THE most talked about story in The Northern Echo in recent weeks has been the revelation that the world's first, and most famous, lion tamer was born in Darlington.

He was Frank Charles Bostock. He was the man who discovered that a lion was made uneasy by the four legs of an upturned chair, and so could be "tamed".

He was the man who invented the circular big top. He was the man who trained a chimp to drive a car. He was the man who captured a lion which was prowling the sewers of Birmingham, terrorising Brummies with its roar. He was the man who introduced the boxing kangaroo to the world. He was the man who sent a crocodile over the Niagara Falls. He was the "Animal King" who took America by storm in the 1890s.

And he was, the National Fairground Archive at Sheffield University has just told us, born in Darlington on September 10, 1866.

This lion-tamer was clearly a mane man and, deeply intrigued, Memories has been looking into his tail.

Let's begin with George Wombwell, the famous Victorian showman. He was a shoemaker in Soho who, in 1804, acquired from London docks two boa constrictor snakes which had arrived on a ship from South America. He exhibited them, realised there was a market for such entertainment, and acquired other exotic animals which he took on the road as Wombwell's Travelling Menagerie.

In the days before David Dimbleby starting beaming all manner of foreign animals onto our television screens, no one had seen such strange and beguiling creatures as giraffes, hippos and lions, and so Wombwell's Travelling Menagerie caused a stir wherever it went.

In 1838, when it was passing through Staffordshire, a 24-year-old horseman called James Bostock was taken on to drive the wagons in which the menagerie travelled. James rose to become the show's contracting and advertising agent.

He may even have secured the booking which led to the menagerie arriving in Darlington Market Place on November 11, 1850.

"It is 18 years since the whole of this immense collection was exhibited in this town, since which time many large additions of highly interesting character have been made," said the advert placed, perhaps by James, in the Darlington and Stockton Times.

Top of the bill was "the Great Mandril – the wild man of South Africa". This was probably a mandrill, a monkey with the sort of colouring on its bottom that would have to be viewed on a High Definition TV set, or in real life, to appreciate fully.

Other attractions were "elephants, hippopotamus, the Great Arctic Monsters, lions and lionesses, tiger and tigress, leopards, zebra or striped horse, striped or untameable hyenas, the Great Ursine Sloth of India, the Armadillo, and several Boa Constrictor serpents from Java".

Admission was a shilling, although if you wanted to witness feeding time at 9.30pm, you had to pay 6d more.

Wombwell's stayed in Darlington for several days but by November 16, 1850, the show had reached Northallerton where 73-year-old Mr Wombwell died. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery in London beneath a statue of his lion, Nero, and he left his menagerie to his niece, Harriet Edmonds.

In 1852, James Bostock, married another of the late proprietor's nieces, Emma Wombwell. Perhaps there was the whiff of scandal about the marriage: he was 38 and she was just 18.

It is believed that in September 1866 when Edmonds' menagerie rolled into Darlington, Emma was pregnant. The show appeared in the Market Place on Saturday, September 8, and the following Monday before it headed to Richmond on the Tuesday followed by Leyburn on Wednesday and Bedale on Thursday.

"Delimonico, the Arabian Lion Chief, will exhibit his Prussian Needle Gun, and drive the only pair of domesticated ZEBRAS in the world round the collection, prior to each performance with his 20 LIONS and TIGERS," said the advert in the Darlington and Stockton Times. "Amongst the recent additions to the establishment are the real silken-fantailed YAK, and the great BONASSUS, also the TASMANIAN DEVIL, and many other novelties never before seen in this country."

A Tasmanian devil, of course, is a peculiar doglike marsupial and the "great Bonassus" is probably a European bison, from Belarus and Poland (its Latin name is bison bonasus).

A week after the advert, the D&S Times reported: "The performances by the elephant, the zebras, the leopards and the lions, directed by the famous Delimonico, were really wonderful. The Prussian needle-gun, presented to the lion tamer, was exhibited, and was the subject of general curiosity."

Nowhere does the little article say what a Prussian needle-gun was, and nowhere does it mention whether on Monday, September 10, while in the Market Place, Emma gave birth to a boy. But, if the National Fairground Archive is correct, she must have done, and the world's most famous lion-tamer gave his first roar beneath Darlington's newly-built Town Clock.

