Showpeople of Hampshire:
Powerpoint presentations for schools to accompany book and DVD
Number 1: Early history
Slide 1: The slides in this presentation relate to Chapter 2 in the project book. They deal
with the origins of fairs in England and fair charters; the fairs of Hampshire; the
illustration of early fairgrounds that show the rides and people; and the relationship
between showpeople and Gypsies seen through Flora Twort’s painting of the Taro fair at
Petersfield.
Slide 2: The annual round of the medieval religious and economic calendar of England
was marked by regular fairs. They were the focus for the trade in livestock, food and
crafts in towns and villages across the country, while religious institutions held fairs as
part of major festivals and saints’ days.
Over 70 fairs were recorded in Hampshire before 1518; 48 had royal charters, another 10
were granted by letters or licences and the rest were prescribed, which means they owed
their origins to tradition.
The present day charter fairs at Alton, Alresford, Wickham and Petersfield are the last
survivors of the great charter fairs of Hampshire. They have a recorded history dating
back to at least the 13th century and an unwritten history going back to even earlier
times.
This slide shows a fair charter signed by Queen Elizabeth I for three fairs to be held in
Southampton. A translation of the part of the sets out the permanence of the grants
being made:
Elizabeth, to all. Know ye that for the improvement of our town of Southampton and its condition, and
for the public good of the said town, we have given and granted to the Mayor, Bailiffs, and Burgesses of
the town of Southampton, and their successors for ever, that they and their successors shall for the future
for ever have and hold every year within the said town and its precincts three Fairs or Markets ….
In testimony whereof: Witness the Queen at Westminster, 22d Jany the 42d year of reign.
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In the top left hand corner…..
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there is a small portrait of the Queen.
Slide 3: This document is a list of fairs in Hampshire published in a travellers’ guide in
1780. It names 50 locations where fairs were held throughout the year in Hampshire.
The list gives information about the main commodities traded at each fair:
• Titchfield and Basingstoke Fairs, held in autumn each year, were hiring fairs
where people took on new servants, or found new employment.
• Sheep were traded at Appleshaw, Blackwater, Kingsclere, Overton and many
more including Weyhill.
• Horses were traded at Wickham, Beaulieu, Liphook, Liss and Lymington, as well
as “forest colts” at Ringwood.
• Toys were traded at 11 places including Botley, Brading on the Isle of Wight and
Whitchurch.
With early traders came not only goods and animals, but also people from different
countries, previously unseen in this country. Fairgrounds and showpeople were pioneers
in raising public awareness of foreign countries, languages and cultures. They were often
the first bearers of news from across Europe and beyond.
Slide 4: Before photography was widely used to record life in England, the pictorial
evidence that we have of how fairgrounds were set up and what they included came from
paintings such as this one.
It is a watercolour of the Fair on the Marlands. It was painted by Fowler and was
probably completed in 1873. It is in the collection of Southampton City Art Gallery and
clearly shows the bustle and diverse activity of a fair at that time.
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In the background you can see a mobile theatre with its sign ‘Theatre Royal’.
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and in the foreground what appears to be a ‘tube shooter’ or rifle range made from the
wagons that the showpeople lived in.
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There is also set of swing boats to the left.
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And a set of steam driven gallopers (or dobbies) partly hidden by the large sheet in the
centre of the picture.
Slide 5: This is the scene of the Taro Fair at Petersfield Heath Lake painted in 1926 by
Flora Twort. The fair was an annual event and for generations had been integral to the
life of Petersfield. During the 1920s and 1930s it was the biggest horse fair in the South
of England.
Showpeople have traditionally been linked to the Gypsy community and some of them
have Gypsy origins, but others came from farming and trading backgrounds.
Showpeople and Gypsies are two separate and very different communities. They travel
for different reasons and although they may come together on a fairground such as at
Wickham, when they leave they go their own separate ways.
Showpeople are essentially a community united by a single business interest: to run fairs.
Number 2: Traditional fairgrounds
Slide 1: This presentation is based on Chapter 3 of the book and describes the rides and
shows that were popular on the Victorian and Edwardian fairground.
