Abstract
In 1921 Joseph Kenworthy presented his Performing Animals (Prohibition) Bill. This was weakened by standing committee amendments and therefore withdrawn, but a select committee was then appointed in 1921 and 1922 to examine conditions of training and exhibition and possible legislation. Subsequent bills were based on regulation of animal performance through prohibition of categories of animal and through inspection and licensing, leading to the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act of 1925. The reports of the investigations of the select committee’s members and minutes of the information given to them by witnesses (mainly representing the circus and music-hall industries and critics) reveal the full range of concerns applying to the use of trained animals in public entertainment. The problems of confinement and transport also began to receive greater attention. As critics and trade interests developed their campaigning strategies, other arguments were introduced, such as the role of foreign training or the effect on children’s perception of animals. This chapter discusses the nature of the evidence presented to the select committee and the difficulty experienced in reaching a satisfactory conclusion to the controversy, one which continued to attract much attention from the press and public.
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- 1.
MP for Hull Central in 1919, serving as a Liberal until 1926 and then as a Labour MP until 1931.
- 2.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1921, vol. 138, column 545.
- 3.
Independent Liberal member for Middlesbrough West between 1918 and 1928.
- 4.
Sir John Butcher, Conservative MP for York, had opposed the decision on horses, as he believed they were abused in presentations such as those involving a revolving stage turntable (United Kingdom Parliament 1921b).
- 5.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1921, vol. 142, columns 1425 and 1432; vol. 144, column 1243. Stanton was Coalition National Democratic and Labour Party MP for Aberdare.
- 6.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1921, vol. 146, column 657.
- 7.
Brigadier-General Sir Richard Beale Colvin, Unionist member for Epping between 1917 and 1923.
- 8.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1922, vol. 150, column 605.
- 9.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1922, vol. 150, column 2065.
- 10.
Captain George Bowyer, Conservative member for Buckingham between 1918 and 1937, when he was created 1st Baron Denham of Weston Underwood; Sir John Butcher; Brigadier-General Sir Richard Beale Colvin (chairman); Sir Walter de Frece, Unionist member for Ashton-under-Lyne between 1920 and 1924 and for Blackpool between 1924 and 1931; Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Raymond Greene, Conservative member for North Hackney between 1910 and 1923; Mr Charles Jesson, Coalition National Democratic and Labour Party member for Walthamstow West between 1918 and 1922 and late organizer of the Musicians’ Union; Lieutenant-Commander Joseph Kenworthy; Captain James O’Grady, Labour MP for Leeds South-East (1918–1924) and formerly secretary of the National Federation of General Workers; Mr Alfred Raper, Coalition Unionist member for East Islington between 1918 and 1922; Mr Frederick Roberts, Labour member for West Bromwich between 1918 and 1931, and 1935 and 1941; Mr James Seddon, Coalition Labour member for Hanley between 1918 and 1922 and chairman of the Trades Union Council in 1914; Mr Charles Stanton (the only nominee who subsequently failed to take part); Mr John Swan, Labour member for Barnard Castle between 1918 and 1922; Mr Trevelyan Thomson; and Lieutenant-Colonel Claud Willoughby, Unionist member for Rutland and Stamford between 1918 and 1922.
- 11.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1923, vol. 161, columns 2961–3020.
- 12.
Lord Lonsdale had been criticized by opponents of animal performance because he was at the same time a vice-president of the RSPCA and president of Bertram Mills International Circus at London Olympia. (He was also president of the Shikar Club. See McKenzie 2000.) He declared that he had accepted the circus presidency because he knew how every trick could be taught, and by accepting it he could ensure that no trick was allowed where cruelty was entailed or necessary. ‘I made it a condition that all what we call “acrobatic tricks” were eliminated from the show, and, having seen the turns and things that were done, I am quite convinced that all the tricks performed are done without any cruelty to animals at all’ (World’s Fair 1923a). He was later hissed and booed at an annual meeting of Our Dumb Friends’ League (ODFL) because of his attitude to the rodeo, and Lady Lumb unsuccessfully opposed his re-election as its president on the grounds that he saw no cruelty in it (World’s Fair 1924c). Soon after, he stated to the press that he was instrumental in inducing the promoters both to cease the public displays of steer roping at the rodeo, and to allow the RSPCA full access (World’s Fair 1924d).
