Vintage Circus Photos from the Sanger Circus Collection
In Victorian England, the circus appealed across an otherwise class-divided society, its audiences ranging from poor peddlers to prestigious public figures.
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While circus acts go back to the midst of time, the circus as commercial entertainment dates to the opening decades of the nineteenth century. In Victorian England, the circus appealed across an otherwise class-divided society, its audiences ranging from poor peddlers to prestigious public figures. The acts that attracted such audiences included reenacted battle scenes, which reinforced patriotic identity; exotic animal displays that demonstrated the reach of Britain’s growing empire; female acrobatics, which disclosed anxieties about women’s changing role in the public sphere; and clowning, which spoke to popular understandings of these poor players’ melancholy lives on the margins of society.
The proprietor and showman George Sanger (from whose collection the following photographs come) was a prime example of how the circus was to evolve from a small fairground-type enterprise to a large-scale exhibition. Sanger’s circuses began in the 1840s and ’50s, but by the 1880s, they had grown to such a scale that they were able to hold their own against the behemoth of P.T. Barnum’s three-ring circus, which arrived in London for the first time in that decade.
Like many circuses in the nineteenth century, Sanger’s was indebted to the technology of modern visual culture to promote his business. Local newspapers displayed photographs alongside advertisements to announce the imminent arrival of a circus troupe. Garish posters, plastered around towns, also featured photographs of their star attractions. And individual artists used photographic portraits, too (in the form of the carte-de-visite or calling card), to draw attention to their attributes and to seek employment. One striking image in this collection poses six performing acrobats amid the other acts—a lion tamer, an elephant trainer, a wire walker, and a clown—in one of Sanger’s circuses, all in front of the quintessential big-top tent. Maybe the projection of the collective solidarity of the circus in this image belies personal rivalries and animosities that might have characterized life on the road. Moreover, at the extreme edge of the image, on the right-hand side behind the dog trainer, there appears to be the almost ghostly presence of a Black male figure. By dint of their peripatetic existence, all those employed in the circus were often viewed as marginal and exotic. However, this image is a reminder of how racial and ethnic minorities were a presence within circus culture, even if, as here, they appear to have been banished to the margins of the photograph.
Aerial performers combining poses together whilst suspended from ropes. The photograph is stamped Fielding Albion Place Leeds in the bottom left corner.Photograph of Cissie and Olive Austin, daughters of Ellen ‘Topsy’ Coleman and Harry Austin. Details of the comedy act ‘Dancing Kim’ are listed on the reverse of the photograph.Photograph of Equestrian and Acrobat Performers. The male figure on the horse is believed to be Harry Austin, from the Austin Brothers jockey act. The female, far right, is believed to be Yetta Schultz who was a wire and aerial performer with ‘Lord’ George Sanger’s Circus. The two other women are believed to be either Henrietta, Florence, or Lydia, who were listed as performers on the ‘Corde Elastique’ during this time. The photograph is believed to have been taken at Balmoral on the Royal Estate in Scotland in 1898.Publicity photograph of two female jugglers; the juggler on the left is believed to be Olive Austin, great-granddaughter of ‘Lord’ George Sanger.Photograph of ‘Lord’ George Sanger’s Circus performers in front of a big top tent. There is a group of six acrobats performing in the center of the photograph. The man to the left with a whip is believed to be the elephant trainer. The man next to him, with the wide-brimmed hat, is believed to be Alpine Charlie or Charles Taylor, the big cat or lion trainer. The young man holding the dog is believed to be George Hugh Holloway (born 1867), equestrian, wire walker, and acrobat and later leader of the Four Holloways ladder act. The man to the left of Holloway is believed to be Joe Craston, known at times as Joe Hodgini, who started off as an equestrian and later became a famous clown. The whiteface clown, with conical hat, is believed to be Holloway’s father, James Henry Holloway (born 1846). The group of acrobats in the center of the photograph are believed to be acrobats from the Feeley family, who were the first to do a double ladder act.Photograph of two women looking at some paper and two other women peeping through a flap in a circus tent, believed to be at ‘Lord’ George Sanger’s Circus. The woman, top left, is believed to be Kate Holloway, niece of ‘Lord’ George Sanger.Photograph of Bert Sanger being held in the trunk of Tiny the elephant. Herbert Sanger was the grandson of John Sanger, brother of ‘Lord’ George Sanger. Herbert’s father was ‘Lord’ John Sanger and his mother was Rebecca (née Pinder). The eldest son and one of eleven children, Bert went on to perform as Pimpo the clown in ‘Lord’ John Sanger’s Circus. He was the first clown known as Pimpo. Bert married Lillian Ohmy (Smith) in 1916. Bert joined the RAF in the First World War and was wounded on active service. In December 1918 he was in a military hospital in Etaples, in France. Bert is thought to have died in 1928.Photograph of a juggling clown named Jerome. ‘Jerome 5th Jan 1939’ is stamped on the reverse.Photograph of Ellen Sanger (née Chapman), lion tamer and wife of George Sanger. Ellen performed under the name of Madame Pauline De Vere, the Lion Queen. She performed at Wombwell’s Menagerie before joining Sanger’s Circus. Ellen also often appeared as Britannia with lions at her feet on top of Sanger’s Circus tableau wagons as part of the circus procession. Ellen died on April 30, 1899, aged sixty-seven. ‘Mrs G Sanger 1893’ is written on the reverse of the photograph.Photograph of a large group of people in front of a ticket booth for ‘Lord’ George Sanger’s Circus.Photograph of ‘Lord’ George Sanger and his wife, Ellen Sanger, with elephants and camels in the foreground. Lord George is marked on the photograph in pen as Dada and Ellen as Mama. The man standing to the right is believed to be William Sanger, Lord George Sanger’s brother. The photograph was probably taken at the ‘Hall by the Sea’ in Margate.Photograph of a person in a lion costume. The photo has a sign, ‘World Famous Clown Tarran.’ Henry Harold Moxon performed as a comedy juggler under the name of Harold Tarran in the 1940s. Harold Moxon married Ellen ‘Topsy’ Coleman, granddaughter of ‘Lord’ George Sanger, in 1940.
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Victorian Studies, Vol. 49, No. 2, Papers and Responses from the Fourth Annual Conference of the North American Victorian Studies Association, Held Jointly with the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism Annual Meeting (Winter, 2007), pp. 384-386
