The Equestrian Circus in Monmouth Street and the Child of Promise

On 17th April 1788, the following advertisement appeared in the press:

'By particular Desire of several Ladies and Gentlemen positively the last night. At Ryle’s Ride, the top of Monmouth Street, will be presented a variety of equestrian exercise; consisting of horsemanship by the whole troop, tight rope dancing, by the unrivalled Signora Riccardini, and the Child of Promise. Slack Rope Vaulting by Master Smith, Mr Smallcomb will pick up a watch blindfold. Mr Handy, in the character of harlequin, will make several surprising leaps through a hogshead of real fire (Beatles fans take note), to conclude with the tailor's disaster Or disagreeable journey to Brentford, with the hunter and road horse, by Mr Smallcombe. The doors open at half past five, and begin at half past six. Front seats, 2s. Back seats, 1s. Mr Handy returns his best thanks for the great encouragement he has been honoured with in this city.'

Stephen Ryle, who put in this advertisement, kept equestrian premises in Monmouth Street from which he sold carriages and horses and ran a stud. He also offered riding tuition in his ‘Circular Riding School.' 

Benjamin Handy began his career as an ostler with Hughes Equestrian Circus. Hughes had been a performer with Phillip Astley’s famous circus in London but left to create his own company and amphitheatre with the intention to break Astley’s virtual monopoly. Handy’s appearance with his own company in Bath seems to have been one of his first. The company mostly consisted of members of his own family and former members of the company Astley had brought to Bristol in the 1770s. 

The Tailor's Disaster Or Disagreeable Ride to Brentford was a well established clowning routine which would have been familiar to those who had attended Astley's shows.

Signora Riccardini was Handy’s wife who could perform on 'One and Two Horses in a capital Manner’ and famously would stand on her head on top a spear surrounded by fireworks. She and  Benjamin had married in Birmingham in 1873.

The 'Child of Promise' was the Handy's daughter, Mary Ann, whose star turn was riding on another rider's shoulders ‘without the assistance of Hand or Rein, having nothing to keep her up but her perpendicular Balance, and which is allowed to be the greatest balance ever attempted.’ She would have been around four years old in 1788. A year later, her father refused an offer of 365 guineas a year from Astley for the services of his daughter. 

The Master Smith mentioned in the bill was Handy’s indentured apprentice; however, by the 1787 -8 season, he had run away from his service, and by 1793, he had become a major star of the London circus scene.

Astley's Amphitheatre in 1777

At Bristol on 25th April 1788, in 'a large commodious yard at the back of the Angel, in the Borough Walls, leading from Redcliff Street to Thames Street, ' a group of performers from Astley’s and Hughes’s riding schools in London were presenting riding, rope dancing and other entertainments, but the group was called (Benjamin) Handy’s Troupe in the advertisements. Featured were 'the celebrated Mr Franklin, the Child of Promise' (Mary Ann Handy), Signora Riccardini (Mrs Handy), and Benjamin Handy. Mr Franklin was Thomas Franklin the son of a clown, famous for his feats of strength.

In December 1788 and early January 1789 ‘Ryle’s Circular Riding-School,’ which by now had been granted a Royal Patent to Host Equestrian Entertainments, hosted the same troupe of performers. The wonders promised included: ‘Mr Franklin will carry the Child of Promise over the leaping bar on two horses in the attitude of a Flying Mercury.’  This show did not feature Handy’s wife possibly because she was incapacitated by the illness of which she would later die. By October of that year, Ryle’s was putting on a show, under the patronage of the Mayor of Bath, that did not include the Handy family probably because of the death of Handy’s wife on the 25th September. But they did include Franklin and many other members of the Handy troupe. The performers also included Mr Parker throwing 'a Somerset (sic) off the horse at full speed.’ (Beatles fans may wish to take note here too!). Parkers celebrated actress wife, she was said to be the best Columbine in England, joined him an was a member of the company at the Theatre Royal for the 1789/90 season.

By November, Ryle and Franklin had formed a partnership and put on their own shows at what was now billed as 'Ryle and Franklin’s Amphitheatre' with facilities comparable to Astley’s London arena: e.g.: heating, and ringside boxes which could be reserved, as in the Theatre, by sending your servants to occupy them. There were three performances a week. The Ryle Franklin enterprise doesn't seem to have thrived because by March 1790, Franklin and Hardy had become partners and were again in Bristol building a new riding school and ring for performance behind the Full Moon in North Street, St Paul’s. Construction was delayed, however, and the planned opening on 8th March was postponed until the 22nd. Meanwhile, the two men offered riding lessons to the ladies and gentlemen of Bristol.

