March 1848

Looking for the date March 4 we found a story in our blog which happened in Leeds .

It is about the director of a circus Pablo Fanque

Pablo Fanque 

During an evening performance in March 1848 a terrible accident occurred. The wooden beams supporting the gallery collapsed and the circus collapsed inwards. Panic ensued, with people spilling out into the narrow lanes surrounding the Croft. Many were injured, and Pablo Fanque searched the building looking for survivors. He discovered the only fatality of the night – his wife! She had been working in the box office directly beneath the gallery. She was buried a few days later, with great ceremony and thousands lined the streets of Leeds to watch the cortege pass. She was buried in the Woodhouse Lane cemetery (now St George’s Fields, part of the University of Leeds campus). When Pablo Fanque died in 1871 he instructed that his body be returned to Leeds and buried at the foot of his wife’s grave. Their headstones can still be seen today. 

After the disaster, Mr Harwood took the lease on the site and developed the Princess’s Theatre, where both variety concerts and occasional circus shows were given.

Fanque married Susannah Marlaw, the daughter of a Birmingham buttonmaker. They had two sons, one of whom was named Lionel. On 18 March 1848, his wife died in Leeds at an accident in the building where the circus was performing. Their son was performing a tightrope act before a large crowd at the Amphitheatre at King Charles Croft. The 600 people seated in the gallery fell with its collapse, but Susannah Darby was the only fatality. Heavy planks hit her on the back of the head. Reportedly, Fanque sought medical attention for his wife at the King Charles Hotel, but a surgeon pronounced her dead.

Years later a 4 March 1854 edition of the Leeds Intelligencer recalled the incident, while announcing the return of Pablo Fanque's Circus to Leeds:

"His last visit, preceding the present one, was unfortunately attended by a very melancholy accident. On that occasion he occupied a circus in King Charles's Croft and part of the building gave way during the time it was occupied by a crowded audience. Several persons were more or less injured by the fall of the timbers composing the part that proved too weak, and Mrs Darby, the wife of the proprietor, was killed. This event, which occurred on Saturday the 18th March 1848, excited much sympathy throughout the borough. A neat monument with an impressive inscription is placed above the grave of Mrs Darby, in the Woodhouse Lane Cemetery."

The reason he  was already in the blog ,was that he performed in the Hippodrome  on "the benefit of mr Kite" The Beatles made a song of that event .

John Lennon found an poster of this event in a shop.

                                                        

The inspiration to write the song was a 19th-century circus poster for Pablo Fanque's Circus Royal appearance at Rochdale. Lennon purchased the poster in an antique shop on 31 January 1967, while the Beatles were filming the promotional films for "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" in Sevenoaks, Kent.Lennon claimed years later to still have the poster in his home. "Everything from the song is from that poster," he explained, "except the horse wasn't called Henry."(The poster identifies the horse as "Zanthus".)

Mr. Kite is believed to be William Kite, who worked for Pablo Fanque from 1843 to 1845. "Mr. J. Henderson" was John Henderson, a wire-walker, equestrian, trampoline artist, and clown. While the poster made no mention of "Hendersons" plural, as Lennon sings, John Henderson did perform with his wife Agnes, the daughter of circus owner Henry Hengler. The Hendersons performed throughout Europe and Russia during the 1840s and 1850s.[

A hogshead is a large wooden cask.

The Hippodrome was owned by William Batty .

more on William Batty