10 Facts about Britain’s P.T. Barnum Including His Disturbing Death

“Lord” George Sanger was about as close to an A-list celebrity as one could be in Victorian Britain. He traveled the country bringing his beloved circus from town to town, astounding everyone from lowly laborers to royalty. Clever, cheeky, and possessing a natural talent for showmanship, Sanger has often drawn comparisons to P.T. Barnum. However, he is not as well-remembered as the American showman. Perhaps people were keen to forget the tragic circumstances surrounding Sanger’s death. This list takes a look at ten facts about the illustrious life and mysterious murder of Lord Sanger.

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10 He Only Went to School for One Day

Entertaining ran in the blood of the Sanger family. It was said that they came to England in the 13th century to perform as court jesters. That story, however, might just have been part of the act. The family were actually farmers for many generations. However, in any case, George Sanger was not the first showman in his family, and he got his start as an assistant in his father’s traveling show.

George wrote in his autobiography that his father was an “excellent talker,” and this made him well-suited for oral storytelling. It also helped that he had been injured in the Battle of Trafalgar, where he claimed to have seen Admiral Nelson die. People loved hearing his stories, so he got his start as an entertainer.

When George was born, he would accompany his father. Luckily, George found great success following in his father’s footsteps because, although literacy was on the rise, he did not learn to read or write properly. With all the traveling and performing, he apparently only ever found one day in his life to go to school.^[1]

9 He Was Not a Real Lord

It appears that although he is remembered as “Lord” George Sanger, that is mainly because he continually gave himself the title. He was a self-declared lord, not a real one who inherited the title or became a member of the UK’s House of Lords. He made much use of the title on his circus’s eye-catching posters, but he claimed that it was not originally his idea. He said other people had given him the nickname “Lord” because of his gentlemanly manners,

However, other sources say it arose from a legal battle Sanger had against another showman, “The Honourable” William Frederick Cody. Unlike Sanger, Cody had a claim to his nickname. He was a veteran of the U.S. Civil War who had received the Medal of Honor. Their dispute was strictly business, though, and Cody wrote of Sanger in his records that he was a “fine old gentleman” who looked 20 years younger than his age.^[2]

8 Queen Victoria Was Amused by Him

Queen Victoria is typically remembered as somewhat dour and, famously, not amused. But it appears this is a mischaracterization. She apparently loved the circus, and in 1898, she invited George Sanger to bring his show to Balmoral Castle in Scotland to perform for her. Afterward, he had a private audience with her, where she teased him about his adopted title. She must have enjoyed the show since she invited Sanger to perform for her again only a year later, this time in Windsor Castle.

Amazingly, he probably performed for her at least one more time because the entrance gate to his circus had “3 Times Patrionized by the Queen” painted on it. Victoria’s son, the future King Edward VII, also saw Sanger’s show and spoke with him. Sanger shared a secret with the prince about his famous white elephant; it was not natural and had to be coated in white paint twice per day.^[3]

7 He Sometimes Lost His Elephants (and Lions!)

Transporting exotic animals around the country is no easy task. Sanger’s circus suffered from several escapes over the years, and among the escapees were his most prized performing pets—lions and elephants. They certainly livened up some otherwise quiet towns. In 1884, when two of his four elephants, Ida and Palm, were startled while being unloaded in London, they ran out of the yard, smashing open the gates and injuring the gatekeeper before running into the street. Eventually, they tried to climb some stairs outside a terraced house, which collapsed under their weight, and they fell into the basement. Their keepers brought the two other elephants along to help pull them out.

As for the lion, when that escaped its cage, it was obviously considered a bit more dangerous. Local soldiers stepped in, as did the fire brigade, who turned their hoses on the beast. But the story has a happy ending. Sanger could see the animal was frightened and probably just wanted to get back, so he simply walked over to it and led it back to its cage by its ear.^[4]

6 His Wife Was a Famous Lion Tamer

Just as today’s showbiz celebrities tend to marry each other, so it was in the 19th century. And Lord George Sanger’s lady was quite a catch. Ellen “Nellie” Chapman was one of the first-ever female lion tamers and was known as “The Lion Queen.” She was also one of the youngest, making her debut at age 16 after having grown up in a circus family.

Among her other startling achievements were performing for Queen Victoria, being the first woman to (deliberately) put her head inside a lion’s mouth, surviving at least two lion attacks, and being mentioned by name in Charles Dickens’s letters. After marrying George Sanger in 1850, she briefly retired from lion taming to perform in his show and manage its business affairs, but she returned to the cage when Sanger added lions to the program.^[5]

5 He Is Widely Believed to Have Been Murdered with an Ax

In 1905, George Sanger finally retired. He was almost 80 years old, so he settled on a farm with a collection of his animals and wrote his autobiography, Seventy Years a Showman. By 1911, George was living with a handful of horses and a few employees who helped him as his mental faculties diminished. This was when tragedy struck.

