Showpeople of Hampshire:
Powerpoint presentations for schools to accompany book and DVD
Number 1: Early history
Slide 1: The slides in this presentation relate to Chapter 2 in the project book. They deal with the origins of fairs in England and fair charters; the fairs of Hampshire; the illustration of early fairgrounds that show the rides and people; and the relationship between showpeople and Gypsies seen through Flora Twort’s painting of the Taro fair at Petersfield.
Slide 2: The annual round of the medieval religious and economic calendar of England was marked by regular fairs. They were the focus for the trade in livestock, food and crafts in towns and villages across the country, while religious institutions held fairs as part of major festivals and saints’ days.
Over 70 fairs were recorded in Hampshire before 1518; 48 had royal charters, another 10 were granted by letters or licences and the rest were prescribed, which means they owed their origins to tradition.
The present day charter fairs at Alton, Alresford, Wickham and Petersfield are the last survivors of the great charter fairs of Hampshire. They have a recorded history dating back to at least the 13th century and an unwritten history going back to even earlier times.
This slide shows a fair charter signed by Queen Elizabeth I for three fairs to be held in Southampton. A translation of the part of the setsout the permanence of the grants being made:
Elizabeth, to all. Know ye that for the improvement of our town of Southampton and its condition, and for the public good of the said town, we have given and granted to the Mayor, Bailiffs, and Burgesses of the town of Southampton, and their successors for ever, that they and their successors shall for the future for ever have and hold every year within the said town and its precincts three Fairs or Markets ….
In testimony whereof: Witness the Queen at Westminster, 22d Jany the 42d year of reign.
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In the top left hand corner…..
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there is a small portrait of the Queen.
Slide 3:This document is a list of fairs in Hampshire published in a travellers’ guide in 1780. It names 50 locations where fairs were held throughout the year in Hampshire.
The list gives information about the main commodities traded at each fair:
• Titchfield and Basingstoke Fairs, held in autumn each year, were hiring fairs where people took on new servants, or found new employment.
•Sheep were traded at Appleshaw, Blackwater, Kingsclere, Overton and many more including Weyhill.
•Horses were traded at Wickham, Beaulieu, Liphook, Liss and Lymington, as well as “forest colts” at Ringwood.
•Toys were traded at 11 places including Botley, Brading on the Isle of Wight and Whitchurch.
With early traders came not only goods and animals, but also people from different countries, previously unseen in this country. Fairgrounds and showpeople were pioneers in raising public awareness of foreign countries, languages and cultures. They were often the first bearers of news from across Europe and beyond.
Slide 4: Before photography was widely used to record life in England, the pictorial evidence that we have of how fairgrounds were set up and what they included came from paintings such as this one.
It is a watercolour of the Fair on the Marlands. It was painted by Fowler and was probably completed in 1873. It is in the collection of SouthamptonCityArtGallery and clearly shows the bustle and diverse activity of a fair at that time.
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In the background you can see a mobile theatre with its sign ‘Theatre Royal’.
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and in the foreground what appears to be a ‘tube shooter’ or rifle range made from the wagons that the showpeople lived in.
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There is also set of swing boats to the left.
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And a set of steam driven gallopers (or dobbies) partly hidden by the large sheet in the centre of the picture.
Slide 5: This is the scene of the Taro Fair at PetersfieldHeathLake painted in 1926 by Flora Twort. The fair was an annual event and for generations had been integral to the life of Petersfield. During the 1920s and 1930s it was the biggest horse fair in the South of England.
Showpeople have traditionally been linked to the Gypsy community and some of them have Gypsy origins, but others came from farming and trading backgrounds.
Showpeople and Gypsies are two separate and very different communities. They travel for different reasons and although they may come together on a fairground such as at Wickham, when they leave they go their own separate ways.
Showpeople are essentially a community united by a single business interest: to run fairs.
Number 2: Traditional fairgrounds
Slide 1: This presentation is based on Chapter 3 of the book and describes the rides and shows that were popular on the Victorian and Edwardian fairground.
It includes mechanical rides, menageries, boxing booths, ‘freak’ shows and bioscopes, describing how these entertainments (and the technology that came with them) developed on the fairground and brought unknown aspects of life to towns and villages across the country.
Slide 2:The nineteenth century saw the flowering of the travelling fair that brought many new and exciting spectacles to the public. There were the popular rides of the day: merry-go-rounds like Bartlett’s famous ‘New Forest Hunters’, steam yachts and ‘over boats’, whose descendants we still see on the fairground today.