It includes mechanical rides, menageries, boxing booths, ‘freak’ shows and bioscopes,
describing how these entertainments (and the technology that came with them)
developed on the fairground and brought unknown aspects of life to towns and villages
across the country.
Slide 2: The nineteenth century saw the flowering of the travelling fair that brought
many new and exciting spectacles to the public. There were the popular rides of the day:
merry-go-rounds like Bartlett’s famous ‘New Forest Hunters’, steam yachts and ‘over
boats’, whose descendants we still see on the fairground today.
James Bartlett was a farmer from Fordingbridge in Hampshire. He was born around
1855 and the original ride was built by brothers James, George and Charles Bartlett on
their farm at Fordingbridge and travelled in Hampshire in the nineteenth century.
The wooden horses for the ride were carved in the farmhouse loft and two chariots were
fitted to the ride and can be seen in this photograph. Originally it was a pony
roundabout, turned by a small horse placed in shafts either on the inside or outside of
the roundabout.
The ride was developed to run on steam when the Bartlett’s acquired their first traction
engine in 1880 called Pride of the South. A traction engine is visible at the right of the
photograph.
Slide 3: Collections of exotic animals can be traced as far back as Roman times, and bear
bating and other animal shows could be seen on the streets of England’s cities in
Elizabethan times. In the nineteenth century travelling fairground menageries and animal
acts were often the first chance that people had to see the animals brought from abroad
by sailors and other travellers.
The menagerie reflects increasing interest generated by new knowledge in the natural
sciences and the public’s continuing fascination with the exotic and the dangerous They
were great attractions on fairgrounds and circuses until the 1950s.
Day’s Menageries were famous throughout the Victorian period and the family travelled
all over the United Kingdom. At the turn of the 20th century Thomas Day, billed as the
'Lion King', excelled at performing and training animals. Thomas was a great celebrity of
his day and a performing rival to his brother-in-law Jimmy Chipperfield. (Notice the
pelican on the stage and paintings of wild animals on the panels.)
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Here Chipperfield’s elephants are seen parading through the streets of Southampton in
1956.
Slide 4: Boxing has been an attraction on the fairground for several hundred years and
had its origins in the bare knuckle fights of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Originally
bare knuckle fights were conducted under the Prize Fighting rules, which allowed a
certain amount of wrestling type holds, but in 1867 the Marquess of Queensbury rules
set out new guidelines to regulate boxing matches, including the wearing of boxing
gloves, and this led to the outlawing of bare knuckle contests.
Sam and Esther McKeowen’s Boxing Booth was one of the most famous booths in the
south of England during much of the 20th century. They travelled ‘from Poole to
Penzance’ with their troupe of famous boxers which included Freddie Mills, Randolph
Turpin, Rinty Monaghan and Jimmy Wilde, as well as Barbara Buttrick, one of the best
known female boxers of the period.
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One of the most famous boxers of the early 20th century, Joe Beckett was born on the
fairground at Wickham, Hampshire in 1892. He started his career in his parents’ boxing
booth, where his uncle and his older brother taught him to fight.
He had 23 professional fights and held the British Heavyweight Championship for four
years between 1919 and 1923.
After his retirement from the ring he appeared in a number of Hollywood films and
eventually retired to Southampton, where he bought his mother a house in Winchester
Road.
Slide 5: The exhibition of freaks or marvels of nature was an essential component of
travelling fairs. Freaks included people who were different from the norm, perhaps
because of excess hair, malformed limbs and disfigurements, or in terms of their size or
shape — either big or small, fat or thin.
Many people who would otherwise have found it difficult to support themselves in the
wider society, found a secure livelihood in the fairground or the circus.
Rose Foster was one such person. She was born in 1884 in Highfield, which was then a
village on the outskirts of Southampton, with a rare congenital condition called
phocomelia. This was little understood at the time and the births of children with
physical deformities were often attributed to the mother having suffered some traumatic
experience during pregnancy.
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Despite her disabilities, she could knit, crochet and write with great facility. She made a
good living by exhibiting herself as a ‘freak’ and travelled all over Europe and the US.
