In 1785, The Times wrote glowingly of the circus, where the Goddess of the varied robe appears in all her different colours and attitudes: song, pantomime, and dance, the riders, the horses, the scenes… have their equal claims to novelty and merit. [The Times, 27 July 1785]

This description summed up the attractions of the circus for its British audiences: it offered novel, unusual sights that were an escape from the greyness and monotony of daily life. Yet it was not a new phenomenon; the circus itself, as a term, has its origins in Roman society, being the name for the circular building where public events such as horse and chariot races were held. This link with horses continued until well into the 17th century and even in the 18th century it was still used as a name for any enclosed place where the public could meet.

Its modern definition, as a circular arena where acrobatics and other entertainment provided by a troupe of performers were put on, only dates from George III’s time. The 18th century saw the circus develop as a form of entertainment, featuring acrobats and tumblers, animals and rope walkers – with spectators often trying to look up the skirts of female performers on the tightropes.

Circuses regularly featured animals, with many circuses incorporating the old travelling menageries. Astley’s, one of the most famous circuses, started in the late 1760s with trick riders and clowns, and in the early 19th century introduced a menagerie with wild animals. During one performance with Astley’s Circus in 1838, American lion tamer Isaac Van Amburgh appeared to put his head inside a lion’s mouth, and in 1844 he performed for – and amused – Queen Victoria herself. Animals became a popular part of the circus, creating an international trade in lions and tigers, among other animals.

Georgian and Victorian circuses also involved trick riders – Philip Astley, the founder of Astley’s circus, was himself a trick rider. These riders were able to perform both acrobatics – such as somersaulting from one horse to another – and ‘comic’ acts on horseback. But clowns, of course, are what the circus is most associated with. The legendary Victorian showman P T Barnum went as far as to say that clowns are the pegs on which the circus is hung. The many clowns listed in the 1881 census include two performing in Lancashire – Henry Martello, from Bradford, who at 38 was performing as a clown in Culeen’s Circus in Ashton under Lyne, and William Ware, from Shropshire, aged 37, who described himself as a travelling actor (circus clown), performing in Salford, near Manchester.

Although British circuses and performers toured the isles throughout the 19th century, American and European circuses, as well as individual performers, also crossed the Atlantic and the Channel to perform to eager British audiences. In 1851, for example, a performance by the Cirque National de France at Nottingham was attended by a “crowded audience”. It was noted that the performance was first-rate, and the costumes and appointments extremely neat and tasty. Among other things are to be noticed the four French and English Clowns, the graceful riding of Mdlle. Adrienne Franconi, and the daring feats of horsemanship performed by Signor Perrini. [The Era, 16 November 1851]

These circuses employed performers from different countries as well as their own, and each had a particular skill. In 1854, an acrobat named Price, who was performing in a circus at the Champs Elysées in Paris, received a lot of attention for his act, known as l’Echelie animee. In this, he brought a ladder into the circus arena and climbed to the top, using the weight of his body to keep it steady. At the top, he would perform a piece on the violin, again using his body to rotate the ladder all the way round the arena. Four years later, another acrobat, known as La Perche, received similar attention, after performing with an American equestrian circus at London’s Alhambra Theatre. La Perche performed “contortions” at the top of a pole, but other performers with the same circus were equally skilled. Emma Madigan was a young rider who was with the same circus; the Roman Brothers – not actually brothers, but two men named Murray and Holland – performed as gymnasts, while James Madigan, Emma’s brother, throws, backwards and forwards, somersaults, by himself and conjointly with Mr Richards, in a style in which he has attained so much skill with such a palpably brief period for practice. [The Era, 14 November 1858] Compared to these skills, the actual equestrian acts that the circus was famous for, such as riding horses through paper balloons, seemed almost mundane.

