Who Established the First Circus?
The first CIRCUS was established in 1769 by ex-Cavalry Sgt Mai Philip Astley. He sold a diamond ring which he had found on Westminster Bridge, and with the £ 60 obtained, opened an equestrian ring on Halfpenny Hatch, Lambeth. No admission fee was charged, but in common with other equestrian shows of the time a collection was taken up after every performance. Evidently the audience responded generously, for the following year Astley moved to a better site close to Westminster Bridge. Here he constructed a roped-off enclosure with stands round the sides, and charged an entrance fee of is for a seat and 6d standing. At the same time a drummer-boy was hired to add musical effects.
The precise date at which Astley’s became a circus in the modern sense rather than simply a trick-riding display is hard to establish. It is known that he had a strongman, one Signor Colpi, working for him in 1777, and that within the next three years he acquired a clown called Fortunelly, another called Burt (sometimes claimed as the first circus clown), a number of acrobats who performed rope-vaulting tricks ‘in different attitudes’, and an engaging performer known as ‘The Little Military Learned Horse’, The equestrians, the real stars of the show, were three men named Griffin, Jones and Miller, who performed under the aegis of Astley himself, considered by many the greatest horseman of his age.
Apart from horses, few animals were displayed. A ‘military monkey’ named General Jackoo made his appearance in the ring at Astley’s in 1768, but there is no record of any larger beasts making their circus debut until 1816, when two elephants named Baba and Kiouny went through a routine at Franconi’s Circus, Paris, that included catching apples with their trunks, uncorking bottles and drinking the contents, and playing the hurdygurdy. Only in 1828 did Astley’s follow this lead when an elephant was hired from Cross’s Exeter Change Menagerie. The animal was merely shown to the wondering ‘spectators and was not required to perform. A lion, tiger and four zebras, all similarly inactive, appeared at Astley’s in 1832. The first real wild-beast act took place at Astley’s Amphitheatre in 1838, when the American Van Amburgh, otherwise known as `Morok the Beast Tamer’, presented a mixed group of lions, tigers and leopards.
As a popular medium of entertainment the circus spread rapidly. A Spaniard named Juan Porte established the first in Europe at Vienna in 1780. Two years later Astley himself introduced circus to Paris. In America Rickett’s Circus opened in Philadelphia in 1792 and was visited by President Washington the following year. Russia also had a circus by 1793. Philip Astley is reputed to have helped found no less than 19 circuses in various countries of Europe. The original Astley’s Amphitheatre continued to function on the same site as the south side of Westminster Bridge until as late as 1893.
The first Big top circus under canvas was the Great North American Circus, inaugurated at Salem, N.Y. in 1826 by Aaron Taylor and brothers Natham and Seth Howes. It had 6 wagons and 20 horses and a hand of 4 musicians. Amongst the staff was a young ticket-seller, who occasionally doubled as a black-face minstrel turn called P.T. Barnum.
The first Flying-trapeze circus act was performed by Jules Leotard at the Cirque Napoleon, Paris on 12 November 1859. Only 21 years of age at the time, Leotard had devised the act while practising on the ropes and rings suspended above the swimming-pool at this father’s gymnasium in Toulouse. During the early 1860s he appeared at the Alhambra in London, causing a sensation by flying across the hall from trapeze to trapeze above the heads of the audience sitting at their supper-tables. leotard was immortalized as ‘That Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze’ in a popular ditty sung by ‘That Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze’ in a popular ditty sung by George Leybourne. He also lent his name to the tight-fitting costume still worn by acrobats and trapeze artistes.
The first Safety-net for circus performances was introduced by the Spanish acrobatic troupe, the Rizarellis, at the Holborn Empire in 1871. Leotard had relied on the less certain precaution of a pile of mattresses on the floor.
