Chipperfield's Circus

Chipperfield's Circus is a long-running English family show based on the 300-year-old Chipperfield dynasty.

Chipperfield's Circus started with James Chipperfield with is performing animals at the Thames Frost Fair of 1684. Through the 19th century, the circus toured the all of England, with a menagerie of animals, teams of acrobats and clowns. After World War II, under the management of Jimmy Chipperfield, the show became one of the biggest circuses in Europe, with a tent that could hold 6000 people. Jimmy Chipperfield then diversified into safari parks and fairgrounds supplies, and since his death in 1990, Chipperfield's Circus has toured only intermittently, sometimes featuring members of the extended Chipperfield family.

The name "Chipperfield" dates back to James Chipperfield, who introduced performing animals to England at the Frost Fair on the Thames in 1684. His show performed for two months at the fair. Part of the fair was showing off this animals.

James William Chipperfield Sr. (~1775-1866) was a bootmaker's and made fancy-dress costumes for theatrical use in Drury Lane, London. His business was slow in the summer. So in the summer he joined traveling fairs and help put on small shows with is wife Mary Ann. The show grew to include dancing bears, monkeys, and trained pigs. In about 1803 James and Mary Ann had a son James William Chipperfield Jr. who would join the show.

James William Chipperfield (~1799 or ~1803?-1866) grew up in his father's touring show. He was an assistant to Hamlin the conjuror. James married Harriet Amy Coan (December 4, 1799-~1866) in Bury St Edmunds and had four children William James(1822- ), James William (1824-1913), Tom and Mary Phoebe (1826- ). James and Harriet tour with their own show in a horse drawn canvas wagon. Harriet died of pneumonia in 1841 at a fair in Rayleigh, Essex. Later James remarried and continued to tour with an even large shows. He retired and died in 1866. James William married Elizabeth Jones, their children continued the Circus tour.

James William Chipperfield (1824-1913) was born in a caravan on April 22, 1824, at St. Martin at Oak, Norfolk. James is the son of James William Chipperfield and Harriet Amy (née Coan).

He act began a clowning act with his father in the "Liliputian Circus". Reported that he entered a den of animals at Wombwells when 14 years old. He start is own show when he acquired an trained trick pony and worked as juggler.

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