The Oldest Lion Trainer in the World – Joe Mitchell (1850-1940)

By Audrey Dewjee (12^th November 2022)

One of the advantages of researching Black History over a long period of time is that solutions to “mysteries” have a way of revealing themselves years after curiosity about them was first aroused.

In the 1970s, when paying a visit to my parents, I asked them if they could remember seeing anyone of African ancestry when they were young.  My father (born in 1908) said he could remember an old man that he saw frequently in Ripon market.  He couldn’t tell me anything more about him and this solitary person in a North Yorkshire market town intrigued me.  How did he come to be there and what could be his story?

Many years later, someone who knew of my interest in Black History alerted me to an article by Fred J. Hughes in a local annual which told something of this African’s story.  The article was entitled “The Oldest Lion Trainer in the World” and the trainer’s name was Joe Mitchell.^[1]Fred J. Hughes, “The Oldest Lion Trainer in the World”,  The Wakeman 1951-1952, pp.12-15.

Nowadays, we realise that keeping wild animals locked up and forcing them to perform is terribly wrong and circuses manage to enthral their audiences without them, but in Victorian and Edwardian times a large part of circus performances was given over to acts which included animals.  When not performing, the animals were kept in cages and the public could pay to view them in the menagerie which accompanied the circus.

Apart from clowning, most circus acts involved the performer in danger of one sort or another.  Men and women could be severely injured or killed when performing on the high wire, trapeze or when bareback riding several horses at once.  However, the most dangerous act was probably that of the trainer who was locked in an enclosure with a lion or lions, in order to put them though their paces.

More than a few people of African or Asian descent found employment in a circus; their colour for once being an advantage rather than a detriment, as it added an “exotic” touch to the performance, and lion trainers of African descent seem to have been particularly favoured by circus owners.  Unfortunately, several of them lost their lives as a result of their employment.  Somehow Joe Mitchell managed to survive, though he did have a close brush with death during his circus career.

The Wakeman article gave brief details of Joe’s origins, stating that he “was born on Wednesday, February 20^th, 1850…in Limehouse, East London.  His parents belonged to one of the African tribes…[but Joe] was unable to state which race, as he had never been out of the British Isles.”  I have been unable to verify Joe’s date of birth or discover anything further about his ancestry.   The article continued:

Captain Orr, a wealthy Quaker, adopted the little slave boy, and placed him in the care of a Foster-mother, making a money allowance to bring Joe up to a big boy.

When Joe was old enough to be inquisitive about himself, he asked his benefactor how he came to be adopted.  The answer was: “Your father and mother, being slaves of great stature, were brought to England and sold for exhibition purposes, and during your birth your mother passed into the Great Unknown; also, if you were living in your own country, among your own tribe, you would be wealthy….

Later, Joe was stolen, and lost contact with his benefactor.

I have no idea how much of the above is true as I have been unable to verify any of it.  However, Joe could not have been a “slave boy” if he was born in Britain in 1850.  It is possible his parents were in this country taking part in some kind of “exhibition.”  Now regarded as “human zoos,” re-creations of African villages (and indeed “villages” full of people and their native crafts from any part of the Empire) could be found on display around the country in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  Whether there was any such display around the reported time of Joe’s birth still needs to be investigated.  Is it possible that Captain Orr, rather than being Joe’s benefactor, was in fact the proprietor of such an exhibition?  Is it possible that Joe was “stolen” by a competitor in an effort to make money?

As he grew up, Joe found work for himself in summer in various travelling fairs, circuses and menageries, including Biddalls, Chipperfields and Sedgewicks amongst others.  He was an athlete and a boxer and reportedly at one period he was sparring partner to two of the world’s heavyweight champions, Peter Jackson and Dai St. John (known as the Welsh giant).  His stage name when he performed in the circus was “African Zulu,” and he was described as Bostock and Wombwell’s oldest lion trainer.

Joe is reported to have been involved in a number of serious incidents as a result of his association with big cats.  He is said to have played a part in the recapture of a lion which escaped from its cage in Bostock’s menagerie when it was visiting the Aston district of Birmingham in the autumn of 1889.  Again, I have been unable to verify this story – several very different accounts of this famous escape appeared in the newspapers, but I have been unable to find Joe’s name mentioned in any of them, so far.^[2]Perhaps the National Fairground and Circus Archive at the University of Sheffield could help with this research.

The Wakeman article records an even more terrifying experience:

In 1900, at the Kelvin Hall, Glasgow, Joe was putting seven lions and a sulky lioness through their exhibition when the latter suddenly sprang at him, and it was only by his quick action and muscular strength, he grasped her two front paws and held her at bay, whilst other attendants, using red hot bars, drove the other lions and her to a safe distance, and another trainer removed Joe from the cage, his face being badly clawed and bleeding profusely.  He was conveyed to the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, and placed in the care of Dr. Peter A. Steven.

