Career
Fanque apprenticed to circus proprietor William Batty and made his first known appearance in a sawdust ring in Norwich on December 26, 1821, as "Young Darby." His acts then included equestrian stunts and rope walking. Thomas Frost, in "Circus Life and Circus Celebrities," wrote, "We find Batty in 1836 at Nottingham, with a company which included Pablo Fanque, a negro rope-dancer, whose real name was William Darby..." Once established, William Darby changed his name to Pablo Fanque. It appears that Fanque or his contemporaries often considered "Pablo" to be his surname.
Fanque made a highly successful London debut in 1847. Describing Fanque and his performance, The Illustrated London News wrote:
| “ | Mr. Pablo Fanque is an artiste of colour, and his steed... we have not only never seen surpassed, but never equalled... Mr. Pablo Fanque was the hit of the evening. The steed in question was Beda, the black mare that Fanque had bought from Batty. That the horse attracted so much attention was testament to Fanque's extraordinary horse training skills. | ” |
The Illustrated London News reporting on perhaps an earlier performance during Fanque's 1847 run at London's Astley's Amphitheatre, fills in many biographical details regarding Fanque:
| “ | ...Mr. William Darby, or, as he is professionally known, Mr. Pablo Fanque, is a native of Norwich, and is about 35 years of age. He was apprenticed to Mr. Batty, the present proprietor of "Astley's Amphitheatre," and remained in his company several years. He is proficient in rope-dancing, posturing, tumbling &c.; and is also considered a very good equestrian. After leaving Mr. Batty, he joined the establishment of the late Mr. Ducrow, and remained with him for some time. He again joined Mr. Batty; in 1841, he began business on his own account, with two horses, and has assembled a fine stud of horses and ponies at his establishment at Wigan, in Lancashire, in which county Mr. Pablo is well known, and a great favourite." | ” |
This same edition of The Illustrated London News provides an example of how contemporaries regarded his performance: "This extraordinary feat of the manege has proved very attractive, as we anticipated in our Journal of last week; and we have judged the success worthy of graphic commemoration. As we have already described, the steed dances to the air, and the band has not to accommodate itself to the action of the horse, as in previous performances of this kind. The grace and facility in shifting time and paces with change of the air, is truly surprising." Fanque is described as a "skilful rider" and "a very good equestrian." Sounding almost as grand as the boasts of Fanque's own broadside posters, the paper said, "Mr. Pablo has trained to do the most extraordinary feats of the manege, an art hitherto considered to belong only to the French and German professors of equitation, and her style certainly far exceeds anything that has ever yet been brought from the Continent."
An illustration closely resembling the one appearing in the 20 March 1847 edition of The Illustrated London News appears on an 1850's poster advertising Fanque's appearance in Leeds, with the headline, "M. Pablo Fanque, as he performed, by royal command, at Astley's Amphitheatre, before her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen."
While biographer John Turner cites Fanque's 1847 performance at Astley's as his London debut, the historical record documents an 1834 performance at The Lawns in Croydon, a borough of metropolitan London. A history of The Lawns records an advertisement that read, "16th September 1834 - A Grand Scottish Fete with a tightrope performance by Pablo Fanque, gymnastics, a leopardess with dogs, military bands, illuminations and fireworks."
In the 30 years that he operated his own circus (sometimes in partnership with others), Fanque toured England, Scotland, and Ireland, although he performed mostly in the Midlands and the Northern England counties of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and what is now Greater Manchester. Among the many cities he visited were Birmingham, Bolton, Bradford, Bristol, Cambridge, Chester, Chesterfield, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Norwich, Oldham, Preston, Rochdale, Rotherdam, Sheffield, Shrewsbury, Wakefield, Wigan, Wolverhampton, and Worcester. In Scotland, his circus visited Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Paisley. In Edinburgh, in 1853, there was a Pablo Fanque's Amphitheatre on Nicolson Street at the current site of Edinburgh Festival Theatre. In Ireland, Fanque's circus performed at Dublin, Belfast, Cork (city), Galway, Ballinasloe, Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford, and Clonmel, among other places. In Cork, in 1850, Fanque built an amphitheatre on the site of the former Theatre Royal where the current General Post Office stands (built in 1877). His circus also performed at the Donnybrook Fair in 1850, just five years before the discontinuation of the centuries' old fair.
Fanque's children joined his circus. One of his sons performed under the name Ted Pablo..." They performed with the most popular acts of the business, including Young Hernandez (1832-1861), the great American rider, and the clown Henry Brown (1814-1902)."
In the autumn of 1861, famous English prizefighter Jem Mace toured with Fanque's circus.
In 1869, the front cover of Illustrated London News reported on a near-tragedy at a performance of Pablo Fanque's Circus in Bolton. A tightrope walker, Madame Caroline, stumbled on the rope, and then hung suspended 60 feet in the air by her hands. The rope was lowered a few feet and then, at the exhortation of men who had amassed below, Madame Caroline fell safely into the hands of the crowd.
While some contemporary reports make no mention of Fanque's African ancestry, some reports refer to Fanque as "a man of colour," or "a coloured gentleman," or "an artiste of colour." In 1905, many years after Fanque's death, the chaplain of the Showmen's Guild, in commenting on Fanque's success despite being black in Victorian England wrote, "In the great brotherhood of the equestrian world there is no colour-line."
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