Beneath the Big Top by Steve Ward

Author:Steve Ward
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: PER002000; Bic Code 1: ASZW; PERFORMING ARTS / Circus
ISBN: 9781473840867
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2014-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

For all these trials and tribulations, Lord George Sanger continued to produce bigger and better spectacles. His name became synonymous with showmanship and he was even popular with royalty. Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, other members of the Royal family and visiting foreign royals all attended Sanger’s Circus at Astley’s. In 1899 his circus was summoned to Windsor, where he gave a private performance before the Queen and was rewarded with an engraved silver cigar box. He was, as he always proudly announced, the last entertainer to receive a gift from the Queen before her death.

Sanger was an ardent royalist and patriot and his shows reflected this; the brave red-coated soldier facing the horde of Zulu savages; the intrepid British army fighting in the Soudan; the Battle of Waterloo – even the pantomime of Cinderella contained a patriotic element, when she dreams of a parade of British military might. But for all these spectacles, the lustre of Astley’s was beginning to dim and civic politics were beginning to interfere with Sanger’s work.

In 1888 the Metropolitan Board of Works demanded expensive repairs to the building. Sanger complied and also installed a huge water tank in the Amphitheatre so that he could present water spectaculars. With the founding of the London County Council in 1891, pressure was applied to Sanger once again with a request for major building work. Undaunted, he continued that year by presenting St Petersburg on the Ice, in which he innovatively placed the whole company on roller skates. The final performance at Astley’s came the following year with a water and equestrian spectacle entitled The Jockey Club.

The days of Astley’s were now numbered and, in 1893, Sanger bowed to pressure and sold the property and land to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. After over 100 years and several reincarnations, the building would never again echo to the laughter and applause of the crowd. Lord George Sanger continued with his tenting circus for a few years but finally retired in 1905. He settled in the circus winter quarters in Finchley and, for a man of such immense stature and character, the circumstances of his death were tragic.

On the 29 November 1911, The Evening Telegraph and Post carried the news:

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