Many years after, Joe became a resident in Ripon, and at one time had pneumonia.  Dr. Peter A. Steven was called in, and during convalescence of Joe, they lived again in the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, when Joe was a much mauled inmate, and his life hung in the balance for some time.

Yet again, I have been unable to find corroborative evidence of this accident in Glasgow, but Dr. Peter Alexander Steven, who was born in Glasgow, lived in Ripon from 1906 until at least 1949, and probably until his death in April, 1952.  I think therefore this story must be true, as Dr. Steven’s family were still resident in Ripon at the time of the article’s publication, and it is probable that they gave information to the writer for inclusion.

Joe may have had several dark-skinned colleagues when he travelled with fairs and menageries, but when he settled in the small village of Littlethorpe near Ripon he would have been the only Black person for miles around.  He appears to have had a good deal to say about being Black in a very White world.

According to Fred Hughes,

In those far off days some members of the public in rural districts could never imagine a human being black, although they would frighten their offsprings who were unruly by saying that a black man would take them away if they were not good.  Joe was sensitive on this point, and desired that such persons should not ridicule a black man, but should make closer contact with him and learn the kindness of his nature.  His chief worry was to have the opportunity of being more closely looked into and seen as a human being with a soul to save, combined with his duty to his fellowman, and to his Creator.  Owing to some parents using that terrifying phrase, “The Black Man will take you away,” he had more than once seen a young life thrown away by running under traffic in order to get away from a black man.  If the Rod had been used instead of the Scare the child would not have lost its life.

When I first read that extract, I didn’t give it a great deal of attention, but a recent conversation with a 96-year-old lady who remembers Joe from her childhood gave me pause for thought.  Mrs. Wilkinson says she was terrified of Joe, no doubt because she had also been told similar scare stories about “the Black Man”.

At different times over the years further little snippets of information about Joe have come my way. An elderly friend, Brenda Anthony, also remembered him from the 1930s.  The fact that he had a white wife was considered scandalous at that time and was a cause for much gossip.  Mildred  was much younger than Joe, and she was known to be devoted to him.  At the time of his death, Joe was recorded as being 90 years old; Mildred was 44.

In the 1939 register, Joe and Mildred’s address is given as The Retreat Van, Littlethorpe, and that is one of the few official records I have been able to find of the pair.  Joe died a year later but Mildred continued to live in the Retreat Van until at least the early 1960s.  Mildred didn’t remarry after Joe’s death and passed away in 1971.

My conversation with Mrs. Wilkinson revealed a little more of their story.  She says they made an odd couple as, in addition to the difference in their ages and skin colour, Joe was very tall and Mildred was short.  I asked her about the caravan the couple lived in and where in the village it was located.  She said it was an old wooden van, (no doubt Joe’s accommodation from when he was working in fairs and circuses).  It was situated at the bottom of a field in the village belonging to Charlie Wilkinson, who she said was a very kind man.  There would have been no running water and no electricity in the van, so life must have been hard, particularly as winters used to be so much more severe eighty years ago.  However, I imagine the caravan would have had an efficient stove to provide heat.

In his old age Joe made a (no-doubt precarious) living in Ripon market.  Described as “the old coach trimmer who sat on a cushion on the market cross,” he would repair parts of the agricultural machinery then in use on farms in the surrounding villages and possibly the leather harness belonging to the horses.  During the last few months of his life he was a sick man and ten days before his death he was removed to Dewsbury,^[3]The Wakeman article says he was “removed to Stainforth near Dewsbury”.  This should have been Staincliffe near Dewsbury.  From 1930, the former workhouse provided accommodation mainly for the … Continue reading where he died on 5 July, 1940.

I have had Joe in my mind ever since I first heard of his existence but it was thanks to a recent article by Danny Friar that my curiosity was reignited and I was inspired, once again, to try to find out more about him.^[4]https://secretlibraryleeds.net/2021/10/21/before-windrush-black-people-in-leeds-and-bradford-1708-1948-part-iii/ (Accessed 8^th November 2022) Danny had come across a newspaper report from 1924 which he kindly shared with me. It told how a Joe Mitchell aged 74, an ex-boxer, had been tried at Leeds Magistrates’ Court for assault.  At the time, Joe was working as a watchman at Hunslet Fair Ground and early one morning he had found a man named Jeremiah Curtain nosing around the site.  As Joe explained at his trial, “a lot of men were in the habit of hanging around the fair ground to see what they could get, and he had previously warned [Curtain] and actually pulled him out of a stall”.  Someone from the fair ground acted as a character witness and said that Joe had never had to hit anyone before, but the Stipendiary Magistrate said that he thought Joe had overstepped the mark and bound him over in the sum of £5 for 6 months.

I have tried, without success, to find a decent photograph of Joe Mitchell.  All I have seen is the indistinct image which was used in The Wakeman article.  Hopefully one day a good likeness will turn up of this interesting man, along with much more information about his circus and boxing careers.