SOLDIERS AND CIRCUSES

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 February 1931, Page 9

SOLDIERS AND CIRCUSES

HISTORIC ASSOCIATIONS. The appearance of the. kilted boys from the Queen Victoria School for the Sons of Scottish Sailors, Soldiers, and Airmen at Dunblane at Captain Bertram Mills’s Circus, at Olympia (wrote a contributor to the London

“Sunday Times”), is much more appropriate than most people guess, for the circus from first to last has been much mixed up with soldiering. Indeed, the old tag, “Panera et ■ circenses,” might very well be replaced, so far as we are concerned, with the

[hybrid motto: “Soldiers et circenses.” I Tho father of the British circus, i Philip Astley (17-12—1814), soon gave [up his apprenticeship to his father’s trade as cabinetmaker at Newcastle. under-Lynne to become a soldier, for at the age of 17 he ’listed in Eliott’s Light Dragoons, which had just been raised 'in a great outburst of recruiting enthusiasm, and was afterwards known as the 15th Hussars, now merged with the 19th. Astley spent seven years in the Army, fighting in Germany, and rose to be sergeantmajor.

He seems to have been fascinated with circus riding by seeing, while on furlough, a performance at Islington, which' was really “merrie” at that time, for there were many tea gardens and spaces for equestrian feats. After' his discharge, he started out as a circus rider, advertising himself as the “English Hussar from Eliott’s Dragoons.” He never forgot the Army. Thus, he went to a military review -at Wimbledon with a trained horse, which greatly amused the King by kneeling, lying down, and sitting up “like a dog, at the word of command.”

Astley began giving • performances in a field at Glover’s Halfpenny Hatch at Lambeth, and was so successful that he ultimately settled down at Westminster Bridge Road, where he built his famous “amphitheatre,” and conducted a riding school for the Quality. He often had military performances in his circus, proudly advertising his “troop of horse and foot”; and he made a great deal of the charger which his old chief, Lord Heathfield, gave him. The animal, which had carried, Heathlield through the siege of Gibraltar, was called the “Spanish Horse,” and became familiar to every Londoner of the period.

It must, indeed, have been a remarkable creature, for we are solemnly assured by a contemporary writer that it could ungirth its own saddle, wash his feet' in a pail of water, fetch and carry a complete tea equipage, take a kettle of boiling water off a flaming fire, and “act in the manner of a waiter.” Presented to Astley in 17S8, it outlived him, dying at a great age, when its hide was made into a “thunder drum” on the prompt side of the circus. AGAIN A SOLDIER. Astley built a theatre in the Ru? de Fauxbourg du Temple in Paris in 1786, and three, years later it was annexed bv the French authorities as a barracks. Tn 1793 he joined up again in his old regiment, as a volunteer, serving in the campaign in Flanders.

Indeed, in 1794 he wrote a little book, “Remarks on the profession and dtitv of a soldier, with other observations relative to the army at. this time in actual service on the Continent,” recording this ardent conviction; “Tho profession of a soldier in my humble opinion carries with it a very extensive .and honourable name: it is

allowed to be lawful by Holy Writ.” About the same time he published a “description and historical account of the places now the theatre of war in the Low Countries,” and in 1800 he produced maps of the Continent.

On the declaration of the Peace of Amiens in 1802, Atley, now am an of i GO, dressed himself up in his Windsor I uniform, and, mounted on his charger, I presumably the old Spanish horse, i waited at the of his circus to see j the King and the Duke of York passing on their return from Greenwich and Woolwich/ where they had weli corned the returning troops. His old friend, De Castro, tells us that the Duke noticed Astley, who saluted in “high military style.” , ' Astley afterwards went -to Paris to get rent for his annexed circus, but, as war was again declared, he was taken prisoner like so many of his countrymen, and was sent to Verdun.

OTHER CIRCUS FAMILIES. I Astley’s rival, Charles Hughes, who Royal Circus, afterwards the Surrey Theatre, was also indebted to the army, for he was, backed by the

ground landlord, Colonel Temple West, who died in 1783, after riding a horse Hughes had bought for him. It is also noticeable that the family of the great Ducrow (1793-1862) ended in a soldier, as you will find by making ‘a pilgrimage to his massive tomb at Kensal Grgen, for his posthumous son and namesake, Andrew Ducrow, was an ensign" in the 40th Foot, and died of wounds whilst gallantly leading his men in the attack on Rangariri, New Zealand, November 20,1863. Ducrow’s daughter Louisa, who figured in her father’s circus as a child, “La Petite Louisa Ducrow,” married Surgeon-Major Henry Wilson (died 1900), who distinguished himself in the Indian Mutiny. She herself died at Hampstead in 1917. When circuses were in full swing in

this country in the days of the Henglers and the Cookes, they were fond of specialising ip military spectacles. Thus a whole generation got to know all about the Zulu War in the ring, which naturally offered more scope for horsemanship than the ordinary stage.

As for equestrianship, most circus riders frankly acknowledge the excellence of our military riding schools, which have made riding in the ring far less wonderful to the generation which has seep the Military Tourna-

ment than it was to our less favoured ancestors. But there are, of course, a number of other things that soldiers cannot do so well as the professional acrobat, though even then -the army schools of gymnastics are far bettei’ than they have ever been. So from one cause or another the soldier and the circus keep pretty near each other. Did not Captain Mills do his bit in the War?