- 13.
The following month, Margaret Bradish complained to The Performer that she had been quoted by Molloy in his parliamentary speech from a private letter addressed to her by Miss Jessey Wade, secretary of the PADL: ‘May I ask the trainers and their friends: by what right they read and showed to others my private letter? How they obtained possession of it? Its publication has thrown a curious light on the trainers’ methods of obtaining information!’ A trainer, Harry Rochez, replied that the VAF said the letter was mistakenly put in with another ‘usual’ one from the PADL to a theatrical manager. He referred to the ‘lady who is good at shouting’ (Mrs Speedwell Massingham) as the paid organizer of the PADL, and Miss Bradish as formerly its secretary (Performer 1923d, e).
- 14.
Mitchell was an anatomist who was appointed secretary of the Zoological Society of London in 1903 until 1935. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1906, and later served between 1923 and 1927 as president of the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire. He worked also for The Times between 1919 and 1932, writing leaders and scientific articles.
- 15.
He was also a founder of the Labour Party and helped found The Daily Herald.
- 16.
The RSPCA thought these amendments too drastic because its inspection provision was removed, and its officer could not now even make a complaint. The maximum penalty remained at £50, but there was now no mention of the £5 per day extra if an offence continued (Animal World 1923).
- 17.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1923, vol. 169, column 1187.
- 18.
Parliamentary Debates (Lords) 1925, vol. 61, columns 254ff, 473ff and 528ff.
- 19.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1925, vol. 185, columns 967 and 968.
- 20.
Soon after, the sea lion trainer Joseph Woodward drafted and sent a letter to Cockerill, signed by himself (on behalf of the VAF), Frank Glenister (Entertainment Protection Association), R.H. Gillespie (Moss Empires Ltd), Sir Oswald Stoll (Stoll’s Circuit), Walter Payne (Syndicate Halls), Percy B. Broadhead (Provincial Entertainments Proprietors’ and Managers’ Association), John Swallow and Frank Ginnett (Metropolitan Circus Industry), James Sanger and George Harrop (Provincial Circus Industry), Bertram W. Mills (Olympia Circus, London), E. H. Bostock and G. Tyrwhitt-Drake (Provincial Zoological and Menagerie Industry), W. Savage (Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain), and Albert Voyce (VAF). The letter congratulated Cockerill and expressed support for the legislation. In reply, Cockerill said he recognized the spirit of cooperation shown after his taking charge of the unsettled 1924 bill, and he understood the resentment at indiscriminate attacks that had led to earlier dissension over the bill. He thought the bill good for the industry, and there was no excuse now for interrupting performing animal acts because safeguards were in place (World’s Fair 1925a).
- 21.
Parliamentary Debates (Lords) 1925, vol. 60, column 932ff.
- 22.
Their selection was in the hands of the chairman (864).
- 23.
His father, ‘Lord’ George Sanger, was described as the greatest advocate for and user of all sorts of animals on the stage, and one who set the fashion (Tyrwhitt-Drake 1946, p. 163).
- 24.
- 25.
The actor-manager Hawtrey and others signed a letter from the PADL to The Spectator, appealing for money to help with the parliamentary campaign (Birmingham et al. 1922).
- 26.
An example of Kenworthy’s clumsiness was his question to the select committee witness, George Lockhart: ‘Are you the gentleman who was said to have been killed by an elephant?—No. That was my father’ (1308).
- 27.
See McKenzie (2000). In defence of his father, David Kenworthy, 11th Baron Strabolgi, rightly points out that in the early 1930s, big game shooting was still considered an acceptable activity by most people: ‘Autres temps, autres moeurs’. Personal communication, 16 February 2008.
- 28.
The radical-Liberal The Nation merged with The New Statesman in 1931.
- 29.
- 30.
