In those days it sometimes happened that two circuses attended the fair, when the larger of the two was pitched in a field on the west side of the road, and bounded on the south side by Mint Walk, one of the avenues by which the fair was approached from High Street. In a circus thus located—I think it was Clarke’s—Miss Woolford, afterwards the second wife of the great equestrian, Andrew Ducrow, exhibited her grace and agility on the tight-rope in a blaze of fireworks, in emulation of the celebrated Madame Saqui’s performance at Vauxhall Gardens. The equestrian profession still numbers Ducrows in its ranks, two young men of that name belonging at the present time to Newsome’s circus company; but I have not met with the name of Woolford since 1842, when a young lady of that name, and then about twelve or thirteen years of age, danced on the tight-rope in a small show pitched at the back of the town-hall at Croydon, during the July Fair.
The October fair at Croydon closed the season of the shows which confined their perambulations to a distance of fifty miles from the metropolis, where, or in the provincial towns possessing theatres, the actors, clowns, acrobats, etc., obtained engagements for the pantomime season. This year, the entire company of Johnson and Lee’s theatre was engaged for the Marylebone.
In 1839, this theatre, with John Douglass and Paul Herring still in the company, stood next to Hilton’s menagerie at Greenwich, where the season commenced with most of the shows which made London their winter quarters. It was about this time that James Lee, who was then manager of Hilton’s menagerie, suggested the certain attractiveness of the exhibition by a young woman of the performances with lions and tigers which had been found so productive to the treasuries of the Sangers, Batty, and Howes and Cushing, when exhibited by a man. It was proposed to bring out as a “lion queen” the daughter of Hilton’s brother Joseph, a circus proprietor; and the young lady, being familiar with her uncle’s lions, did not shrink from the distinction. She made her first public appearance with the lions at Stepney Fair, and the performance proved so attractive that the example was contagious. Edmunds had at this time a fine group of lions, tigers, and leopards, and a young woman named Chapman (now Mrs. George Sanger) volunteered to perform with them, as a rival to Miss Hilton.
Miss Chapman, who had the honour of appearing before the royal family at Windsor Castle, had not long been before the public when a third “lion queen” appeared in Wombwell’s menagerie in the person of Helen Blight, the daughter of a musician in the band. The career of this poor girl was as brief as its termination was shocking. She was performing with the animals at Greenwich Fair, when a tiger exhibited some sullenness or waywardness, for which she very imprudently struck it with a riding-whip which she carried. With a terrible roar, the infuriated beast sprang upon her, seized her by the throat, and killed her before she could be rescued. This melancholy affair led to the prohibition of such performances by women; but the leading menageries have continued to have “lion kings” attached to them to the present day.
It was in this year that the war against the shows was renewed by the authorities of the City of London, who doubled the charges hitherto made for space in Smithfield, Wombwell, for instance, having his rent raised from forty to eighty pounds, Clarke’s from twenty-five to fifty, and others in the same proportion. After the fair, the London City Missions Society presented a memorial to the Corporation, praying for the suppression of the fair, and the City Lands Committee was instructed by the Court of Aldermen to consider whether, and by what means, its suppression could be legally accomplished. The committee referred the question to the solicitor of the City, who was requested to report to the Markets Committee “as to the right of the Corporation of London to suppress Bartholomew Fair, or otherwise to remove the nuisances and obstructions to trade to which it gives rise.”
The solicitor accordingly examined the archives in the town-clerk’s office, as well as books in the City Library and the British Museum, for the purpose of tracing the history of the fair, and of other fairs which formerly existed in the metropolis, and the right to hold which was likewise founded upon charters, and which had been abolished or fallen into disuse. His researches led him to the conclusion that “the right to hold both fairs having been granted for the purpose of promoting the interests of trade, it is quite clear that no prescriptive right can be set up to commit any nuisance incompatible with the purposes for which they were established; if, therefore, the Corporation should be satisfied that the interests of the public can be no otherwise protected than by confining the fair to its original objects and purposes, they may undoubtedly do so, and this would in fact, be equivalent to its entire suppression.”
This course was, however, that which had been adopted, without success, in 1735, and the legal adviser of the Corporation could not avoid seeing that “it is at all times difficult, by law, to put down the ancient customs and practices of the multitude.” Both May Fair and Lady Fair had been suppressed without the intervention of Parliament, however, and it seemed probable that “old Bartlemy” would be extinguished before long by natural decay, and that the best course would be to provide for its due regulation during its decline.
“When we consider,” said the report, “the improved condition and conduct of the working classes in the metropolis, and reflect upon the irrefragable proofs continually before us, that the humbler orders are fast changing their habits, and substituting country excursions by railroad and steamboat, and other innocent recreations, for vicious amusements of the description which prevailed in Bartholomew Fair, it is, perhaps, not too much to conclude that it is unnecessary for the Corporation to apply to Parliament to abate the nuisance; but that, if they proceed to lay down and enforce the observance of judicious regulations in the fair, and to limit its duration and extent, it may be permitted to continue, in the confident belief that many years will not elapse ere the Corporation may omit to proclaim the fair, and thus suppress it altogether, without exciting any of those feelings of discontent and disapprobation with which its compulsory abolition would probably be now attended.”
When this report was submitted to the Court of Common Council, in July, 1840, considerable diversity of opinion was found to prevail as to the course which should be adopted. The majority either adopted the view of the London City Missions Society, or the more moderate sentiments of the reporter, Mr. Charles Pearson; but the principles therein enunciated did not pass without challenge. Mr. Anderton was “decidedly opposed to the canting and Methodistical grounds for interfering with one of the only amusements now remaining to the poor inhabitants of London.” Mr. Wells thought that the fair, under proper regulations for the prevention of disorder, would be innoxious, and that the gaming-houses of the metropolis were a fitter subject for suppression. Mr. Taylor regarded the objections to the fair as “the wild chimeras of fanaticism.” But after a long discussion, the report was adopted by forty-three votes against fourteen. The Market Committee declined, however, to limit the fair to two days, or to exclude shows entirely, though they resolved to again raise the rents of the shows that were admitted, to permit no disturbance of the pavement, to continue the exclusion of swings and roundabouts, and to admit no theatres for dramatic performances.
The policy resolved upon was, therefore, simply one of vexation and annoyance, and contributed nothing to the promotion of morality and order. Johnson and Lee’s theatre, Clarke’s circus, Frazer’s acrobatic entertainment, Laskey’s giant and giantess, and Crockett’s and Reader’s exhibitions of living curiosities, were refused space in Smithfield; and the only shows admitted were the menageries of Wombwell, Hilton, and Wright, and Grove’s theatre of arts. Why the performances of lions and tigers should be regarded with more favour than those of horses, Miss Clarke on the tight-rope be considered a more demoralising spectacle then Miss Hilton or Miss Chapman in a cage of wild beasts, and the serpents and crocodile in Crockett’s caravan more suggestive of immoral ideas than the monkeys in the menageries, is a problem which does not admit of easy solution, and which only an aldermanic mind could have framed.