Born on the road, baby Frank knew no other life than a peripatetic one. He took over the running of the menagerie, which he called Bostock and Wombwell's, and as his lion-taming skills grew, and his talent for self-publicity made his name well-known, he had several shows touring the British provinces, the European mainland, and the Australian outback, while he himself was tasting the big time in the United States.

He survived being savaged in 1901 in Indianapolis by his tiger, Rajah, and had another close shave in 1905 when Menelik the lion had a go at him. He died on October 8, 1912, aged 46, of flu when he was back in London.

"England's greatest showman dead", said the front page headline in the World's Fair newspaper.

Frank Bostock, "the Animal King", is buried beneath a sleeping stone lion at the Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington, and must be one of the most remarkable people to be born in Darlington.

THE Victorians may not have had television, but they certainly had a splendid array of live entertainment available to them.

In the September 1866 week in which the menagerie was appearing in Darlington Market Place – the week in which Frank Bostock was born – in Northgate, the Theatre Royal was preparing to open for its second season. New boxes and galleries had been added "making it one of the handsomest and most compact theatres in the provinces", said its advert in the Darlington and Stockton Times.

"The scenery will be entirely new," it continued. "The gorgeous and extensive wardrobe embraces the costumes of all nations and periods."

The theatre was where the Odeon cinema is today, and the opening night was to be "a splendid play by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton in which the eminent Tragedian, Mr Robert Dolman, will appear".

In Central Hall, "Chang, the giant of the Land of Flowers, with his attendant suite of Celestials" was appearing. We have no idea how Chang entertained the audience, but he clearly did.

"Everything connected with the entertainment betrays an anxiety to amuse and instruct, and an equally fervent desire not to attempt any deception or ill-favoured affectation," said the D&S Times. "The story of the willow pattern plate was fresh and pretty in the extreme."

Over at the Mechanics'Hall – presumably the Institute in Skinnergate – Mr Prince was putting on a series of comic concerts. "For those of a more refined taste, there is the performance on the piano by Miss Cartwright, which unmistakably betrays a fine ear and unwearied devotion to her task," said the paper.

The most curious of all the entertainments that week, though, was in Bishop Auckland.

"A young lady, who, it is said, quite throws Tom Thumb and even Minnie Warren into the shade in respect of her diminutive proportions, has been on exhibition in the large room of the Black Boy Inn, Bishop Auckland, and has entertained a number of visitors," said the paper. "She rejoices in the name of 'Lizzie the Beautiful', and is a perfect model of diminutive beauty. She is perfectly and proportionally formed, flaxen hair, pretty blue eyes, fair complexion, and a pleasing countenance. She is 21 years of age, and is only 37 inches in height."

IN early November 1890, when Darlington-born Frank Bostock was making a name for himself in America, one of his shows arrived in Darlington Market Place: "Bostock & Wombwell's Gigantic Double Menagerie, Museum and Exhibition of Strange and Curious People".

The advert in The Northern Echo said that the show "comprises 20 monster carriages, 60 powerful draught horses, and nearly 700 beasts, birds and reptiles". Although the advert doesn't mention it, this is said to be the first time a fair had been illuminated by the electric light, powered by a portable engine and dynamo.

It was two years since a Bostock and Wombwell tour had last been in Darlington, and it starred three lion tamers: Saragano, Captain Rowley and Mademoiselle Sherizade, who "will introduce the EQUESTRIAN LION 'Prince' who will ride around the arena on horseback".

The Echo carried a long, and what we might consider racist, interview with Saragano, "a Fiji islander, who performs the most daring, even reckless tasks, with his pets, the lions, tigers and wolves".

He said he was "a striking specimen of the black race, with well-shaped head, coal-black complexion, and moustache tall and well-sit figure, and dignified carriage, speaks English like a native, is conversant with five different dialects of the Fiji Islands, knows a smattering of French and German, and can speak Hindustan, Portuguese and Spanish".

Saragano was lucky he did not find himself displayed among the "Living Human Novelties", which Mr Bostock had apparently borrowed from the American showman, PT Barnum.

"They include Tattooed People, Hairy People, Indian Club Performers, Indian Snake Charmers, Bearded Ladies, Parisian Jugglers, and Barnum's Veritable Zulus, the only real and genuine Zulus ever seen exhibited in the provinces," said the advert.

It all makes I'm A Celebrity look rather tame...