She enjoyed good health and eventually retired to live with her sister in Portswood,
Southampton where she died in the 1950’s.
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Here she is seen outside her living wagon at Strawberry Fields in Bitterne, Southampton.
Her husband is standing beside her and the lettering ‘Miss R Foster’ is painted on the
door, while ‘Freaks & Novelty Shows’ is painted above the driver’s cab. (The other two
people in the photograph are unknown)
Slide 6: Following the invention known as ‘living pictures’ in 1896, Bioscopes or
Cinematographs made their first appearance on the fairground. They had their heyday
between the 1890s and the First World War. The show was fronted with an organ and
dancing girls to draw the crowd.
Arnold Brothers exhibited their ‘Electric Bioscope and Theatre of Varieties’ travelling
from Southampton to the Isle of Wight. The bioscope shown in the photograph was
built in 1910. "Prof" Arnold was a magician who started his first cinema show in 1902
using a second hand projector which he purchased from Chipperfield's. His two sisters
were the “paraders”
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From 1902 onwards these shows were transported by traction engine, allowing for
greater loads to be carried, and making it possible to transport a complete cinematograph
show with six or seven loads at one time.
Number 3: Fairground rides and side shows
Slide 1: This presentation is based on Chapter 7 in the book. It describes some of the
major developments on the fairground.
It shows how developments in technology (such as steam power and electricity) were
used on the fairground to make new and more exciting rides and side stalls.
Slide 2: Since earliest times, the business of fairs has always been supplemented with an
element of novelty and entertainment. Showpeople were also pioneers, bringing new
inventions to town and country, from electricity to the moving picture, as well as a
constant array of new and exciting fairground rides and experiences.
We know very little about the early development of fairground rides. The first of the
known rides was a ‘dobby’, a simple merry-go-round in which wooden horses, suspended
from a central mechanism, were rotated by hand or horse power. This is a dobby
photographed at the Wellow fair in the New Forest: the pony driving it can be seen in
the middle.
An oral history recording describes how, in the 1930s, it was often the showman’s child
would do the hard work. Gerald Jones remembers:
“… when I (was) old enough, I used to mind the little roundabout that you turn with a handle. That
was a halfpenny to go on that in them days … You had a handle on it … you seen ‘em, the old
fashioned wringers, well you had a handle like that. You used to just turn the handle and turn the
roundabout round. All day.”
Slide 3: In the mid 19th century the steam traction engine became popular and these
were used by showmen to power their rides as well as to move them from fair to fair.
The power of steam released a creative energy amongst fairground designers and rides
such as the swinging steam yachts, the tilting razzle dazzle and the sedately undulating
switchback became popular at fairs.
The earliest examples were large and elaborate, as can be seen in “Jungle Ride” made for
Reuben Gillham in 1935. The Ben Hur chariot race and jungle scenes can be seen on its
rounding boards.
Slide 4: Outside of the major cities, people's first encounter with electricity was often on
the fairground. By the 1920s, electricity was used to drive roundabouts as well as to light
them.
The ultimate in independent movement was the dodgem car. Early dodgem cars were
imported from the United States and initially showmen made their own rectangular
tracks.
A track with square ends is a difficult structure to make strong and also has corners in
which people can easily get their cars stuck. It was not long before British manufacturers
produced more suitable tracks with the more familiar semicircular ends.
The dodgems took over the role of the gallopers to become the main ride on the
fairground. Every fair had to have at least one set, so that when families split up and
went their separate ways, the side that did not get the dodgems, had to buy another set.
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And they are still one of the main ‘thrill’ rides on all fairgrounds today.
Slide 5: During the course of the 20th century the great shows that had excited,
entertained and informed the public since the Victorian era gradually disappeared from
the fairground to be replaced by the small side and round stalls.
A few of the side stalls familiar on the Victorian fairground endure. Games of luck or
skill, such as the Shooting Gallery, Striker and Coconut Shy are still found on most
fairgrounds. Other games and tests, such as Hook-a-Duck, Darts and Hoopla are also
popular with families, and particularly children.
