Leisure, War and Marginal Communities: Travelling Showpeople

Leisure, War and Marginal Communities: Travelling Showpeople and Outdoor Pleasure-Seeking in Britain 1889-1945. Elijah Bell A Thesis Submitted For The Degree of PHD Department Of History University Of Essex i Contents ❖ Contents II ❖ Acknowledgements III ❖ Abstract IV ❖ Glossary of Terms V1 ❖ Introduction 1 ❖ I 20 1885-1914, Persecution to Amalgamation; The Legislative Attack and the Formation of the Showmen’s Guild ❖ II 67 New Opportunities and New Challenges; Regulation, Recreation, and Travelling Showpeople During The Great War ❖ III 115 Relocation, Regulation and Restructuring – Legislation, The Rise Of Municipal Control, and The Showmen’s Guild 1918-1939 ❖ IV 160 An English Tober? – The Culture of Recreation, Societal Contestation, and the Travelling Fairground 1918-1939. ❖ V 204 Outcasts and Funfair Kings – Travelling Fairgrounds During the Second World War 1939-1945. ❖ Conclusion 257 ❖ Appendix 269 ❖ Bibliography 279 ii Acknowledgements I would like to extend my gratitude to all those who have given support, advice, and assistance throughout the completion of this thesis. I would like to thank my family for putting up with the long spells with sporadic contact, the fleeting visits, and the constant chattering about fairgrounds over the last four years. The latter apology is also due to my friends and colleagues, who have been a constant source of inspiration and support. I wish to extend my thanks to everyone who has stopped me in a corridor to ask how things are going, willingly read large sections of text, discussed ideas over a pint, and all who have voiced their belief in me to complete what at times seemed an overwhelming task. I would like to thank my supervisory board for all their assistance and guidance throughout, and the University of Essex History Department as a whole for their support. Lastly, I wish to dedicate the thesis to my father, Robin Bell, without whom I simply wouldn’t be where I am today. iii Abstract This thesis investigates the community of nomadic showpeople who provided entertainments and amusements as part of travelling fairs. The primary focus of the thesis is the development of the relationship between this marginal community and local and national authorities between 1889 and 1945. As part of this investigation the relationship between showpeople and settled British society is also examined. Exploring the physical space of the fairground is vital as this forms the encounter between showpeople and the public. The fair as a form of public leisure informs outside perceptions and understandings of the community behind it. The thesis provides an overview of travelling fairs and associated issues up to the 1880s, before analysing the impact of attempts at temporary dwelling legislation. These attempts proved a formative experience; causing a disparate showland community to amalgamate in the politically active union of The Showmen’s Guild. The thesis explores how this organisation was able to meet the legislative and practical challenges of the First World War. Through negotiation with authorities the Guild secured the viability of the showland business. In addition, they emphasised although separated by their commercial nomadism, travelling showpeople firmly considered themselves part of a British national identity. This concept is revisited in the final chapter which explores the experience of travelling showpeople during the Second World War. In addition to assessing how showmen were able to adapt to noise and lighting restrictions, the chapter also assesses the contributions of showland to the collective war effort, and to what extent the community was recognised as part of the collective narrative of ‘The People’s War’. The third and fourth chapters of the thesis explore the travelling fair in the interwar period which saw local authorities attempting to exercise increasing control over fairgrounds through rent and relocation, but also saw the significance of the fair as a public leisure pursuit confirmed. The fair was presented and perceived as a uniquely British form of leisure, with close links to rural and urban working class traditions. iv Overall the thesis concludes this unique group were transformed in the period assessed. The creation of the Showman’s Guild in 1889 was a crucial step towards this group developing from a fragmented and misunderstood community, into a recognised body of commercial professionals. Alongside an improving business relationship with local and national authority, the thesis demonstrates the fairground remained a relevant and popular public recreation throughout the first half of the twentieth century. v Glossary Of Terms ❖ Tober – Slang used by Showland Families to mean fairground or showground. ❖ Flatties – Term used by fairground communities