For The Benefit Of Pablo Fanque, The Greatest Victorian Showman

M@
By M@

Last Updated 07 October 2024

For The Benefit Of Pablo Fanque, The Greatest Victorian Showman

This feature first appeared in October 2023 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here.

Pablo Fanque on a horse

Can you name the only London street to be mentioned in a Beatles song1? It is Bishopsgate. And it comes in that remarkable Sgt. Pepper track “Being For the Benefit of Mr Kite”.

The song, recorded in 1967, is a schedule of circus acts, all set to a carnival-esque shuffle. Mr K. will jump through a hogshead of real fire. A less pyrotechnic Mr. H will demonstrate “ten somersets… on solid ground”. And, of course, Henry the Horse dances the waltz. All this on Saturday at Bishopsgate — don’t be late!

If it sounds like it’s lifted straight off a Victorian circus poster, that’s because it was. While filming promotional material for Strawberry Fields, John Lennon chanced across an 1843 circus bill in an antiques shop in Sevenoaks, Kent. Two weeks later and — with a little help from his friends — he’d tumbled out a song and had it recorded. Most of the names and feats of death defiance are lifted from the poster, although the waltzing Victorian horse was named Zanthus, not Henry.

Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite playbill
The original playbill. The real show took place in Rochdale, which Lennon transposed to Bishopsgate in London for the song. Image public domain

Right at the top of the bill is the name of the circus proprietor: Pablo Fanque. Mr Fanque himself makes an appearance in the Beatles song, when we learn that the Hendersons are “late of Pablo Fanque’s Fair”.

I’ve heard that name sung out a hundred times — as have the millions and millions of people who own a copy of Sgt. Pepper, the best-selling album of the 1960s. But I’d never really given a second thought to the real Pablo Fanque before. Who was he? Let’s answer it immediately with a subtitle…

Britain’s first Black circus-owner

Fanque started life in Norwich under the less memorable name of William Darby. However, the particulars are disputed. The consensus (and census) view is that he was born in 1810, the son of John and Mary Darby. Then again, his gravestone records a 1796 birth. Some obituaries give 1804 as the birth year. Take your pick.

It’s also unclear how the family came to reside in Norwich. On Fanque’s marriage certificate his father’s occupation is given as “butler”. Biographers have speculated that Fanque’s father was African-born and came to the Port of Norwich to enter domestic service, but the records are murky.

While still a boy, Fanque was apprenticed to the noted circus proprietor William Batty. He first shows up on bills as “Young Darby” in 1821. By the mid-1830s, his unusual stage name (first recorded in 1833) is readily found in dozens of newspaper reports and advertisements. He’s commended as “The Loftiest Jumper in Europe” in Liverpool; a “most daring voltigeur” in Southampton; leaping through a “hoop of real daggers” in Birmingham; and clearing “TEN HORSES &c., &c.” in Leeds. The latter show had him accompanied by a Master Pablo Fanque, “the youngest performer in the world,” and presumably his son.

Pablo Fanque portriat
Pablo Fanque, year unknown. Image public domain

I can’t find any explanation as to why he adopted his unusual sobriquet. I mean, obviously, “William Darby” isn’t much of a stage name, so he was always likely to change it to something more flashy. But why Pablo Fanque? It’s possible he met or read about someone called Fanque, though the surname seems to have been extremely rare — I can see only a couple of instances across various archives. Interestingly, the Anglo-Chinese phrase “fan-qui”, meaning “foreigner” (or, sometimes with a pejorative “foreign devil” sense), seems to have been common in the 1830s. Perhaps Darby was reappropriating a slur as his stage name — though that’s pure speculation on my part.

Fanque performed all over England, but it was in London and its environs that his reputation was made. One of his earliest performances in the south-east was a “Grand Scottish Fate” on The Lawns in Croydon, which took place on 16 September 1834. A few years later, he was performing at the esteemed Astley’s Circus close to Westminster Bridge. The London crowds loved him.

Astley’s is ground zero for the circus. This building, which stood at the northern end of Westminster Bridge Road, was the first venue in the world to present acrobatic shows in the now familiar circus ring. It had been founded by Philip Astley in 1769, and was still going strong when Pablo Fanque rode into town 50 years later.