Slide 6: But new types of side stalls have also appeared over the years. Adventure games
such as the “funbag” or bouncy castle have appeared for the very young, as have
attractive juvenile rides.
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Alongside these there is always room for a wide range of food stalls — everything from
doughnuts, tea and burgers to toffee apples, pop corn and, the fairground favourite,
candy floss.
Number 4: Showpeople in wartime
Slide 1: This presentation is based on Chapter 4 of the book and also refers to the
Showmen’s Guild which features in Chapter 5.
It describes the contribution that showpeople and the Guild, made to the war effort in
both the First and Second World Wars.
Slide 2: The First World War had a major effect on the lives and livelihoods of
showpeople. As in all communities, those who were able were called up; some who had
special skills were kept behind to do work of national importance, while those left at
home had to make their way without them. Fairs were banned for much of the war
which brought great hardship to the showpeople families.
Shows which used horses as part of their acts, or for transport, lost them to the war
effort, while those with traction engines used them for moving heavy equipment and
munitions to the ports to be sent overseas.
Percy Cole used his traction engine to transport loads of shells from Woolwich Arsenal
to the London docks. With the metal tyres slipping on the cobbles, this was a very
dangerous occupation of which he said, “if one of them had gone up, that would have
been the end of me, and anybody in the area.”
Slide 3: The Second World War brought similar problems for showpeople. Their lorries
were commandeered for the war effort and all able bodied men volunteered or were
conscripted to the armed forces, or engaged in work of national importance.
However, the government took a different attitude to fairs at this time. Showpeople were
encouraged to run fairs - at least in daylight hours, or with minimal lighting and under
large tarpaulins during the evening - to raise the morale of the people.
This is a photograph of Gillham’s ‘Holidays at Home’ fair on Southampton Common in
1942. Mr Gillham was one of the largest fair owners in the south at the time and had an
agreement with the city council to run fairs throughout the war.
Slide 4: Showpeople ran fairs up and down the country, not only entertain the people
during these stressful times, but also to raise money for the war effort. The board in this
photograph was displayed at Heston May Fair in 1941. It reads "The London Section
Showman's Guild: owing to so many of our members serving in the forces or on work of
national importance we are sorry that in the circumstances we are unable to provide the
fair in the usual size. Trusting you will support our effort.”
Also showing on the photograph is a small plaque which reads “Showmen's Spitfire for
the Nation - Lord Beaverbrook's Thanks”. It records the fact that members of the
Showmen’s Guild held fairs up and down the country and raised the full cost needed to
buy a Spitfire for the RAF.
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And here is the Spitfire that they paid for. It was called “All the Fun of the Fair”.
On 7th September 1941 the ’plane was delivered to Northolt Airfield and flown by the
Polish pilots of 306 Squadron RAF. It was used for training, defending London, and
making fighter sweeps over the Channel.
Slide 5: Showpeople who were not conscripted also contributed directly to the war
effort. Those with special skills were employed in essential work for the war, such as
agriculture, timber hauling and clearing sites for wartime developments.
Their skills in using heavy machinery and driving traction engines were greatly in
demand. Here you can see a traction engine belonging to ‘Smart’s Coronation
Amusements’ working on a bomb site in London during the Blitz.
One of the showmen that we talked to recalled how his family used their engines to
demolish bomb damaged buildings: “We used the steam engines to pull the buildings
down that was three parts dangerous with wire rope, and we used to winch them all over
so they could clear the brick up to clean the sites .”
Slide 6: The photograph on this slide shows the ‘Holidays at Home’ fair on Hoglands
Park in 1945, as well as the extensive bomb damage in the surrounding area of central
Southampton. It was not possible to hide the fairground completely, particularly from
low flying aircraft in the daytime.
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And sometimes fairgrounds were destroyed along with the houses and buildings around
them.
Number 5: A community on the move
Slide 1: This presentation is based on chapters 6 and 7 of the book and gives
information about showpeople’s living accommodation and transport over the years.
It also deals with the way the modern showpeople community lives, and shows – whilst
they are often on the move - that they live much like anyone else.
