It is sometimes said that the circus dates back to Roman times. Certainly the word ‘circus’ is Latin, and some of the core acts that we associate with a night in the big top have a very long history. Take acrobats for example, who we know performed in Minoan culture as early as 2000BC. The Roman circus – meaning ‘circle’ – was, however, a place to exhibit horse and chariot races, such as those famously recreated in Ben-Hur. What we now think of as a circus is a more recent invention, which can be traced back to London in 1768. This year therefore marks the 250th anniversary of modern circus entertainment.

The man we have to thank for this enduring night out was Philip Astley. A former member of the 15th Light Dragoons, he had shown remarkable talent as a horse trainer during his years of service. When he was discharged in 1766, he held three things: the rank of sergeant-major, a white charger named Gibraltar, and the idea to emulate the trick riders that were becoming increasingly popular around Europe. Astley set up the Ha’penny Hatch Riding School between Westminster Bridge and London Bridge at the beginning of 1768, where he taught in the mornings and performed tricks to crowds in the afternoons, while his wife Patty accompanied him on a drum.

To keep the crowds coming, Astley began inviting other performers from London’s fairs and pleasure gardens: clowns, strongmen, acrobats, rope-dancers and jugglers all came to Astley’s showground, and he later added pantomime acts to his shows as well. This combination of equestrian display and feats of strength, skill and agility are the foundation of the modern circus. He is credited with finding the optimum size for the performance ring (42 feet, a little short of 13m, still the international standard), which generated enough centrifugal force to allow trick riders to stay in the saddle while they performed, and for creating the role of the ringmaster (which he called Equestrian Director). Touring shows and other showgrounds followed. By 1780, he had also added a roof over the original arena to allow the shows to go on over the winter months. This novel form of entertainment was, however, known as Astley’s Amphitheatre and Riding House; it took rival showman Charles Dibdin to coin the term circus for the new spectacle, taking the name from the ring in which his own performers appeared at the nearby Royal Circus.

Circus shows become hugely popular. Circus buildings – first temporary wooden structures, but later flamboyant buildings that competed with theatres – started appearing in every major European city, as well as New York, Philadelphia and Montreal. But the New World was very different to the old one. Large cities were fewer and further between, and the western frontier was still being expanded ever further, leaving a thinner spread of population across a wider area. With fewer opportunities to sustain permanent circuses, showmen had little choice but to form travelling troupes that could move around the country. Being light and fast was the key to the travelling circus, and in 1825 Joshuah Purdy Brown pioneered the canvas tent as a place to house temporary shows: the big top was born.

The 1840s saw the American circus tent arrive in Britain, and with the advent of the railway system, circuses could travel more easily than ever before, bringing entertainment to even the smallest of towns. The Victorian circus added exotic animals to their repertoire. While menageries had been available to the wealthy since medieval times, the inclusion of elephants, lions, camels and other beasts gave the circus an air of danger and excitement as many people had their first sight of such animals. Some of the animals became stars in their own right. Probably the biggest of them all was Jumbo, a young elephant sold by big game hunters to a Paris menagerie in the 1860s, who later became a star at London zoo and then Barnum & Bailey’s Circus. While adored by crowds as a gentle giant who gave children rides on his back, he was kept docile through mistreatment – including feeding him alcohol to help keep him quiet – and was sadly killed in a railway crossing accident in 1885.

Some 15,000 people were estimated to have performed in circuses in Britain during the 19th century. As with many Victorian workplaces, however, they weren’t always safe places to be. Temporary wooden structures and canvas tents could more easily collapse or catch fire than permanent buildings; Astley’s own amphitheatre burned down twice, and the collapse of a wooden circus building in Leeds in 1848 killed the proprietor Pablo Fanque’s wife. The acts themselves also had an element of danger to them. In January 1872, for example, Thomas MacCarte – a lion-tamer performing under the stage name of Massarti – was performing at a circus in Bolton, when a lion called Tyrant suddenly turned on him. The other lions in the act were quick to join in, and MacCarte was torn apart in front of the watching crowd.

Other working conditions varied. The better-off performers could afford to hire agents to help their career and could pay into friendly societies to give them a degree of protection against hard times, sickness and accidents, important in such an unstable industry. Records from Cooke’s Portsmouth circus in 1861 show the leading equestrian performers earning an average of £2 to £3 a week from shows, not as much as the elite actors of their day, but a good deal more than the average skilled engineering labourer on 35 shillings a week in London (less still further north). By 1899, circus riding stars could earn as much as £15 to £20 weekly, which amounted to an increase of around 700% on their 1860s earning power. Other performance specialisms and those not getting top billing earned a good deal less, and would have had to make their earnings last between shows. The wages for an apparently short evening of performing may have seemed appealing to those engaged in more routine work, but the difficulty and hard work of finding an original act that would be hired for regular work was considerable.

For Victorian society, the circus was at the border between respectable entertainment and transgressive thrill. The reduction of the working week saw the growth in leisure activities to fill the gap, and the circus appealed across all levels of society. One circus in 1854 is recorded as offering tickets from just a penny, and travelling shows brought the entertainment to the audience; it became an accessible spectacle for many ordinary people. Those higher up the social scale didn’t miss out, however. The middle classes, ladies and gentlemen also attended, and even the Duke of Wellington was once spotted at Astley’s showground in 1824. The circus offered not just amusement and wonder far removed from everyday life, it also appealed to the Victorian passions for self-improvement (here were performers at the peak of athletic ability and skill) and curiosity for strange and foreign sights. Cheap entertainment was also believed to discourage drinking as a pastime.

By the end of the 19th century, the development of the music hall offered other entertainment options to audiences, and this competition left circus shows dwindling. By 1914, the future of the circus looked decidedly uncertain. The foundation of the Bertram Mills Circus in London’s Olympia in 1920 renewed the circus spectacle, and was so renowned for its quality that it managed to run shows until 1966. Another brief circus revival came after the Second World War, as crowds sought inexpensive escapism from austerity, but the rise of other forms of entertainment (such as television) and increasing concerns for animal welfare once again put the circus under pressure. Showmen adapted. Today’s circus is still a place to see extraordinary feats of human agility, strength and skill, but coupled with theatrical performance, dance, and modern special effects. It is not always performed around the ring which gave the art form its name, but a night at the circus still has a lot of appeal.