Pablo Fanque riding at Astley's Circus
Fanque riding at Astley’s in 1847. Image public domain

Fanque seems to have made his first performance at the famous venue in 1839, when we’re promised he’ll “execute his wonderful exercises on the Slack Rope”. From 1841, William Batty took ownership of Astley’s, and Fanque was a frequent attraction. Around this time, he seems to have turned his attentions away from the leaping arts and more towards matters equestrian. An 1841 review in the Illustrated London News notes “Mr. Pablo has trained [his horse] to do the most extraordinary feats of the 'manège' (a form of dressage), an art hitherto considered to belong only to the French and German professors of equitation, and her style certainly far exceeds anything that has ever yet been brought from the Continent."

A plaque to Astley's Circus
A marker showing the site of Astley’s Circus can be found within the grounds of St Thomas’s Hospital, near Westminster Bridge. Image Matt Brown

Fanque established his own company shortly thereafter. Pablo Fanque’s Circus Royal, as it’s called on the “Mr Kite” poster, spent most of its time in northern towns, as well as sojourns in places like Belfast, Cork, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Fanque did occasionally return to the south. In 1847, for example, he was wow-ing Astley’s once again, with his “Highly tutored steeds”. Sadly, there’s no evidence his troupe ever visited Bishopsgate (not known for its circuses, other than the street of Finsbury Circus).

Fanque’s circus had its ups-and-downs, and not just on the trampoline. In 1859, the showman was in court facing off against his erstwhile mentor William Batty, in a dispute over ownership of goods. Fanque was bankrupted but, in true tumbler fashion, bounced back to became one of the most renowned circus men in the country.

The achievement makes Fanque not only the first known Black circus owner, but also a very rare example of a successful Black businessman in mid-19th century Britain. He seems to have been widely respected. An 1843 letter to the Blackburn Mercury notes that: “Such is [his] character for probity and respectability, that wherever he has been once he can go again; aye and receive the countenance and support of the wise and virtuous of all classes of society.” He even turned author, penning a book on horse training and taming in 1860.

A poster for Pablo Fanque
Fanque’s troupe depart Sheffield, probably in 1848. The masonic symbols, incidentally, indicate his membership to the Order of Ancient Shepherds, a sickness and benefits society associated with the freemasons. Image public domain.

Not just a successful businessman, Fanque was also a generous supporter of those less fortunate than himself. He regularly put on benefits for charitable causes, as well as the likes of Mr Kite. During one of his final shows in 1871, he invited the workhouse children of Stockport to watch the action “free, gratis, for nothing”.

Fanque had four children, who would follow in their father’s ring-pacing footsteps. His first wife Susannah died tragically in 1848 when part of a circus building in Leeds collapsed. Although many spectators were thrown from their seats, Susannah was the only fatality. Fanque himself died of bronchitis in 1871. He is buried in Leeds with Susannah. His funeral was attended by his “celebrated performing pony” Wallett. It is not recorded if it danced a waltz.

And what of Mr Kite?

Something of a household name in his lifetime, Pablo Fanque had been all but forgotten by the 1960s, when John Lennon scooped his name out of obscurity. But what of Mr Kite, who gets even more name recognition thanks to his place in the song title?

William Kite was a London lad, born in Lambeth not far from Astley’s Circus. He was a gifted tumbler, taking after his father James Kite who was himself a notable circus proprietor. William joined Pablo Fanque’s fair in 1843, performing on tightrope and horse. John Lennon’s poster comes from the same year, and is advertising a “benefit” for Mr Kite. Benefits were held to raise money for a particular performer, sometimes if they had fallen on hard times or needed retirement funds, but often just for professional remuneration. Kite seems to have stuck around at Fanque’s for a couple of years after his latterly famous Benefit, but his subsequent life is a complete mystery.

A Mr J. Henderson is also mentioned on the poster and this is John Henderson, an all-round circus performer who was well known on the circuit through the 40s and 50s. Lennon pluralised his name to say “The Hendersons will all be there,” and, curiously, John Henderson did perform alongside his wife, Agnes Henderson, at other shows.

No press accounts survive of the Benefit performance. To those taking part, it was surely just another show — one of thousands they’d stage over their careers. Wouldn’t it be delicious, to travel back in time and tell them? To walk into the dressing room after the event, pat Messrs Kite, Fanque and Henderson on the back, and reveal that a billion people would one day hear about the show they just staged? And all because of a chance discovery in a Sevenoaks antique shop, 124 years hence.