Slide 2: Showpeople have always had to move from fair to fair and town to town, and it
is not just their equipment that has to be transported, but their home too. The idea of a
caravan came from the continent and is thought to have been introduced by menagerists
(people with a travelling zoo) in about 1840.
By about 1870 horse-drawn “living wagons” as they were known were quite commonly
used by showpeople and were proving to be more convenient and cheaper than lodgings.
Slide 3: However, a horse could only pull a single small wagon, so the size of their
accommodation was limited. In 1880 showpeople started to buy their own traction
engines. Later, all the leading manufacturers produced specially-adapted traction engines
with dynamos and other equipment especially for showpeople.
With these slow but very powerful machines they could tow several living wagons as well
as their rides in one long ‘train’. This photograph shows Arnold Brothers’ Wallis and
Steevens traction engine “Annie” towing two living wagons and a chair-o-planes truck.
Slide 4: The transition to steam power meant that the family home could be larger and
more comfortable, with several rooms. Weight was not such a problem and these wagons
were often made from highly finished varnished and gilded wood. You can see the
decoration in this photograph of Mr and Mrs Adlam having tea outside their wagon. This
photograph was taken in the 1930’s and the wagon wheels have pneumatic tyres on
them.
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This older photograph shows Amelia Stokes and her daughter outside their new wagon
which has the older style, iron shod wheels and was pulled by a traction engine (you can
see one in the right of the photograph). Because she was so proud of her wagon Mrs
Stokes had a canvas cover – or ‘tilt’ – made so that it would not be damaged by strong
sunshine.
Slide 5: The Hampshire showpeople have always had a tradition of taking fairs to the
Isle of Wight – known as a holiday destination since Victorian times.
In the days before vehicle ferries, they had to resort to hired barges and tugs. This
photograph shows Arnold brothers chair-o-planes and living wagons en route for the
Island. It is possible that these are the same as those shown in the photograph in Slide 2
and that the traction engine ‘Annie’ is riding on the last barge.
Slide 6: Today, in keeping with transport developments, articulated lorries are much
more common. They have generators to supply electricity for the family’s living
accommodation and have to comply with high emissions standards. However, they still
carry the livery of the showpeople family who own them.
This is Jennings' Foden lorry with its low noise emission generator at Salisbury Charter
Fair in October 2011.
Slide 7: And living accommodation has moved with the times, too. Large streamlined,
metal panelled trailers appeared in the 1960s, ultimately reaching 12 metres in length.
The most recent models often have “pull out” sides to make them even more spacious.
They are individually built to the customer's specification, and now include an indoor
toilet, shower or bathroom and carry waste and fresh water in tanks.
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The inside of this wagon is every bit as beautifully designed as the outside (note the
tracks in the floor where the extensions slide in to ready the vehicle for moving).
Wagons like this are owned by the wealthier showpeople and not everyone has the same
standard of living that they do.
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The interiors may not always be as grand, but they are kept as clean and tidy as any home
– and since much of their lives is lived outside whatever the weather, the etiquette of
living for showpeople ensures that inside the wagon is a special place (see shoes removed
when people come inside).
Slide 8: Such big wagons are difficult to tow and there may not be space for them at
some fairgrounds, so many showpeople rely on ordinary caravans when they are
travelling – and some may use them as normal living accommodation all the time.
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Inside these caravans, everyday life goes on all the time that the family is working on the
fair: shopping must be done and stored away, clothes have to be washed and dried, meals
prepared and eaten.
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Everybody shares the limited space inside the caravan when they are not working on the
fairground and the weather does not allow them to enjoy time outside. As children reach
their teenage years, they are given their own caravan to sleep in and do their school work
(though 2 brothers or 2 sisters may share one between them).
Number 6: It’s a hard life, but we love it!
Slide 1: This presentation is based on chapters 8 and 9 of the book and gives
information about showpeople’s way of life and travelling today.
Slide 2: There is something about being born into a showpeople family which seems to
make the great majority of children, from a young age, decide that they want to be a
showperson.
