Josiah Chater started to keep his diary in October 1844 at the age of 15. He was living at the time at 12 Market Street, apprenticed to William Eaden Lilley, draper, carpet warehouseman, paper merchant and seller of painting materials. He kept his diary for almost 40 years, and by recording events great and small, his own feeling and interests, his diaries provided a unique glimpse into Victorian Cambridge.
In 2023, a team of volunteers at the Museum of Cambridge started to transcribe these diaries for the first time; we will be sharing interesting episodes from these diaries in chronological order, starting with November 1844.
We begin with 15 year old Josiah’s interest in the circus, when he reports that a ‘brick place’ is being built on Midsummer Common on 8th of November. Clearly not everyone was happy about this and a Mr J Doughty tries to pull the edifice down until restrained by the police.
On the 11th of November the circus arrives in town. It has been trailered by notices in the local newspaper announcing:
Van Amburgh’s Royal Collection of trained animals and living giraffe together with a company of most talented and graceful equestrians, gymnastic artists and witty clowns … Mr Van Amburgh will appear in his Roman Amphitheatre on Monday Nov.11 1844 on which day he will arrive from Linton at eleven o’clock accompanied by his celebrated brass band, carriages containing the animals, and the whole of the equestrians mounted on their favourite steeds, all richly caparisoned, and make a grand procession down the Hills Road, by Downing Terrace, Trumpington Street, Bene’t Street, Peas Hill, Market Hill, Market Street, Sidney Street, Jesus Lane, to the Amphitheatre, Midsummer Common.
What 15 year old boy wouldn’t want to follow the arrival of this spectacle with anticipation? Josiah goes to see the tarpaulin roof raised over the amphitheatre and then goes back to his lodgings at Eaden Lilley’s so that he can get a really good view of the procession of animals and performers along Market Street.
Over the next three weeks he reports that friends of his have been to the circus, but he doesn’t appear to have gone himself. Perhaps an apprentice’s pay just didn’t stretch that far; perhaps those he worked for might have disapproved.
So what was this remarkable sounding circus? Isaac Van Amburgh (1808-1865) had started as a cage-cleaner at New York zoo. However he soon began to use his affinity with animals to train them and perform apparent acts of daring with big cats. This brought him the title of ‘The Lion King.’ He would create the first circus performing-animal shows.
Amburgh became a celebrity and many myths arose. In his biography by Richard Horne, his mother, the night before he was born, had had a strangely vivid dream about eating the different parts of a lion’s body. Later Van Amburgh was to supposed to have read the story of Daniel and the Lion in the Bible and decided that he would become a lion tamer. It was in 1833 at the age of 22 that he first entered a cage of wild cats at New York Zoo; his control over the animals provoked awe and wonder in all those looking on!
His celebrity status made him rich and he put together a travelling menagerie which in the late 1830s he brought to Europe for several years. His first show in London in 1838 made £300 per week. In 1844, the year he appeared in Cambridge, he performed to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The Queen then commissioned a portrait of Amburgh and his cats by Landseer that was exhibited at the Royal Academy.
The Queen actually became so fascinated that she travelled six times in as many months to see Van Amburgh at Drury Lane and even stayed behind one evening to watch him feed his cats.
Van Amburgh was not without his critics. The press and the clergy attacked them as ‘travelling death’ and ‘moral ruin’. This attitude may have deterred the young Josiah from admitting his fascination too openly. Cruelty to the animals was often shown through beating and starvation. Van Amburgh defended his treatment of his animals by quoting Genesis. ‘It was a religious act for trained animals to kneel at his feet’ as this was evidence of man’s dominion over the animals. He even organised a lion and a lamb to lie down in a cage together and invited a child from the audience to join them inside.
So we are probably forced to accept that Josiah heard all about this amazing show secondhand from his friends. And even though 12th November was his 16th birthday, he had to make do with a present of plum pudding and a few walnuts. Christmas was coming and there were other exciting things to look forward to.
To read the relevant transcription of Josiah Chater’s diary follow this link: <Josiah Chater 1844>
For more information about circuses in Cambridge see <William Tudor’s Circus>