It was a day when a troupe of enormous lions came to Blantyre…..132 years ago. Here’s a long forgotten piece of Blantyre history which I’m resurrecting here. Hopefully this is the first time you’ve heard of this.
In Springtime 1893, EH Bostock the famous entrepreneur was touring with his menagerie of exotic animals all over Scotland. He had been travelling for some time beforehand and that Springtime he was visiting almost every town and village in Central Scotland! This was a BIG event and the excitement could not be contained by the general population.
His show was officially, the Grand Star Menagerie and following a performance in Rutherglen, he visited Blantyre’s show ground on Thursday 9th March 1893. This was billed as an ‘A1′ first class event with 3 performances daily. (3.30pm, 7.30pm and 9.30pm). EH Bostock was often in the news, sometimes even for his animals getting a “little out of hand’ so close to audiences!! He was also known to find the largest of each animal, so when I say ‘enormous’ lions…thats what I mean!
His adverts promised the ‘Young Cardono’ would be lion tamer for existing performances and he promised ‘monster full grown lions’ featuring the ‘untameable, disobedient ‘Wallace’, a lion notorious as a crowd puller! Wallace was ‘quite at home and his deeds of daring elicit applause at every performance’.
Now, this show was on the ground which is now Blantyre LIDL, so next time you’re in that supermarket think on this…..
Princess Delaware and her marvellous trained lions were star attraction at the animal show, which was also known to have camels and elephants! The ‘Princess’ would also put on a clairvoyant show, placing herself into the cages with the fiercest of the animals and attempt to ‘read their thoughts’.
Admission was 1s and children 6d. The show once it left Blantyre went on to Hamilton , Larkhall, Strathaven, Lesmahagow and Stonehouse. Remarkably, pictures of this tour still exist. Here is EH Bostock with his lions and the travelling cages and carts as it wound through Lanarkshire from town to town all those years ago. In later years the Bostock family would branch into movie halls and theatres.
Can you imagine the thrills of seeing that show, in a time before TV, radio or cinema theatres! I wonder how close the children got to the animals….And yes,….just LOOK at the size of those lions!