They all go to school with children from the wider community and they are known for
their quickness with numbers from an early age. They are encouraged by their parents to
go to school regularly, to widen the range of opportunities for when they are older.
But children from the showpeople community also learn many skills from their families:
their mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, who in turn learnt from their elders when
they were children.
This merry-go-round (or set of gallopers) was completely hand painted by Claude Stokes,
seen here with his 3 daughters, who worked with him on the painting. Sitting on one of
the horses are his grandsons when they were children. They are both now young men
and expert fairground painters on their family fair.
Slide 3: For showpeople families winter is the time of planning for the coming year.
Bookings have to be made, so that the family knows where it will be throughout the
coming spring and summer season. Rides and stalls must be repaired and painted and all
of the mechanical equipment will have to pass stringent tests with the Health and Safety
Executive before they can be used on the fairground again.
During the winter months (between November and March), the showpeople live on their
permanent yards. These are almost all privately owned by the showpeople, but the
shortage of suitable land and problems of obtaining planning permission for showmen’s
yards mean that some of existing yards are very crowded.
This one, in the New Forest, is home to five closely related families. It includes living
wagons, lorries, cars and fairground rides. The areas of green matting are used for sitting
out when the weather allows and are the nearest thing that the children have to a garden
to play in.
At the back of the photograph you can see a big shed. This is where much of the work to
prepare for the coming season takes place.
Slide 4: There is a long tradition of painting amongst the showpeople. They are very
proud of their living wagons and their rides and stall and, for many years, they have
painted them themselves.
Here Claude Burnett, grandson of Claude Stokes, is seen painting the uprights for his
family’s set of dodgems in their workshop. His family are proud that he has inherited his
grandfather’s skills for painting.
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However, much fairground art is now done on computer, which is far less laborious, and
quick to reproduce, once the original design has been created. Here Tim Barker
demonstrates how he prints out artwork for a fairground ride on a computer driven
printer. But, although the technique is different, the style of fairground artwork is much
the same as it has been for generations.
Slide 5: As soon as Easter comes round the showpeople pack up their wagons and rides
and head for the first booking of the season. The big fair locally is the Easter Fair on
Southampton Common, where many families stay for the whole week, making the most
of the school holidays.
Most children from showpeople families do not return to school after the Easter break,
but travel with their parents to fairs across the county. However, besides the jobs that
they have to do routinely to help out of the fairground, they are also expected to keep up
with their school work. Many families try to return to their own yards when they are
close enough so that their children can go to school, and some children are taught by
special travelling teachers and use computers to keep in touch.
Slide 6: Showpeople families are also businesses. The work that has to be done is divided
between family members and each person knows what he or she has to do. In many
cases, the women take charge of the bookings and accounts, keeping all the paperwork in
order. The men are most often in charge of the machinery: buying, maintaining and
erecting it.
When they arrive on the fairground - sometimes late at night - they must erect all their
rides and stalls, making sure that everything is safe and level before the public arrive to
enjoy the fair.
These men are erecting a set of dodgems. They are the ones that were shown being
painted in an earlier slide and you can see the green and pink uprights in this photograph.
It takes 7 men many hours to erect the ride, which is heavy work.
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It is ready for the fair to open in the afternoon (Friday), but will be taken down again
after the weekend to be packed off to the next fair they have booked.
Slide 7: From an early age children are given small jobs to do – and taught the basics of
fairground life – by the adults around them. As a result, most showpeople – both boys
and girls – learn to drive as soon as their legs are long enough to reach the pedals. They
can paint and undertake minor repairs, and they can all count and know coinage before
they go to school. Most of the men are proficient welders, mechanics and electricians.
Under the safe supervision of their family children soon learn how to run a business. At
first, they copy their parents and older siblings; later on they will be given their own small
stall to run. The money that they make will be put into the family pool and they will be
paid a wage until they are old enough to own a stall or ride and start building a business
of their own.
These two young children have set up their own ‘play’ stall next to their parents’ hot dog
stand during the August bank holiday fair. They have made the stall, prepared the items
for the game and will manage the money. Their customers will be other fairground
children or relatives.