Web Page No 2716
19th September
2020
1st Picture. Bertram
Mills Circus in King Georges Field 1950’s
2nd Picture. Bertram Mills Circus in King Georges Field 1950’s
3rd Picture. Horse performance
4th Picture. Travelling Ticket Office
5th Picture. Circus Van
Bertram Mills and his Circus
The death of Bertram
W. Mills (1873-1938) from pneumonia on April 16th , 1938 was a real
event in the British circus. The hoardings for the London evening papers read "Bertram
Mills Dead”. This was the Death of Britain’s Nº 1 Showman.
The show he had
created in 1920 had become known as "The Quality Show. Bertram Mills,
always known as "The Guv’nor" to his staff, was "a short, stocky
man with a bald head, a ruddy face, a grey moustache, and blue eyes.
Bertram Wagstaff
Mills was born in London on August 11, 1873. He was the son of Halford Lewis
Mills of Smarden, Kent, and Mary Fenn Wagstaff. Halford Mills was the
proprietor of a coach building firm in Paddington and he owned small farms in the
country, one at Harefield, the other at Chalfont St. Giles—the latter being
where he stabled his horses for rest periods.
Bertram spent most of his childhood at Chalfont St.
Giles, learning to ride there and developing a love of horses. He left school at
fifteen and started at the bottom of his father’s business, washing down the
coaches but within a year, he was driving four-in-hand from London to Oxford.
When Bertram entered
his father’s business, they began importing American carriages, and the coach
building side of the business was carried simultaneously with that of the
undertaker’s business which had been inherited from Bertram’s grandfather. One
of the company biggest assignments would be in 1930, when the R.101 airship crashed in France and Bertram Mills’ firm was
asked by the Air Ministry to undertake the funeral arrangements in France and
to bring back the bodies in England. The coaching and funeral businesses were
wound up after the death of Bertram Mills in 1938,
In 1901, Bertram W.
Mills married Ethel Notley, the daughter of a farmer, William Notley, who came
from Thorndon, Suffolk. They had two sons, Cyril Bertram
and Bernard Notley,
born on May 10, 1905. During the First World War, Bertram Mills served in the Royal Army
Medical Corps, gaining the rank of Captain.
But when he returned
to civilian life, he found that the coach building industry was declining,
thanks to the motorcar. This was where the circus came into being.
Bertram’s’interests
outside his coaching and funeral company and then the circus were quite varied.
He was a London County Councillor until his death.
He was a Freeman of
the City of London, and a Liveryman of the Loriners’ and Farriers’ Company, and
had been adopted as a prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate.
Furthermore, he ran coach services between London and Brighton and London and
Oxford, bred horses, and judged at top international horse shows.
He had many
influential friends and, on one occasion, he was invited to attend a
performance of Fred A. Wilkin’s Great Victory Circus and Allied Fair at
the Olympia exhibition hall in London.
However, the quality of the performance "bored Bertram almost to
tears." He stated that if I could not give the people a better circus than
that for their money, I’d eat my hat.
This resulted in a
wager of £100 and on a February evening of 1920, Bertram sat down to dinner
with his wife and sons and announced "I have just signed an agreement to
run a circus at Olympia next winter." It came as a bombshell to the
family.
In order to win his
wager he quickly arranged for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum &
Bailey Circus to come to England for the 1920/1921 winter
season: This was the biggest circus in the world. John Ringling was unable to
arrange shipping space for such a huge undertaking so soon after the Great War.
He had to ask for cancellation of the contract, adding, "Let me know what
I owe you." Bertram Mills, in typically decisive style, replied, "You
owe me nothing; I will produce my own show." Producing his first show, The Great International Circus, from
December 17, 1920 to January 24, 1921. This first production was a huge
success and even made a small profit. Eventually the show that became known as
Bertram Mills Circus became the toast of London until it finally closed in
1967.
Mills brought the
circus industry out of the doldrums. He introduced grand opening day luncheons
attended by hundreds of leading figures , people who, up to that time, had
maybe thought the circus beneath their dignity. One year, the total number of
guests who sat down to the lunch preceding the opening performance was 1,493.
The leaders of industry, the arts and the press joined the peerage, bishops,
baronets and knights in wanting invitations.
Bertram Mills raised
the status of the circus to heights hitherto undreamed of. Booking the cream of
talent available from Europe and America, and cutting acts ruthlessly to show
just their best routines, he gained a reputation equal to none in Europe.
Bertram was fortunate
to have two Cyril and Bernard, who were willing to
join him in his circus enterprise, and who carried it on after his death—until
rising costs forced it to end in 1967.
After the Olympia
success in 1930, he launched a tented circus, which was run by his sons to a
high standard and in a business like
fashion.
The tented show operated from 1930 to 1964, barring
the Second World War. After the death of Bertram in 1938, Cyril and Bernard
continued to run the company to the template he had established, retaining the
tenets of "The Quality Show." Bertram Mills told his sons, " The
Mills Circus will perform like professionals and live like gentlemen."