On 30 March 1922, the Executive Committee of the VAF donated ten guineas from its political fund to Jesson’s election expenses. On 26 October, the balance of the political fund, £28.0s.1d, was donated to O’Grady for the same purpose, and a letter of thanks for his great service to the VAF in the last Parliament was approved on 9 November (VAF Archives).
- 31.
See (Performer 1921i).
- 32.
In The World’s Fair of 5 July (1924b), p. 29, it was reported that E. H. Bostock had failed in his effort to get Cochran’s rodeo to Glasgow.
- 33.
In a general promotional pamphlet dated 12 December 1958, MacMichael claimed that the PADL initiated the original select committee enquiry, when 19 of the 22 witnesses to cruelty were introduced by the League’s parliamentary organizer, Mrs Massingham.
- 34.
But Charles Wilson, giving evidence to the select committee (390), believed that rapidly growing public antipathy was the real cause.
- 35.
The VAF campaigned for better contracts and working conditions in the music-hall and variety profession and led the fight against the all-powerful theatre managers, as in the ‘Music Hall Strike’ of 1907. By early 1923 it had 4,000 members, and during 1925 it added under its title: ‘incorporating actors, concert and circus artistes’. It amalgamated with the British Actors Equity Association in 1957. Its official organ, the weekly Performer, ran from 1906 to 1957, its editor in 1921 being John Warr.
- 36.
The Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain was originally known as The United Kingdom Van Dwellers’ Protection Association, and from the early 1900s it was usually referred to simply as the Showmen’s Guild. It was founded in 1888 or 1889 as the trade association of travelling funfairs, became a registered trade union in 1917, and between 1918 and 1927 its part-time general secretary was William Savage. Frank Mellor, its treasurer, also served as editor of The World’s Fair (founded in 1904) between 1909 and 1930. Pat Collins, Liberal MP for Walsall between 1922 and 1924, was a co-founder of the Guild and succeeded ‘Lord’ George Sanger as president, serving between 1909 and 1927. Collins was an outdoor amusement caterer and theatre and cinema proprietor. He was concerned in the early development of steam roundabouts, and helped to introduce and popularize the cinema industry in Britain.
- 37.
An effect of the war had been to reduce the availability of animals for the music hall, which, together with growing competition from the cinema and home radio, accelerated its decline and made its professional representatives especially sensitive about the added impact of any bad public perception caused by the controversy.
- 38.
The Era served as a trade paper of the theatrical press and travelling fairs, but was superseded by The World’s Fair, a trade paper for travelling fairs and circuses, and by The Performer. In correspondence of 4 August 1924 from W.H. McCarthy, secretary of The Performer Ltd, to F. Herbert, secretary of the VAF, it was confirmed that the VAF had significant financial and executive influence on the publication, that ‘complete control of all political matter in The Performer is vested in the VAF officials’, that around two pages each week were earmarked for free VAF propaganda, that there was a strict policy to support the VAF in every possible way and that ‘articles or items of news in criticism of the Federation are not to be printed in the paper’. However on 15 August 1927, F. Russell, managing director of The Performer Ltd, wrote to the Executive Committee of the VAF that being the VAF’s official organ was no longer a commercial asset because advertisements and subscriptions from VAF members had fallen off, and because ‘many people who advertise freely in the other trade papers refuse to advertise in The Performer because they do not agree with the VAF or have some grievance with the Organisation’ (VAF Archives).
- 39.
Its owner, the Hon. Esmond Cecil Harmsworth, later 2nd Viscount Rothermere, was to become a life member of the PADL.
- 40.
In a letter to The Manchester Guardian (which had regretted the failure of the bill) of 9 June, Percival Percival called for a select committee of enquiry instead of prohibition.
- 41.
At its executive meeting the following day, the VAF decided that the balance of funds donated by animal trainers and others in defence of animal performance (£193.9s.1d) be handed to Woodward for disposal (VAF Archives).
- 42.
Bayly had been appointed as the VAF’s parliamentary agent at the Executive Committee meeting of 2 June 1921 (VAF Archives).
