John Bill Ricketts - Revision history

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2025-11-05T21:57:49Z

‎Image Gallery

Djando at 17:59, 1 April 2018

2018-04-01T17:59:57Z

Djando: /* Suggested Reading */

2018-02-27T01:07:55Z

‎Suggested Reading

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2018-02-05T20:32:34Z

‎Suggested Reading

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2017-11-17T21:06:20Z

‎Image Gallery

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2017-07-12T16:33:43Z

‎Image Gallery

Djando: /* Origins */

2017-03-02T02:47:39Z

‎Origins

Djando: /* Ricketts in America */

2016-11-17T20:35:33Z

‎Ricketts in America

Djando: /* Ricketts in America */

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‎Ricketts in America

Djando: /* Ricketts in America */

2016-11-17T20:34:12Z

‎Ricketts in America

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 File:Ricketts_Poster.jpeg|Poster for Ricketts Circus in Albany, N.Y. (1797)
 Image:Ricketts_john_bill.jpg|John Bill Ricketts and Cornplanter
-Image:John_Bill_Ricketts_(1798).jpg|John Bill Ricketts, "The Equestrian Hero"
+File:Ricketts,_Equestrian_Hero.png|John Bill Ricketts, "The Equestrian Hero"
 File:Ricketts_Circus_Marker.jpeg|Ricketts Circus's historical marker in Philadelphia
 </Gallery>
 [[Category:Equestrians|Ricketts, John Bill]]

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 ''By Dominique Jando''
-[[Image:John_Bill_Ricketts.jpg|right|thumb|300px|John Bill Ricketts by Gilbert Stuart (c.1795)]]On April 3, 1793, a crowd of theatergoers, horsemanship enthusiasts, and prying citizens gathered at the corner of Market and Twelfth Streets in Philadelphia to witness the debut performance of Mr. John Bill Ricketts's company at the ''Circus''. The ''Circus'' was a roofless arena of some eight-hundred seats (divided between pit and boxes) surrounding a circular riding space filled in with a mixture of soil and sawdust, forty-two feet in diameter&mdash;the ring.
+[[Image:John_Bill_Ricketts.jpg|right|thumb|300px|John Bill Ricketts by Gilbert Stuart (c.1795)]]On April 3, 1793, a crowd of theatergoers, horsemanship enthusiasts, and prying citizens gathered at the corner of Market and Twelfth Streets in Philadelphia to witness the debut performance of Mr. John Bill Ricketts's company at the ''Circus''. The ''Circus'' was a roofless arena that could accommodate some eight-hundred spectators (divided between pit and boxes) surrounding a circular riding space filled in with a mixture of soil and sawdust, forty-two feet in diameter&mdash;the ring.
 The wooden construction had been erected in a matter of weeks by Ricketts, a British equestrian who had arrived from Scotland the previous year and had quickly established a riding school in Philadelphia, then the capital of the newly formed United States of America. Ricketts (1769-1802) had followed the example of [[Philip Astley]], who had established just such a riding school in London in 1768, at the foot of Westminster Bridge, before creating there the first modern circus two years later.

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 * John Durang, ''The Memoir of John Durang, American Actor, 1785-1816'', edited by Alan S. Downer (Pittsburgh, The University of Pittsburgh Press, 1966)
-* Dominique Jando, ''Philip Astley & The Horsemen who invented the Circus'' (Circopedia, 2018) &mdash; ISBN 978-1984041319
+* Dominique Jando, ''Philip Astley & The Horsemen who invented the Circus'' (A [[Circopedia Books|Circopedia Book]], 2018) &mdash; ISBN 978-1984041319
 ==Image Gallery==

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:32, 5 February 2018
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	* John Durang, ''The Memoir of John Durang, American Actor, 1785-1816'', edited by Alan S. Downer (Pittsburgh, The University of Pittsburgh Press, 1966)		* John Durang, ''The Memoir of John Durang, American Actor, 1785-1816'', edited by Alan S. Downer (Pittsburgh, The University of Pittsburgh Press, 1966)
		+	* Dominique Jando, ''Philip Astley & The Horsemen who invented the Circus'' (Circopedia, 2018) — ISBN 978-1984041319

	==Image Gallery==		==Image Gallery==

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 File:Ricketts_Circus.jpg|Ricketts Circus in Philadelphia (1797)
 File:Ricketts_Circus_(1797).jpeg|Ricketts Circus in Philadelphia (1797)
 Image:Ricketts_john_bill.jpg|John Bill Ricketts and Cornplanter
 Image:John_Bill_Ricketts_(1798).jpg|John Bill Ricketts, "The Equestrian Hero"

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 Image:John_Bill_Ricketts.jpg|John Bill Ricketts by Gilbert Stuart (c.1795)
 File:Ricketts_Token.jpg|Token for Ricketts Circus in Philadelphia (c.1795)
 File:Ricketts_Circus.jpg|Ricketts Circus in Philadelphia (1797)
 File:Ricketts_Circus_(1797).jpeg|Ricketts Circus in Philadelphia (1797)