James Bartlett was a farmer from Fordingbridge in Hampshire. He was born around 1855 and the original ride was built by brothers James, George and Charles Bartlett on their farm at Fordingbridge and travelled in Hampshire in the nineteenth century.
The wooden horses for the ride were carved in the farmhouse loft and two chariots were fitted to the ride and can be seen in this photograph. Originally it was a pony roundabout, turned by a small horse placed in shafts either on the inside or outside of the roundabout.
The ride was developed to run on steam when the Bartlett’s acquired their first traction engine in 1880 called Pride of the South. A traction engine is visible at the right of the photograph.
Slide 3: Collections of exotic animals can be traced as far back as Roman times, and bear bating and other animal shows could be seen on the streets of England’s cities in Elizabethan times. In the nineteenth century travelling fairground menageries and animal acts were often the first chance that people had to see the animals brought from abroad by sailors and other travellers.
The menagerie reflects increasing interest generated by new knowledge in the natural sciences and the public’s continuing fascination with the exotic and the dangerous They were great attractions on fairgrounds and circuses until the 1950s.
Day’s Menagerieswere famous throughout the Victorian period and the family travelled all over the United Kingdom. At the turn of the 20th century Thomas Day, billed as the 'Lion King', excelled at performing and training animals. Thomas was a great celebrity of his day and a performing rival to his brother-in-law Jimmy Chipperfield. (Notice the pelican on the stage and paintings of wild animals on the panels.)
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Here Chipperfield’s elephants are seen parading through the streets of Southampton in 1956.
Slide 4:Boxing has been an attraction on the fairground for several hundred years and had its origins in the bare knuckle fights of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Originally bare knuckle fights were conducted under the Prize Fighting rules, which allowed a certain amount of wrestling type holds, but in 1867 the Marquess of Queensbury rules set out new guidelines to regulate boxing matches, including the wearing of boxing gloves, and this led to the outlawing of bare knuckle contests.
Sam and Esther McKeowen’s Boxing Boothwas one of the most famous booths in the south of England during much of the 20th century. They travelled ‘from Poole to Penzance’ with their troupe of famous boxers which included Freddie Mills, Randolph Turpin, Rinty Monaghan and Jimmy Wilde, as well as Barbara Buttrick, one of the best known female boxers of the period.
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One of the most famous boxers of the early 20th century, Joe Beckettwas born on the fairground at Wickham, Hampshire in 1892. He started his career in his parents’ boxing booth, where his uncle and his older brother taught him to fight.
He had 23 professional fights and held the British Heavyweight Championship for four years between 1919 and 1923.
After his retirement from the ring he appeared in a number of Hollywood films and eventually retired to Southampton, where he bought his mother a house in Winchester Road.
Slide 5: The exhibition of freaks or marvels of nature was an essential component of travelling fairs. Freaks included people who were different from the norm, perhaps because of excess hair, malformed limbs and disfigurements, or in terms of their size or shape — either big or small, fat or thin.
Many people who would otherwise have found it difficult to support themselves in the wider society, found a secure livelihood in the fairground or the circus.
Rose Foster was one such person. She was born in 1884 in Highfield, which was then a village on the outskirts of Southampton, with a rare congenital condition called phocomelia. This was little understood at the time and the births of children with physical deformities were often attributed to the mother having suffered some traumatic experience during pregnancy.
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Despite her disabilities, she could knit, crochet and write with great facility. She made a good living by exhibiting herself as a ‘freak’ and travelled all over Europe and the US. She enjoyed good health and eventually retired to live with her sister in Portswood, Southampton where she died in the 1950’s.
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Here she is seen outside her living wagon at Strawberry Fields in Bitterne, Southampton. Her husband is standing beside her and the lettering ‘Miss R Foster’ is painted on the door, while ‘Freaks & Novelty Shows’ is painted above the driver’s cab. (The other two people in the photograph are unknown)
Slide 6:Following the invention known as ‘living pictures’ in 1896, Bioscopes or Cinematographs made their first appearance on the fairground. They had their heyday between the 1890s and the First World War. The show was fronted with an organ and dancing girls to draw the crowd.
Arnold Brothers exhibited their ‘Electric Bioscope and Theatre of Varieties’ travelling from Southampton to the Isle of Wight. The bioscope shown in the photograph was built in 1910. "Prof" Arnold was a magician who started his first cinema show in 1902 using a second hand projector which he purchased from Chipperfield's. His two sisters were the “paraders”
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From 1902 onwards these shows were transported by traction engine, allowing for greater loads to be carried, and making it possible to transport a complete cinematograph show with six or seven loads at one time.
