Father of the Modern Circus 'Billy Buttons' by Steve Ward

Author:Steve Ward
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Entertainment & Performing Arts
ISBN: 9781526706898
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2018-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

The magistrates had made a two-pronged attack against the riding schools, using both the terms of the 1737 Theatres Licensing Act and the 1744 Vagrancy Act. The former banned all unauthorised ‘Entertainments of the Stage’, and both establishments had a stage as well as an arena. The latter also banned all unauthorised performances, but crucially, for the magistrates at least, it allowed for a summary custodial sentence to be issued for being a ‘Rogue and Vagabond’. This was a way of removing both managers from their businesses and precipitating some decisive action against such unlicensed premises. The document of commitment issued to the Governor of the House of Correction in relation to Hughes’s imprisonment, here given in full, makes interesting reading and reflects how the magistrates interpreted the law for their own purposes:

Receive into your custody the body of Charles Hughes, herewith sent you, brought before us Thomas Parker, John Croft and William Hyde, Esqrs. Three of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace, in and for the said county, by John Jenkinson and Thomas Adams, and charged and convicted before us the said Justices, upon the oaths of Peter Gough and Thomas Shirley, for being rogues and vagabonds; to wit, for acting, representing, and performing for hire, gain, and reward, at a certain place called the Royal Circus, in the parish of St George’s, in the said county, a certain entertainment of the stage called Georgium Sidus, or the Dumb Orators, an oration by a boy, a procession of horses with drums and fifes playing, several scenes and views transparent, a boy making a long speech, and describing the different paintings, a large group of children one upon another, and after marching like soldiers against the statute etc. Him therefore keep in your safe custody until the next general quarter sessions of the peace to be held in and for the said county, or until he shall be thence discharged by due course of law; and for so doing this shall be your sufficient warrant.

(The Hampshire Chronicle, 6 January 1783)

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