, properties, etc., had left the village behind a bony horse, it seemed that the proprietors had dissolved the partnership which had existed between them; for a living carriage remained on the ground, the occupants of which were old Newman, who had played the heavy parts, and his nephew, Charles Little, the low comedy man. Whether the old gentleman had realised a competency which satisfied his wants, or had some small pension or annuity, or investment of some kind, never became known; but there the wheeled abode of the two men stood for several years, Newman cultivating a patch of the waste, and producing therefrom all the vegetables they required for their own table, while his nephew perambulated the neighbourhood with a basket, offering for sale tapes and cottons, needles and pins, and other small wares of a similar description. This new vocation seemed more lucrative than that of low comedian and comic singer in a travelling theatre; for Charlie, as he was familiarly called, dressed better every year, and, on the death of his uncle, took to himself a wife, and, abandoning the living carriage, settled in a neighbouring cottage.