Number 3: Fairground rides and side shows
Slide 1:This presentation is based on Chapter 7 in the book. It describes some of the major developments on the fairground.
It shows how developments in technology (such as steam power and electricity) were used on the fairground to make new and more exciting rides and side stalls.
Slide 2:Since earliest times, the business of fairs has always been supplemented with an element of novelty and entertainment. Showpeople were also pioneers, bringing new inventions to town and country, from electricity to the moving picture, as well as a constant array of new and exciting fairground rides and experiences.
We know very little about the early development of fairground rides. The first of the known rides was a ‘dobby’, a simple merry-go-round in which wooden horses, suspended from a central mechanism, were rotated by hand or horse power. This is a dobby photographed at the Wellow fair in the New Forest: the pony driving it can be seen in the middle.
An oral history recording describes how,in the 1930s, it was often the showman’s child would do the hard work. Gerald Jones remembers:
“… when I (was) old enough, I used to mind the little roundabout that you turn with a handle. That was a halfpenny to go on that in them days … You had a handle on it … you seen ‘em, the old fashioned wringers, well you had a handle like that. You used to just turn the handle and turn the roundabout round. All day.”
Slide 3:In the mid 19th century the steam traction engine became popular and these were used by showmen to power their rides as well as to move them from fair to fair. The power of steam released a creative energy amongst fairground designers and rides such as the swinging steam yachts, the tilting razzle dazzle and the sedately undulating switchback became popular at fairs.
The earliest examples were large and elaborate, as can be seen in “Jungle Ride” made for Reuben Gillham in 1935. The Ben Hur chariot race and jungle scenes can be seen on its rounding boards.
Slide 4:Outside of the major cities, people's first encounter with electricity was often on the fairground. By the 1920s, electricity was used to drive roundabouts as well as to light them.
The ultimate in independent movement was the dodgem car. Early dodgem cars were imported from the United States and initially showmen made their own rectangular tracks.
A track with square ends is a difficult structure to make strong and also has corners in which people can easily get their cars stuck. It was not long before British manufacturers produced more suitable tracks with the more familiar semicircular ends.
The dodgems took over the role of the gallopers to become the main ride on the fairground. Every fair had to have at least one set, so that when families split up and went their separate ways, the side that did not get the dodgems, had to buy another set.
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And they are still one of the main ‘thrill’ rides on all fairgrounds today.
Slide 5:During the course of the 20th century the great shows that had excited, entertained and informed the public since the Victorian era gradually disappeared from the fairground to be replaced by the small side and round stalls.
A few of the side stalls familiar on the Victorian fairground endure. Games of luck or skill, such as the Shooting Gallery, Striker and Coconut Shy are still found on most fairgrounds. Other games and tests, such as Hook-a-Duck, Darts and Hoopla are also popular with families, and particularly children.
Slide 6:But new types of side stalls have also appeared over the years. Adventure games such as the “funbag” or bouncy castle have appeared for the very young, as have attractive juvenile rides.
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Alongside these there is always room for a wide range of food stalls — everything from doughnuts, tea and burgers to toffee apples, pop corn and, the fairground favourite, candy floss.
Number 4: Showpeople in wartime
Slide 1:This presentation is based on Chapter 4 of the book and also refers to the Showmen’s Guild which features in Chapter 5.
It describes the contribution that showpeople and the Guild, made to the war effort in both the First and Second World Wars.
Slide 2:The First World War had a major effect on the lives and livelihoods of showpeople. As in all communities, those who were able were called up; some who had special skills were kept behind to do work of national importance, while those left at home had to make their way without them. Fairs were banned for much of the war which brought great hardship to the showpeople families.
Shows which used horses as part of their acts, or for transport, lost them to the war effort, while those with traction engines used them for moving heavy equipment and munitions to the ports to be sent overseas.
Percy Cole used his traction engine to transport loads of shells from Woolwich Arsenal to the London docks. With the metal tyres slipping on the cobbles, this was a very dangerous occupation of which he said, “if one of them had gone up, that would have been the end of me, and anybody in the area.”
Slide 3:The Second World War brought similar problems for showpeople. Their lorries were commandeered for the war effort and all able bodied men volunteered or were conscripted to the armed forces, or engaged in work of national importance.
However, the government took a different attitude to fairs at this time. Showpeople were encouraged to run fairs - at least in daylight hours, or with minimal lighting and under large tarpaulins during the evening - to raise the morale of the people.
This is a photograph of Gillham’s ‘Holidays at Home’ fair on Southampton Common in 1942. Mr Gillham was one of the largest fair owners in the south at the time and had an agreement with the city council to run fairs throughout the war.