- 43.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1923, vol. 161, columns 2961–3020.
- 44.
O’Grady was blocking the bill on behalf of the VAF (Performer 1923b).
- 45.
Hertz, who was a conjurer and not a trainer, also worked with rabbits and ducks.
- 46.
In the United States, circuses without performing animals are called ‘boutique circuses’ by the traditionalists (Regan 2004, p. 133).
- 47.
Other aims of CAPS remain to end the captivity of animals in zoos and the exotic pet trade, as well as the use of captive wild animals in advertising and films. Undercover investigators seek evidence, and educational and campaign materials are produced. The Society lobbies politicians at all levels for legislation to end animal use in entertainment and has established an educational charity particularly to work with teachers and students.
- 48.
Lubbock was a pioneer student of the scientific study of animal behaviour in Britain, but he never taught dogs to read.
- 49.
It was reported the following week that he had received over 100 letters of application, and then on 28 October that only a Miss Gwendolyn Murray had remained brave enough to be appointed. But by 1933, only three circuses were exhibiting apes, big cats, and bears (Parliamentary Debates (Lords) 1933, vol. 87, column 727).
- 50.
He said he did not know why there had been convictions and misremembered giving evidence on behalf of the accused in a court case (2902, 2956).
- 51.
Parliamentary Debates (Lords) 1933, vol. 87, column 744.
- 52.
Because of deportation and repatriation, the overall size of the German community in Britain declined from 57,500 in 1914 to 22,254 in 1919 (Panayi 1994, pp. 106 and 107).
- 53.
The VAF imposed a ban on ex-enemy aliens also because of the very low value of the German currency—German acts were prepared to work for starvation wages and would threaten those of domestic performers. The ban was lifted in 1924 largely because of an improvement in the German economy and the resulting wish of British performers to work in Germany (Wilmut 1989, p. 50). A Special General Meeting of the VAF lifted the ban on ex-enemy artistes on 28 March 1924 (VAF Archives).
- 54.
On 6 December 1922, Voyce wrote to The Daily Mail explaining the VAF’s ban on ex-enemy aliens, and on 2 December, he had written to The Evening News about the introduction of German films into England (VAF Archives).
- 55.
For an account of the Hagenbecks, see Rothfels (2002).
- 56.
Principally the VAF’s The Performer; the SGGB’s The World’s Fair; The Encore; The Era, representing the Provincial Entertainments Proprietors’ and Managers’ Association, and closely associated with the SGGB; and The Magnet, which described itself as the oldest penny professional journal published, devoted to the interests of the music hall, theatrical, and equestrian professions.
- 57.
For example, at its meeting on 14 April 1921, the Executive Committee of the VAF, chaired by Albert Voyce, resolved ‘that this Committee vigorously protests against the insertion in “The Performer” of articles as letters directly against the VAF Policy as exemplified by recent letters in its columns supporting ex-enemy aliens’ (VAF Archives).
- 58.
Later, under the Third Reich, laws on animal protection were passed in 1933 and 1938. It was forbidden to use an animal for demonstrations, film-making, spectacles, or other public events to the extent that these events caused the animal appreciable pain or appreciable damage to health. In 1938 the Minister of the Interior also issued a Decree on Wandering Animal Shows and Menageries (Sax 2000, pp. 175–182).
- 59.
Vesta Tilley was married to Sir Walter de Frece, who took the leading part on the select committee, opposite Kenworthy, in resisting new legislation. He was managing director of a company controlling up to 20 theatres and in parliamentary business connected with the performing animals’ controversy; he represented the interests of the Society of West End Managers, the Theatrical Managers’ Association, the VAF, and the music hall and circus generally.
- 60.
Gower was chairman of the NCDL from 1920, Conservative MP for Gillingham and chairman of the Animal Welfare Committee in the House of Commons between 1929 and 1945, and chairman of the RSPCA between 1928 and 1951. In 1931 he was presented by the president of France with a Sèvres vase in recognition of animal welfare work in that country.
- 61.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1928–1929, vol. 224, column 951.