Even though they had so recently erected an arena, on 10th May 1790 Franklin and Handy announced plans for a more elaborate riding school and performance ring. They promised their patrons that as soon as 500gns (of a total of 1000 gs needed) should be subscribed, construction would commence. They also noted they would be in attendance six months of the year to teach riding to Bristolians and to break horses for them. They continued to perform in their old circus at Bristol throughout May and then left to perform elsewhere. Their new establishment in Bristol opened in 1792, but Handy seems to have sold his interests in the Bristol establishment in 1793. Handy went on to have a long and successful career both as a performer and proprietor, eventually owning a part share in Astley’s Amphitheatre in London. Jacob DeCastro the comedian, in his memoir of 1824, said that Handy 'lives as an independent gentleman, and a magistrate for the county of Somerset, very near the famed city of Bath . . .'

In February 1793 Franklin brought his company to Monmouth Street four a week. The company consisted of 9 performers and 9 horses. The programme offered, horsemanship, rope-vaulting, ground and lofty tumbling and Egyptian Pyramids. Performers included:

• Mr Franklin himself performing his "much-admired trick with oranges and forks
• The astonishing eight year old "Young English Mercury" whose speciality was playing the violin while on the shoulders of Franklin while he rode two horse
• Master Smith
• The Little Devil performing somersaults on horseback
• Mr Crossman who had learned his trade with Astley

Franklin’s Bristol venture never seems to have been adequately capitalized and appears to have failed around 1794. DeCastro says that Franklin went to America where he died. Ryle seems to have gone back to focussing on his core business, and his 1804 advertisements announce his hiring of a fashionable London riding master to teach the gentry alongside his livery and horse hire services. He also seems to have acquired additional livery accommodation in Pulteney Street.

In July 1813 the newspapers announced that 'Mr Sam Ryle, former livery stable keeper and master of the riding school in Monmouth Street; he retired to bed in his usual state of health and in the morning was found dead.'

And what of the Child of Promise? She went on to have a successful career as a performer on horseback but, more famously, as a slack rope dancer until her tragic death at about thirteen. Travelling with her company from Liverpool to London in the packet Viceroy, she drowned when it sank in St Georges Channel in December 1797.

James King

In Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey, Henry Tilney is first introduced to Catherine Morland at a ball in the Lower Rooms. When he was “treating his partner to tea,” he laughingly accused her of keeping a journal in which he feared he should make but a poor figure. “Shall I tell you,” he asks, “what you ought to say? I danced with a very agreeable young man introduced by Mr. King; had a great deal of conversation with him; seems a most extraordinary genius.”

James King was a real Bath character. The son of a respectable Irish family, he had served with distinction in the British Army during the American Revolutionary War.

The office of Master of the Ceremonies was a very profitable one. Each Master has a ball in the winter and spring seasons, and subscription books were provided in the Rooms to provide an opportunity for those of the company who did not subscribe to balls, in the words of the New Bath Guide, “an opportunity of shewing those gentlemen marks of their respect.”

For this reason, when  Captain Wade resigned from the office of Master of the Ceremonies on the 8th of July 1777, no less than seven men applied to be his successor. The candidates were eventually whittled down to two: William Brereton and William Dawson, Esq's. To preserve the peace and harmony of Bath, it was proposed that Mr Brereton should officiate at the Lower and Mr Dawson at the New Rooms. Mr Brereton continued in office for about three years. On his resignation, Richard Tyson was elected in his place. On the resignation of Mr. Dawson in 1785, Mr. Tyson was unanimously elected by the New Rooms subscribers, and Mr. King was elected to the Lower Rooms.

Each MC was given a medallion to wear as a mark of office. Mr. King’s medallion was made of fine gold enamelled blue and elegantly enriched with brilliants. On one side was a raised figure of Venus, with a golden apple in one hand and a rudder in the other; the motto Venus deceus. The reverse is a laurel wreath with the motto, Arbiter Elegantia Communi Consensu.

In 1805, Tyson stood down from his position at the Upper Rooms, and James King was elected to succeed him.

The Lower Rooms went into a period of decline following King's departure and did not really recover until the rooms were rented to a new tenant, a musician called Lanza, who appointed a new MC named Francis Guynette. New tenants Finegan and Hobbes, working with Guynette, further enhanced this revival.

Finegan and Hobbes tried to introduce vocal concerts and promenades at the Lower Rooms on Monday nights, something which they agreed with Andrew Nash, the proprietor of the Upper Rooms, but King, to safeguard his Monday Balls, objected. Hobbes retorted that with 10,000 visitors each season, there was room for two simultaneous amusements. King won the day allegedly because King threatened Finegan.

From 1801 to 1816, King divided his time between Bath and Cheltenham.

In the words of the New Bath Guide for 1819, Mr King 'discharged the duties of his office, with distinguished politeness and universal esteem, till the the period of his lamented death in October 1816.'