Their first big
top, seating 3,000, came from the Germany as did the seating. Starting in 1933
Bertram Mills Circus moved by rail, the only British circus to do so.
"House
trainers" were engaged to present Mills’ own elephants, wild animals and
other acts. Insisting on a top level of presentation and cleanliness the Mills
family presented the cream of world circus talent, including wild animal acts.
Cyril and Bernard,
were stunned by the death of their father in 1938, but as he would have wished,
the circus had its premiere that day in Luton. Many circus folks attended
Bertram Mills’ funeral while 200 members of the Mills Circus staff attended a
memorial service the same afternoon, held under the big top with the
circus band accompanying the hymns. No performances were given on the day of
the funeral, but they were resumed the following day.
Bertram W. Mills bequeathed all his property to his
widow. He left £146,528 (£100,528 net), a considerable sum for that time, with
death duties of £20,957. His sons continued to operate the touring circus and
the circus at Olympia until the advent of the Second World War. They closed for
the duration, reopening in 1946.
During its lifetime the
clowns were also very well represented with, notably, Pimpo, the star clown
of Sanger’s Circus
and of course Coco (Nikolai Polakovs).
Nearly a century
following the conception of Bertram Mills’ original circus, his five major
principles, which he applied ruthlessly, remained in operation.
The first was to
strive for quality in whatever he did, to seek out the most polished and
perfect acts in every category, and to present only the best aspects of those
acts—this being his second principle. Then, at all costs, he sought to attract,
host and convert the most influential people to the cause of the circus, having
starting his show at a time when circus was at a particularly low ebb.
Fourthly, he didn’t hesitate to promote individual acts or performers as stars
of the show, and fifthly, he used and developed the emerging energy of public
relations and targeted advertising.
With these principles
Bertram Mills raised the social status of the circus in general. Undoubtedly,
the most significant development in his success was the patronage of Royalty to
Bertram Mills Circus. This began in 1926, when the Prince of Wales (the future
Duke of Windsor) quietly attended a performance at Olympia, unannounced. The
Prince’s interest in the circus was developed by visiting the winter quarters
at Ascot to observe the animal training sessions. A private box was installed
for this purpose, the Prince’s companion for these visits Mrs. Wallis Simpson.
This led to an
association with the Royal. There would be a further fifty-nine visits by
members of the Royal Family in subsequent years. The Queen went as a child and
later graced Olympia with a series of well-publicised Royal Performances for
her favourite charities.
Bertram Mills was
buried in the St. Giles churchyard at Chalfont St. Giles; his grave is a simple
one, and doesn't mention anything of his extraordinary life—beside the fact
that he was "beloved." Perhaps Bertram Mills' true epitaph was
written by the Duchess of Kent, who with the Duke brought their young son,
Prince George, to the last Olympia season in 1967. She said to Cyril Mills:
"He really is too young, but this is your last circus and I didn’t want
him to grow up without having seen it."
Stay in touch
Peter
gsseditor@gmail.com
You Write:
Maureen writes:
I too learnt to drive in a Triumph Herald and strangely enough I was out on Friday with my youngest and we followed one. It looked so tiny then I realised it was only a two seater with a soft top, it was a lovely pastel blue and quite the Bees knees in its time.
I was taught by a lady in North End who had her own driving school near the Christian Science Reading Room. She was an advanced driver and I have tried many times to practice the type of test that she had to do. She told me that as she was driving, she had to talk about everything that her brain was registering from traffic lights to pedestrians and what was happening behind her. Your brain takes in far more than the words to describe it tumbles out. I was in awe of her. My heroine, along side of Joan of Arc.
News and Views:
On this day 19th
September 1960 - 1965
On 19/09/1960
the number one single was Apache - The Shadows
and the number one album was Down Drury
Lane to Memory Lane - A Hundred and One Strings. The top rated TV show
was No Hiding Place (AR) and the
box office smash was Psycho.
A pound of today's money was worth £13.68
and Tottenham Hotspur were on
the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 19/09/1961
the number one single was Reach for the Stars /
Climb Ev'ry Mountain - Shirley Bassey and the number one
album was Ipswich Town. The top
rated TV show was "Coronation Street (Granada)
and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations.
A pound of today's money was worth £Argentinian
swims English Channel both ways non-stop and 13.25 were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1
champions.The big news story of the day was Take Your Pick (AR)".
On 19/09/1962
the number one single was She's Not You
- Elvis Presley and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada)
and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia.
A pound of today's money was worth £12.89
and Everton were on the way to
becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 19/09/1963
the number one single was She Loves You - The
Beatles and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The
top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada)
and the box office smash was The Great
Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool
were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 19/09/1964
the number one single was You Really
Got Me - Kinks and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night -
Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada)
and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove.
A pound of today's money was worth £12.24
and Manchester United were on
the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 19/09/1965
the number one single was Make It Easy On Yourself
- Walker Brothers and the number one album was Help - The Beatles.
The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada)
and the box office smash was The Sound
of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool
were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