Mundanity was not what circus audiences wanted. Novelty was seen as essential for the circus and its acts; in 1864, it was noted that with Newsome’s Grand Circus, who were appearing in Dublin, an audience is never permitted to have cause to complain of monotony, as novelty after novelty comes into the arena… the circus in the Rotunda Gardens has been made one of the most attractive places of amusement of the kind ever opened to the public in Dublin. [Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 21 May 1864] Conversely, in Andover in 1873, it was noted that Messrs Powell and Clarke’s circus had been attended by a large audience, but the performance was only meagre. [Hampshire Advertiser, 12 November 1873]

Circus performers needed audiences, and so strived to push the boundaries of their performances. This had consequences: life in the circus could be precarious and dangerous. For the audience, this was part of the attraction, linked to the desire for novelty; the composer Claude Debussy noted that the attraction of the circus for the crowd as the hope that something dangerous will happen. The circus might be precarious simply because fashions and tastes changed, and a circus performer who was a novelty might become boring or old-fashioned, and find him or herself out of work. However, performers equally might injure themselves at work; accidents occurred and, when they did, an individual could no longer work or earn. They might also find that the frequent travelling and hard work involved in the circus was not sustainable long term.

In terms of safety, by the 1870s, this was being taken increasingly seriously, not so much in terms of accidents to performers, but because of accidents caused by the audience either rushing to get out in large numbers, or fire risks associated with the carpentry involved in constructing sets or props within the circus. In 1877, the Liverpool magistrates discussed the safety of the audience in plans for a circus submitted by Charles Hengler, a circus proprietor. The borough engineer submitted a report that, due to the width of staircases proposed to carry the audience to and from the galleries in the circus, serious accidents might occur in case of a sudden panic. [Liverpool Mercury, 19 Feb 1877]

But the risks for performers were equal, although different. Lambeth-born Thomas Aguzzi had been a circus rider and showman, following in his father Antoni’s footsteps (French-born Antoni was an ‘equestrian at the rotunda’ in the 1851 census for Southwark, as was his mother Ellen, who was from Germany) but in the early years of the 20th century, had been reduced to poverty. In January 1909, he was admitted to the Fulham Road Workhouse. He was discharged from there two years later, on 7 March, but his entry in the workhouse’s admissions and discharge records noted that he had simply been discharged to the Wandsworth Poor Law Union. By the time of the census, a couple of weeks later, he was listed as an inmate of the Wandsworth Workhouse, by now aged 64. He died in Wandsworth in 1915. His was not an isolated case, as other famous circusmen, such as Abraham Saunders and Pablo Fanque, also died destitute. Circus performing could make you money; but it could also take it away.

The people who paid to see these circus performers, the audience, tended to be the wealthier members of society, the elite, who could afford to pay for such a night out. In 1853, one circus that specialised in clowns performed in Birmingham. Theatrical newspaper The Era eagerly reported, Mr Cooke’s Circus is still, night after night, crowded with the elite of Birmingham and its environs. [The Era, 20 February 1853]

This noting of the ‘elite’ attendances of some circuses suggests that their admission charges could put them out of the reach of ‘ordinary’ audiences. However, attempts were made to rectify this, in recognition of the popularity of circus acts among all classes. Newsome’s Alhambra Circus, for example, saw huge crowds when it performed in Oxford in 1861 with Arab tribe performers. However, it won plaudits not so much for this, but for recognising how admission fees could prevent many from attending. It put on special free performances for children from the Cowley Industrial School, thus enabling poorer children to get to witness the excitement of the circus.

The following year, the celebrated acrobat Charles Blondin performed in Bradford. It was noted that he was so popular that it was agreed a second performance would be put on, at such prices as would afford the working classes an opportunity of witnessing the matchless tightrope performance. [The Era, 13 April 1862]

Although the variety of performers and workers within the circus continued, the circus audience gradually changed, so that a wider range of people could afford to visit the circus for an evening out. But the appeal of the circus has remained. Today, circuses such as Giffords continue to tour the country, putting on shows that still include stunt riders, trapeze artists and tightrope walkers, for another generation of children.

Further information

• V&A Circus pages here
• Giffords Circus
• Fossetts Circus
• Steve Ward, Beneath the Big Top: A Social History of the Circus in Britain (Pen & Sword, 2014)

In the print edition
Read Nell’s articles about the local press and the temperance movement in Issue 4 of Discover Your Ancestors, out now in newsagents around the world or via discoveryourancestors.co.uk