Circus History

The modern circus was invented in England by Philip Astley (1742-1814), a former Sergeant-Major turned showman. The son of a cabinet maker and veneer cutter, Astley had served during the Seven-Year War (the French and Indian War) in Colonel Eliott’s Fifteenth Light Dragoon Regiment, where he displayed an outstanding talent as a horse breaker and trainer.
Upon his discharge, Astley chose to imitate the trick-riders who exhibited with increasing success all over Europe. Jacob Bates, an English equestrian based in the German States who performed as far as Russia (1764-65) and America (1772-73), was the first of these new showmen to make his mark. Bates' emulators, Price, Johnson, Balp, Coningham, Faulkes, “Old” Sampson, and many others, had become fixtures of London’s pleasure gardens and inspired Philip Astley.

In 1768, Astley settled in London and opened a riding-school near Westminster Bridge, where he taught in the morning and performed his “feats of horsemanship” in the afternoon. The place featured a circular arena that Astley called circle, or circus, which would later be known as the ring. The circus ring however was not Astley’s invention; it had been devised earlier by trick-riders. Beside allowing the audience to keep the riders in sight during their performance (not an easy task when they dashed back and forth in open fields at full gallop), the ring also proved ideal, through the generating of centrifugal force, in helping riders keep their balance while they stood on the back of their galloping horses. Astley’s original ring was about 62 feet in diameter. He eventually settled the diameter at 42 feet, which has since become the international standard for all circus rings.

The Circus is Born

By 1770, Astley’s considerable success as a performer had outshone his fame as a teacher, and after two seasons in London he needed to bring some novelty to his performances. He hired acrobats, tight-rope dancers and jugglers, and interspersed their acts between his equestrian displays. Another addition to the show was a character borrowed from the Elizabethan theatre, the clown, who filled the pauses between acts with parodies of juggling, tumbling, tight-rope dancing, and even trick-riding. Hence the modern circus, a combination of equestrian displays and feats of strength and agility, was born.

In 1782, Astley opened Paris' first circus, the Amphitheatre Anglois. That same year he met his first competition in the person of the equestrian Charles Hughes (1747-1797), a former member of his company. In association with Charles Dibdin, a well-known author of pantomimes, Hughes had opened a rival amphitheatre and riding school in London. Dibdin named it Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy; the first element of this rather grandiose title was to be adopted as a generic name for the new form of entertainment, the circus.