Show some love for the greatest showman of the Victorian age, Newbury’s ‘Lord’ George Sanger
A present day local circus impresario wants us to celebrate the birth, in 1825, in Newbury of England’s greatest showman of the Victorian age, ‘Lord’ George Sanger. CHRIS BARLTROP, founder of The Centre for Circus Culture and a circus professional for 50 years, explains
THE traditional tented circus is a favourite entertainment for many people; an ‘art-form for everyone’.
And, 200 years ago, in Newbury, a little boy was born whose showbusiness exploits were to rival the extravagances of the famed William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody and his Wild West Show.
The boy grew up to be the famous showman, the Victorian circus proprietor ‘Lord’ George Sanger.
His story is one Martin ‘Zippo’ Burton, founder of Newbury-based Zippos Circus wants Newbury to celebrate.
Zippos, loved as ‘Britain’s Favourite’ Big Top show, has its touring HQ at Enborne.
During the 40 years since it began, Burton’s show has become nationally celebrated, appearing on TV, at Buckingham Palace for the late HM Queen Elizabeth II, and as a staple attraction in the luxurious 1,700-seat Megadome at London’s annual Hyde Park Winter Wonderland.
Setting his own career aside to acknowledge his forebears, Burton is keen to highlight a piece of Newbury’s previous history as the ‘home’ of an even more famous showman, ‘Lord’ George Sanger.
Mr Burton has already made a ‘monumental’ contribution to restoring a civic item originating with Sanger. More of that below.
Look back to 1825. It’s a couple of days before Christmas. In Wharf Street, Newbury, James and Sarah Sanger are celebrating the safe birth of their third son. They’ve called him George.
James sells fish and fruit from a stall in the Market Place. He’s settled in Newbury for the winter, as he does each year.
His family grow up viewing Newbury as their ‘home’, although the rest of the time James earns a living on the road with a ‘peep-show’, a closed box with 26 peep-holes showing a self-made diorama of the Battle of Trafalgar.
As a young man, James was press-ganged into the Royal Navy. He claims to have served under Nelson on the Victory, and that the commentary and description he recites to the customers who pay him their pennies is a ‘first-hand account’. James is a showman!
Young George Sanger’s early life was spent on the British fairgrounds, working with his father’s peep-show and selling lettered rock.
In 1848 with his brother John he bought some canaries and mice and trained them for exhibition.
Taking a bold step at the start of 1854, the Sanger brothers started a small circus, the performers being family friends and two nieces. Tickets were a penny a time, and 3d for reserved seats.
During the next six years the brothers toured the UK. They met success and their show expanded quickly.
By 1858 they had added lions and then elephants, which proved to be a big draw. By 1860 the company boasted ‘The Largest Stud of Horses in Europe’.
Sanger’s Circus visited over 200 towns each nine-month season, staying just a single day at most of them and giving two performances every day except Sunday.
The horse-drawn travelling convoy was said to be two miles long and had ‘at least 10 wagons to carry the tent and seating, a lamp wagon, eight or 10 living carriages, a foal wagon, 10 wild beast wagons full of lions, tigers, bears and others, a harness wagon, a portable blacksmith’s forge, property wagons, wardrobe and dressing wagons, a band carriage and at least six great tableau cars for the parade’. A huge enterprise!
From 1874 Sanger also presented tenting shows on the Continent for 15 seasons. In 1895, a typical year, he travelled with 160 horses, 11 elephants, a dozen camels and about 330 people.
Sanger claimed that his huge success on the Continent was due to the variety of the programme; other circuses were dominated by equestrian acts in permanent buildings.
Sanger’s shows presented mass entertainment to the general public and by 1871 his fame and fortune was such that he acquired perhaps the most glorious circus venue of all, Astley’s Amphitheatre near London’s Westminster Bridge. which he continued to run with his brother John until it was demolished in 1893.
On Martin Burton’s initiative, a commemorative pavement now marks the site of the Amphitheatre, previously immortalised by Charles Dickens and Jane Austen.
During his extensive and impressive career Sanger presented two Royal performances before Queen Victoria, the first at Sandringham on January 8, 1885, and the second at Balmoral Castle on June 17, 1898.
More widely, he was one of the founders of the Showmen’s Guild, a revered organisation to this very day.
In true showman style, George Sanger ennobled himself to take the title of ‘Lord’.
In legal dispute with William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody, whose Wild West Show toured extensively here, he grew increasingly annoyed that Cody was addressed at Court as ‘The Honourable’, his entitlement as a US Senator.
Over dinner in his family’s living wagon, the angry George burst out: “If he’s an Honourable, I’m a Lord!”
The ‘title’ stuck so firmly that even Queen Victoria quietly accepted it, with a little amusement, when Sanger’s performed before her.
Although his later wealth allowed him to buy property at Finchley, London, ‘Lord’ George was proud to call Newbury his birthplace.
Each year, he visited local almshouses with gifts for the residents – tobacco for the men, trinkets for the ladies.
Even more, in recognition of the town’s place in his story, Sanger commissioned a statue of Queen Victoria, guarded by four lions, the animals being modelled on one of his own big cats named Wallace.
The statue was donated to his home town, and set on the spot in the Market Place once occupied by James Sanger’s market stall. It was unveiled on July 24, 1903, attracting huge crowds in grateful celebration.
The statue was later moved to the gardens of nearby Greenham House, but was restored to the town in 1966.
However, two of the lions had gone astray, sold on, and it wasn’t until 2001 that Martin Burton located them and arranged for them to be brought ‘home’, making up once again the original full ensemble to share an honoured place in Victoria Park. A monument to a love of the circus shared between two great showmen.
Mr Burton, now chair of the Association of Circus Proprietors of Great Britain, is behind a national initiative to highlight the career of Lord George Sanger on the Bicentennial of his birth.
“It would be wonderful if the town of Newbury would join in acknowledging one of its most famous sons,” he said, “‘a man who, in spite of his status as one of the nation’s most respected entertainers, was always proud to talk of his roots here as he took polished performances to the millions.”
Acknowledgments for information sourced from www.wikitree.com This feature first appeared in Out&About magazine.
SADLY Sanger’s life ended as spectacularly as he lived when he was killed, in his eighties, allegedly by an axe-wielding disgruntled former employer, in a murder which dominated the headlines in Edwardian Britain.
However, Karl Shaw, author of The Killing of Lord George: A Tale of Murder and Deceit in Edwardian England, has uncovered new evidence.
He found a murder mystery involving a jilted lover, an unscrupulous pathologist and a terrible family secret. Go to https://tinyurl. com/u7yjftcx to find out more.