- 62.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1929–1930, vol. 237, column 67.
- 63.
Parliamentary Debates (Lords) 1930, vol. 76, columns 907–908.
- 64.
Parliamentary Debates (Lords) 1930, vol. 76, columns 911, 917 and 918.
- 65.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1930–1931, vol. 247, column 819.
- 66.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1931–1932, vol. 259, column 1040.
- 67.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1932, vol. 264, columns 1248 and 1249.
- 68.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1936–1937, vol. 318, column 1995.
- 69.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons)1949, vol. 462, columns 763 and 764.
- 70.
- 71.
Parliamentary Debates (Lords) 1933, vol. 87, column 726.
- 72.
For example, the Wild Animals in Captivity Protection Act, 1900, and the Protection of Animals Act, 1911.
- 73.
William Snyder was Head Keeper at New York’s Central Park Zoo, a post he held for 30 years after training elephants at RBBBC. In 1903 Snyder acquired Hattie, an elephant from Carl Hagenbeck, and trained her for the Zoo. Of Hattie, Snyder said: ‘I never knew an elephant to pick up tricks so quickly. With most elephants it is a matter of time and beating it into them’ ( New York Times Magazine 1904).
- 74.
When the Home Secretary said he could not stop a Christmas circus performance at London’s Olympia of 70 lions in a cage with an unarmed man, Kenworthy asked: ‘Is the Home Secretary not aware that the lion is the national symbol, and that this is bringing the lion into contempt?’ (World’s Fair 1925e).
- 75.
Parliamentary Debates (Lords) 1924, vol. 57, column 147ff.
- 76.
Parliamentary Debates (Lords) 1924, vol. 57, column 154.
- 77.
Parliamentary Debates (Lords) 1930, vol. 76, column 914.
- 78.
Parliamentary Debates (Lords) 1933, vol. 87, column 741.
- 79.
‘Captain’ Woodward said that animal performances augmented many natural history lessons begun at school. E.H. Bostock also believed that the performance element of his menagerie show had educational value (3204). Everard Calthrop argued that travelling live wild animal shows were good for the study of zoology: not all could go to the zoo (1998–1999). (Like Woodward, he was a Fellow of the Zoological Society.) Later, Hermann Dembeck (1970, pp. 139 and 140) claimed: ‘The great animal trainers of the last 100 years have contributed more to the understanding of the more intelligent species of large beasts of prey than all previous books put together’.
- 80.
At the same time the witness, Everard Calthrop, an amateur trainer, did not approve of performances with wild beasts in cages: they were not elevating to the public and were likely to lead children to practise cruelty on animals at their homes (1812).
- 81.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1930–1931, vol. 244, column 1676; vol. 247, columns 615 and 616.
- 82.
Parliamentary Debates (Lords) 1933, vol. 87, column 733.
- 83.
Richard Vincent Hughes Collection, Theatre Museum (THM/131). Records of the National Union of Women Teachers in the University of London Institute of Education Archives (UWT/D/127.1/3 and 1/15) contain pamphlets, reports, newsletters and memoranda of the PADL and of the Rodeo Protest Committee, and correspondence, mainly with MacMichael, dating from 1927 to 1955. The material includes correspondence with the Ministry of Education about visits of school children to the circus as part of the ‘Victory celebrations’ in 1946 and press cuttings and typed extracts about children attending circuses and performing animal shows.
- 84.
Parliamentary Debates (Lords) 1930, vol. 76, columns 902–904.
- 85.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1930–1931, vol. 249, column 1365.
- 86.
Accidents involving elephants have continued over the decades. For example, two people were crushed to death in 1985 and 1993 by elephants of the Clyde Beatty–Cole Bros Circus (Miller 1999).
- 87.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1929–1930, vol. 237, column 582.
- 88.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1930–1931, vol. 249, column 400.
- 89.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 1954–1955, vol. 537, columns 2220 and 2221.
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Wilson, D.A.H. (2015). Open Debate in the British Parliament and Beyond. In: The Welfare of Performing Animals. Animal Welfare, vol 15. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-45834-1_3
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