On November 29, 1911, a New York Times headline read, “LORD GEORGE SANGER SLAIN: Well-Known English Circus Owner Murdered by an Insane Employee.” The employee, Herbert Cooper, was alleged to have brutally murdered Sanger with a large felling ax. The press found a picture of Cooper holding one and printed it, while other employees spoke of Cooper’s aggressive personality and his recent banishment after Sanger accused him of stealing money. Cooper never made it to trial, but he had already been found guilty in the court of public opinion.^[6]

4 His Accused Killer Decapitated Himself

As if an ax murder was not enough of a gruesome note on which to end George Sanger’s tale, Herbert Cooper then ended his own life in a uniquely ghastly fashion. His body was found on some nearby railway tracks two days after Sanger’s murder. He had apparently laid down across them and allowed a train to decapitate him.

On his person, he had two suicide notes. One was addressed to his father and said that he had no memory of killing Sanger, although he says that “something” happened at the farm and references the fact that Sanger had turned against him. It’s quite possible that his suicide was interpreted by the public as evidence of his guilt. Cooper might have killed Sanger, but the details surrounding the murder and its investigation are much murkier than is often thought.^[7]

3 He Did Not Die from an Ax Wound (and Might Not Have Been Murdered)

In 2022, an author called Karl Shaw set out to write a simple biography of Lord Sanger’s long and illustrious life. He had read many second-hand accounts that described the ax murder but decided to check the police files and reports to make sure this was really what happened. Suddenly, his biography was not so simple anymore. He was not expecting to make any big discoveries, but Shaw soon realized that many of the details of Sanger’s death did not square with the ax murder story.

What was true was that Sanger died from head injuries at 11 p.m. on November 28, 1911. He survived his injuries for several hours but was not well enough to make a police statement before he died. Shaw checked out other ax murder cases and concluded, perhaps predictably, that being struck in the head by an ax causes instant death. The wound on Sanger’s head was a bruise that could even have happened accidentally by, as another theory suggests, knocking his head on a table.^[8]

2 The Accused Killer Could Have Been Framed

The evidence against Herbert Cooper basically hinged on the word of Harry Austin, the only eyewitness. The police and the press overlooked how he was both unreliable and biased. His first statement, and that of Sanger’s valet Arthur Jackson, claimed that Cooper had attacked Jackson in the kitchen before attacking Austin and Sanger with the ax in another room. Jackson later changed his statement from saying he had seen Cooper heading into the other room with the ax to saying he had been knocked unconscious.

Austin also admitted that he had not seen Cooper strike Sanger. He might also have wanted to frame Cooper after he was told by a servant that Cooper was having an affair with his wife. Cooper called the allegations “lies” in his suicide note, but Austin seemed to believe them. This gave him a motive to frame Cooper, which leaves two questions: What really happened, and why did everybody think it was an ax?

George Sanger’s grandson said the story among the family was that Cooper had attacked Jackson and Austin, and Sanger tried to intervene, wielding a candelabra. He tried to hit Cooper, but the blow was deflected and hit Sanger in the head, causing him to fall and hit his head on a table. The ax was suddenly “discovered” much later by Sanger’s brother-in-law after having implausibly gone unseen by the police despite the many hours they spent in the building that night.^[9]

1 The Coroner Was Infamously Bad

The only question left is how Sanger’s wounds, which were inconsistent with Austin’s story, made it past the coroner. This was supposedly an independent expert. The coroner in this case, the famous Dr. Bernard Spilsbury, was not in the same league as Austin. And no one at the time disputed his expert credentials. He was handsome, articulate, well-respected, and… wrong. A lot. But that would not be found out until later after many convictions and hangings had been based on his reports.

Spilsbury had made his name with the case of Dr. Crippen, an American who murdered his wife in England and fled. This became one of Britain’s most famous murder cases. After this, it seemed no one wanted to question the word of Spilsbury, and as a household name, jurors trusted him. The Sanger case exemplifies why he did not deserve that trust, as he refused to entertain any alternative theories to that of the ax murder.

His report played a large role in Herbert Cooper’s posthumous reputation as an ax-wielding maniac who killed one of Britain’s best-loved celebrities. Spilsbury went on to gas himself in his laboratory in 1947 after his life’s work began to be called into question.^[10]