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====Touring ==== In 1838, the equestrian [[Thomas Taplin Cooke]] returned to England from the United States, bringing with him a circus tent.<ref name="Slout1998">{{cite book|author=William L. Slout|title=Olympians of the Sawdust Circle: A Biographical Dictionary of the Nineteenth Century American Circus|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1LLFwLNPtyMC&pg=PA60|access-date=9 June 2013|year=1998|publisher=Wildside Press LLC|isbn=978-0-8095-1310-9|pages=60β}}</ref> At this time, itinerant circuses that could be [[Fit-up|fitted-up]] quickly were becoming popular in Britain. [[William Batty (performer)|William Batty]]'s circus, for example, between 1838 and 1840, travelled from Newcastle to Edinburgh and then to Portsmouth and Southampton. [[Pablo Fanque]], who is noteworthy as Britain's only black circus proprietor and who operated one of the most celebrated travelling circuses in Victorian England, erected temporary structures for his limited engagements or retrofitted existing structures.<ref>{{cite web |first=J. |last=Griffin |url=http://www.circushistory.org/Frost/Frost5.htm |title=Frost, Thomas (1881), "Circus Life and Circus Celebrities." London: Chatto and Windus |publisher=Circushistory.org |access-date=9 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101214000447/http://circushistory.org/Frost/Frost5.htm |archive-date=14 December 2010 }}</ref> One such structure in Leeds, which Fanque assumed from a departing circus, collapsed, resulting in minor injuries to many but the death of Fanque's wife.<ref>''Leeds Intelligencer'', 4 March 1854, p. 5, col. 3.</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=Victoria and Albert Museum |url=http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/v/victorian-circus/|title=Victorian Circus |publisher= V&A|date= 7 March 2011|access-date=19 June 2011}}</ref> Traveling circus companies also rented the land they set up their structures on sometimes causing damage to the local ecosystems.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Bagley|first=Sherri|date=2019|title=Big Top Or Crops?|url=https://uncommonwealth.virginiamemory.com/blog/2019/05/15/big-top-or-crops/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-08-18|website=The UncommonWealth: Voices from the Library of Virginia|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210818203153/https://uncommonwealth.virginiamemory.com/blog/2019/05/15/big-top-or-crops/ |archive-date=18 August 2021 }}</ref> Three important circus innovators were the Italian [[Signor Giuseppe Chiarini|Giuseppe Chiarini]], and Frenchmen [[Louis Soullier]] and [[Jacques Tourniaire]], whose early travelling circuses introduced the circus to Latin America, Australia, Southeast Asia, China, South Africa, and Russia. Soullier was the first circus owner to introduce Chinese acrobatics to the European circus when he returned from his travels in 1866, and Tourniaire was the first to introduce the performing art to Ranga, where it became extremely popular. [[File:Lion tamer (LOC pga.03749).jpg|thumb|left|[[Lion tamer]], in lithograph by Gibson & Co., 1873]] After an 1881 merger with [[James Anthony Bailey]] and James L.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-05-17 |title=A History Of Ringling Bros. Circus, Soon To Close Forever - CBS Baltimore |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/a-history-of-ringling-bros-circus-soon-to-close-forever/ |access-date=2025-05-15 |website=www.cbsnews.com |language=en-US}}</ref> Hutchinson's circus and Barnum's death in 1891, his circus travelled to Europe as the Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show On Earth, where it toured from 1897 to 1902, impressing other circus owners with its large scale, its touring techniques (including the tent and circus train), and its combination of circus acts, a zoological exhibition, and a freak show.<ref>{{Cite web |last=admin |date=2022-08-16 |title=Let's Go to The Circus! - JD's Realty & Auction |url=https://www.jdsauctions.com/08/lets-go-to-the-circus/ |access-date=2025-05-15 |website=www.jdsauctions.com |language=en-US}}</ref>This format was adopted by European circuses at the turn of the 20th century. The influence of the American circus brought about a considerable change in the character of the modern circus.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-11-09 |title=History of the Circus {{!}} International Circus Hall of Fame |url=https://circushalloffame.com/history-of-the-circus/ |access-date=2025-05-15 |language=en-US}}</ref> In arenas too large for speech to be easily audible, the traditional comic dialogue of the clown assumed a less prominent place than formerly, while the vastly increased wealth of stage properties relegated to the background the old-fashioned equestrian feats, which were replaced by more ambitious acrobatic performances, and by exhibitions of skill, strength, and daring, requiring the employment of immense numbers of performers, and often of complicated and expensive machinery.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=391}} [[File:Arturo Michelena 00.JPG|thumb|Painting by Venezuelan [[Arturo Michelena]], c. 1891, depicting a backstage area at the circus]] From the late 19th century through the first half of the 20th century, travelling circuses were a major form of spectator entertainment in the US and attracted huge attention whenever they arrived in a city.<ref>{{Cite web |title=What a treat that was - the days when the circus came to Bolton |url=https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/18085576.great-pictures-circus-came-bolton/ |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20191221092701/https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/18085576.great-pictures-circus-came-bolton/ |archive-date=2019-12-21 |access-date=2025-05-15 |website=The Bolton News |date=7 December 2019 |language=en}}</ref> After World War II, the popularity of the circus declined as new forms of entertainment (such as television) arrived and the public's tastes changed.<ref>{{Cite web |last=admin |date=2022-08-16 |title=Let's Go to The Circus! - JD's Realty & Auction |url=https://www.jdsauctions.com/08/lets-go-to-the-circus/ |access-date=2025-05-15 |website=www.jdsauctions.com |language=en-US}}</ref> From the 1960s onward, circuses attracted growing criticism from [[animal rights]] activists.<ref>{{Cite web |title=What a treat that was - the days when the circus came to Bolton |url=https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/18085576.great-pictures-circus-came-bolton/ |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20191221092701/https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/18085576.great-pictures-circus-came-bolton/ |archive-date=2019-12-21 |access-date=2025-05-15 |website=The Bolton News |date=7 December 2019 |language=en}}</ref> Many circuses went out of business or were forced to merge with other circus companies. Nonetheless, a good number of travelling circuses are still active in various parts of the world, ranging from small family enterprises to three-ring extravaganzas. Other companies found new ways to draw in the public with innovative new approaches to the circus form itself.
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