Henry Johnson

Henry Johnson (25 December 1806 – 12 June 1910) was an English acrobat, equestrian gymnast, and tightrope walker for Hughes' and Sanger's circuses in the early 19th century.

He was orphaned at a young age, and started life in poverty, however by his early twenties he had performed before the Emperor of China. After leaving the circuses and teaming up with Mullaba the Chinese Juggler, he performed privately by Royal Command for William IV. As a solo act, he performed for Queen Victoria several times, and again for the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII).

At the beginning of the 20th century he was fêted and interviewed as a centenarian in Grantham, Lincolnshire, where he had settled with his wife and daughter. Those interviews give an insight into the life of a circus and street performer of the early 19th century.

Background Henry Johnson "had no recollection of his parents who died when he was an infant". When he was two years old, his father died and his family struggled to survive, eating swedes from the fields because they could not afford bread. He had a brother who was an ostler. At his 100th birthday he received a congratulatory letter from Edward VII via Lord Knollys.

Following Johnson's 101st birthday, the Sporting Times noted with wry humour, "That is the worst of those dangerous professions. The people who practise them so frequently escape accidents". Johnson said that he did not like cigarettes, that he smoked a pipe, and that he "never was a teetotaller". Grantham (James Street was demolished in 1937 and 1960). In his last years, Johnson lived with his daughter Mrs Bullimore who was a lodging-house keeper. He died in Grantham on 12 June 1910, aged 103.

Career Skill preparation Johnson "took to horses from his infancy". He was encouraged to become a jockey, but he was more interested in imitating the gymnastic street-entertainers in Norwich market place:

In Johnson's youth, circuses were mainly strolling street-players, often treated as vagabonds. Sometimes pedlars would work alongside a very small street circus, so as to attract trade. However, there were some circus troupes which included highly skilled performers. Circus performers of Johnson's travelling generation were no less able than the well-paid late-nineteenth century celebrity circus performers, but the life of the earlier circus generation was hard and they often went hungry. and returning from Pekin to Durham, Johnson formed an independent partnership in 1830 with Pat Feeney who was known as Mullaba the Chinese Juggler or Old Malabar, and that association lasted until 1862. It ended, as Johnson said, "because we couldn't agree". working ultimately as a street performer, and retiring in 1892.

Johnson assisted at the "huge" 1838 Coronation Fair at Hyde Park, London, in celebration of Queen Victoria's accession: "All showdom was there":

As the boom of distant guns announced the departure of the young Queen for Westminster Abbey the showmen struck their gongs and unfurled their cloths, while the keepers of the booths and stalls rolled up their canvas fronts and commenced operations. The theatre in the park played Benjamin Bowbell or the Illustrious Stranger many hundreds of times ... The fair [was] open for several consecutive weeks ... A pot of beer rose to a shilling and a penny loaf to sixpence ...

The most that an acrobat could earn [in the 1830s] was a few shillings a week, or if he was particularly brilliant, a few pounds. [By 1900] a smart acrobat or juggler [was] capable of commanding as much money a week as his predecessors did in half a year or more.

Johnson was "famous" as a young man. The day after that, the pair performed by Royal Command for William IV, on a temporary stage on the lawn of Buckingham Palace. Johnson performed as a solo act for Queen Victoria before and after her coronation.

Mullaba the Chinese Juggler

Patrick Feeney, known as Mullaba, Malabar or Old Malabar, was the son of "decent, working people". He was born in Sligo, Ireland, on 16 March 1800, and was trained by the Chinese-Tartar juggler Chu Chan. Lord George Sanger recalled seeing "American Malabar" doing the Tuppence More trick with a donkey at the Hyde Park Fair of 1838. In 1910 the circus performer Edward Pablo recalled seeing Malabar in 1880, "walking about the streets [of Glasgow] rigged up in his old Chinese dress", although he did not remember Henry Johnson. Another report says that Malabar first performed in his own booth at the Border Fairs in Scotland around 1848, and continued at the fairs there, including at Selkirk and Edinburgh, until around 1878. Malabar was a "big, strong man, with a huge voice ... He was a wyse-like man, with strong features". He had once hired Lord George Sanger as a young man to patter (or attract trade) and to take part in the performance. Malabar was tall; In old age he was mocked for boasting that he had performed before kings, but Johnson's interviews confirm that he performed before William IV. on 6 October 1883. Feeney died in Glasgow, on 13 November 1883.