to describe non-showfolk from settled society. ❖ Tick-Off – Fortune Teller or small stall holder/grafter peripheral to the main attractions of a fair, not necessarily part of a showland family but often an itinerant salesman who pitched at fairs. ❖ Showman’s Steam Engine/ Showman’s Road Locomotive – Steam Traction Engine designed specifically for use by travelling showpeople. Often highly ornate with elaborate paintwork and twisted brass decorations. Used for haulage of rides and to generate electricity by means of a belt-driven dynamo. First produced in the 1890s, the final examples were used sparingly into the 1950s. Manufacturers included Charles Burrell of Thetford, John Fowler of Leeds, and William Foster of Lincoln. In addition to factory produced engines, showpeople also purchased them second-hand from hauliers or farmers, and converted them to suit their needs. ❖ Gallopers/Roundabout – Rotating fairground ride developed in the 1880s with a central steam engine driving carved wooden animals, often horses but also cockerels, pigs and other animals, which moved around the central platform. ❖ Switchback Ride – A fairground ride developed in the Edwardian period which featured an undulating track which several ‘Gondolas’ or cars would traverse. Powered by its own steam engine in the centre of the ride, and often including a mechanical organ mounted in the middle of the front panel. ❖ ‘Scenic’ Ride – A development of the earlier Switchbacks which became popular in the 1920s. ‘Scenic’ refers to the high amount of carved wooden decoration typical of these rides, often featuring exotic or historical scenes. ❖ ‘Noah’s Ark’ and Speedways – Fairground ride popular from the late 1920s into the 1930s, the ‘Noah’s Ark’ featured fast moving animal shapes which were ridden by patrons, the vi Speedways were a development of this and saw the animals replaced with wooden motorcycles. ❖ Wall Of Death – Travelling motorcycle stunt show; rides would seem to defy gravity by riding on the inside of a circular vertical wooden wall, held up by centrifugal force. ❖ Chairoplanes – Large fairground ride which featured miniature aircraft or small metal chairs suspended on cables which rotated around a central tower. vii Introduction The travelling fair is a unique form of public leisure, a sensory explosion of colour, light and noise which sporadically spills out onto rural village greens and winds its way through city streets. The funfair creates its own landscape, absorbing patrons into its own world before packing away and vanishing as rapidly as it appeared. However, this encounter is one of paradox; for whilst the annual fair was often adopted as specific local tradition, the impermanency and itineracy of the fair prevented any locale developing an enduring relationship. An additional contradiction is whilst the rides and atmosphere of the fair were familiar to patrons, the nomadic families whose business was the provision of travelling amusements remained strangers; part of an exclusive community whose exchanges with wider society were few and often fraught. Travelling fairs have considerable heritage; trading festivals in towns including Norwich and Nottingham go back to the tenth century, Bartholomew Fair in London was granted Charter by Henry I in 1120, and major fairs including Stourbridge and Kings Lynn were established by Charter by King John.1 These events were based around mercantile trading, and although by the end of the nineteenth century, provision of entertainment was the predominant purpose of fairs, the commercial element still existed. Tyrwhitt-Drake states up to the mid-twentieth century “every market is not a fair but every fair is a market”.2 Statute or ‘Mop’ Fairs based around the hiring of agricultural labour, domestic servants, and other workers were once a prominent type of fair, but by the end of the nineteenth century institutions governing job markets negated their original role and henceforth these events were held purely for entertainment.3 The origin of fairs designed exclusively around celebration and entertainment were local wakes and parish festivals, usually instigated by residents on traditional religious 1 Ian Starsmore, English Fairs (Thames & Hudson, London, 1975), pp. 12-16. 2 Sir Garrard Tyrwhitt-Drake, The English Circus and Fair Ground (Metheun & Co Ltd, London, 1946), p. 189. 3 Tyrwhitt-Drake, The English Circus and Fair Ground, pp. 189 - 190. 1 holidays.4 Although their role had changed the majority of fairs held throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century were still ‘franchise’ or ‘charter’ fairs, whereby the monarch had granted an individual or corporation the right to hold a fair.5 This thesis investigates the community of itinerant showpeople between 1889 and 1945 for

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