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 ===Origins===
-Young and good-looking, talented and enterprising, Ricketts had become an instant sensation. But if his contemporaries have described his acts extensively, little is known of his life outside of the circus. Fortunately, Gilbert Stuart left a superb, if unfinished, portrait which is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and [[John Durang]], one of the first American actors&mdash;who worked for Ricketts as a dancer, equestrian, acrobat, clown, scenic painter, and deputy manager from 1795-1800&mdash;has provided some hints of the man's character in his ''Memoir'', composed circa 1820 (1).
+Young and good-looking, talented and enterprising, Ricketts had become an instant sensation. But if his contemporaries have described his acts extensively, little is known of his early life outside of circus. Fortunately, Gilbert Stuart left a superb, if unfinished, portrait which is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and [[John Durang]], one of the first American actors&mdash;who worked for Ricketts as a dancer, equestrian, acrobat, clown, scenic painter, and deputy manager from 1795-1800&mdash;has provided some hints of the man's character in his ''Memoir'', composed circa 1820 (1).
 John Bill Ricketts was born in October 1769 in Bilston, a small town near the city of Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, to Thomas Ricketts and his wife, Kinborrow, née Perry. His baptism was recorded on October 28, which suggests he was born a few days before. The Ricketts family, which was of Norman extraction and whose original patronymic was Ricard, had long belonged to the landed gentry of Staffordshire. At the turn of the eighteenth century, the elder branch settled in Jamaica, although several members of this very large branch of the family returned to England, either to study or to resettle; others established themselves in the colony of New Jersey in America. Thus Ricketts was not in alien territory when he landed in the newly formed United States. Neither would he be heading to unknown territories when, at the end of his American adventures, he sailed to the West Indies.
-Before crossing the Atlantic, John Bill Ricketts had just begun to make his mark in the United Kingdom. A former pupil of [[Charles Hughes]]&mdash;Philip Astley's rival and the founder of London's Royal Circus&mdash;Ricketts was first noticed as the star equestrian of a troupe managed jointly by the actor-manager James Jones and the equestrian [[George Jones]] (no relation). The Joneses would later establish a permanent circus in Edinburgh, which their company had visited regularly. Jacob Decastro, Astley's and Hughes's first biographer, who saw Ricketts perform in Whitechapel with the Joneses, declared him "the first rider of real eminence" (2).
+Before crossing the Atlantic, John Bill Ricketts had just begun to make his mark in the United Kingdom. A former pupil of [[Charles Hughes]]&mdash;Philip Astley's rival and the founder of London's Royal Circus&mdash;Ricketts was first noticed as the star equestrian of a troupe managed jointly by the theatrical entrepreneur James Jones and the equestrian [[George Jones]] (no relation). The Joneses would later establish a permanent circus in Edinburgh, which their company had visited regularly. Jacob Decastro, Astley's and Hughes's first biographer, who saw Ricketts perform in Whitechapel with the Joneses, declared him "the first rider of real eminence" (2).
 By 1791, John Bill Ricketts had formed his own circus company in partnership with John Parker, a dancer turned "equestrian manager" (i.e. circus manager), and they established themselves at the Circus Royal in Edinburgh&mdash;probably the Joneses' original amphitheater. Parker & Ricketts toured principally Scotland and Ireland, and many members of their company were fellow performers of Ricketts in the Joneses' circus company&mdash;several of whom would later join Ricketts in America.

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 ===Ricketts in America===
-George Washington attended at least one performance at Ricketts's Circus, on April 22, 1793. (Ricketts, like many of his circus colleagues, was a Free Mason and Washington was the most prominent Mason in America.) The Philadelphia season ended in July, at which time Ricketts, his company, and the horses he had recently acquired in Pennsylvania traveled to New York City, to a new circus Ricketts had erected on Broadway, near the Battery. As in Philadelphia, this first arena was roofless, and the performances were given in daylight, at four in the afternoon. The weather must have been clement that year, since Ricketts kept the circus open until the fourth of November before moving south to Charleston, South Carolina.
+George Washington attended at least one performance at Ricketts's Circus, on April 22, 1793. (Ricketts, like many of his British circus colleagues, was a Free Mason and Washington was the most prominent Mason in America.) The Philadelphia season ended in July, at which time Ricketts, his company, and the horses he had recently acquired in Pennsylvania traveled to New York City, to a new circus Ricketts had erected on Broadway, near the Battery. As in Philadelphia, this first arena was roofless, and the performances were given in daylight, at four in the afternoon. The weather must have been clement that year, since Ricketts kept the circus open until the fourth of November before moving south to Charleston, South Carolina.
 [[File:Ricketts_Circus.jpg|thumb|left|450px|Ricketts Circus, Philadelphia (1797)]]Ricketts and his company (whose composition varied from season to season) spent seven years introducing the circus to North America, venturing from South Carolina to the province of Québec. His homebase, however, remained Philadelphia, and most of his travels concentrated around New England and Virginia.