BUFFALO BILL

Many people in the 70 to 80 age bracket will remember, often with affection, the small-to-medium circuses which used to circulate around the towns before and after the War. These outfits tended to work a regional circuit, and therefore became familiar, while the larger shows graced an ever-changing list of cities and larger towns. In this category I'm thinking in particular of Bertram Mills, this being the show that, for me, represented quality and excited my boyish senses.
Only recently has it dawned, however, that even Mills' circus, with its precision, professionalism and trains, was knocked sideways in terms of size by another show emanating from America, the home of Ringling and Barnum, etc. Though not actually a circus in a traditional British sense, being more of an outdoor spectacular, this was Colonel William F Cody's enormous extravaganza, better known as Buffalo Bill's Wild West company.
I have Alan Gallop and his carefully researched book Buffalo Bill's British Wild West (The History Press, 2009) to thank for the detail and for its vivid descriptions of Cody's various tours which embraced cowboys and girls, rough riders, Native Indians, sharpshooters, and Annie Oakley and the Deadwood stagecoach, all of which made their first appearance in England during Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1887. The logistical nightmare of bringing this lot over from America, plus hundreds of horses and other animals including buffalo, and grandstands and scenery, and then touring Britain, is mind-boggling. But Cody and his huge team did it, several times.
Taking the 1891 tour as an example, a steamship carried the company from America to Grimsby, and the tour began in the north before taking in the Midlands, Wales, and the south coast, and then going north again for the New Year in Scotland.
Three special 'Buffalo Bill' trains, pulling a total of 72 freight and passenger carriages, were chartered to ferry the performers, animals and goods between locations. Two trains carried 100 tons of scenery, the grandstands and the animals - Cody used hundreds of horses - while the third train carried the company in relative comfort.
When the trains pulled into the host station in the early hours a convoy of horse-drawn carts and wagons would move everything (performers, animals, scenery, accommodation tents and teepees, food, and grandstand sections) to the showground. Roustabouts erected the seats, which included covered accommodation for 15,000 people, and 12 hours after arrival the show would be rigged and ready. Three hours after the show's run had ended, at about midnight, the first of the chartered trains would depart for the next place on the visiting list.
Thanks to some advanced promotional methods, and other factors including a public curiousity about the Wild West, it was a hugely successful enterprise. And thanks to Mr Gallop's book I can now see where, in regional terms, this huge extravaganza actually visited.
The first tour was in 1887/88, and although it visited London, Manchester, Birmingham and Hull, it was not until 1891/92 that more of the provinces (Nottingham, Leicester) actually saw it. The 'first farewell' tour of 1902/03 brought it to, among other places, Bedford, Boston, Bury St Edmunds, Ely, Grantham, Great Yarmouth, King's Lynn, Lowestoft, Norwich, Peterborough, Spalding and Wisbech, while the very last tour of 1904 included Cambridge.
During this last tour the company played in over 130 places, travelled 4,500 miles by road and rail, and when it was all over, sailed a further 3,000 miles from Liverpool back to New York.
Logistics par excellence, I think.