Mary Ellen Snape – Travelling Performer

August 04, 2025

Mary Ellen was born on 24 October 1880 in Dalkeith, Midlothian. She was the eldest child of Robert Freeman, a “dolly stall keeper”, and his wife Amelia Manders, a hobby horse stall proprietor. Mary Ellen was at least the third generation of performers in her family, having been born into the life of travelling show-folk. The scope of their travels is demonstrated by the fact that their next child, Nancy, was born in Plymouth.

Manders Travelling Circus

The name of ‘Manders’ was famous across the country for a travelling circus and wild beast show, which bore the name “Manders Royal Menagerie” and which visited every corner of Great Britain. Amongst its many attractions was an elephant who performed as a solo pianist. Manders show was acknowledged to be the largest travelling menagerie in the country. Immediately prior to the death of its originator, William Manders (a cousin of Mary Ellen’s mother), the French Government was in negotiation to purchase it as a going concern, in order to place it permanently on display in the botanical gardens in Paris. William’s death in 1871 frustrated those plans.

Various members of the family continued the travelling menagerie in one form or another for many years, well into the 20^th century. In addition to the famous menagerie there were other Manders shows run by the extended family. Mary Ellen’s branch of the family were proprietors of Manders Royal Moving Wax Show and the Manders Grand Star circus.

As with any family of travelling performers, the business required all hands on deck and every able-bodied family member was expected to take a share of the work. The effort involved in hauling, unpacking and erecting a travelling show was immense, and every time a fair came to an end the process had to be reversed, in all weathers. Pulling heavy wagons by horse through mud on poor roads in bad weather required incredible endurance and stamina.

Children were brought into the business from a young age – there are records of children in Mary Ellen’s extended family performing on stage as young as three years of age. The 19^th century saw various laws enacted to regulate the hours that could be worked by children, but evidence suggests that this was honoured more in the breach than the observance in the families working in travelling shows. Mary Ellen would have been pressed into service early, although she and her siblings all appear to have attended school when possible – not an easy thing to accomplish when you are rarely at one place for more than a week or two.

Flexibility (in all senses) was key to supporting the family endeavours: Mary Ellen was a gymnast, a tight-rope walker and an actress at various points in her show career. She is said to have performed acrobatics on horseback and to have walked the tightrope whilst carrying her younger brother on her shoulders.

The family and their employees lived in horse-drawn wagons. As families grew the wagons either became very crowded or else the family was put to the expense of purchasing another wagon and – even more costly – another horse to draw it. For this reason it was not unusual for children to be stowed in the external pull-out storage drawers beneath the chassis of the wagon at night when space ran out inside.

When the worst of winter struck it was customary for the extended family and their employees to join the many other travellers who rested up and dug in for the winter at Vinegar Hill in Glasgow. It was there that William Manders, the proprietor of the famous wild beast show, died in 1871, and there also that Mary Ellen’s mother Amelia died in 1908. Why they chose to go north for the winter, rather than south, is unknown, but it was a custom dear to many travellers well into the twentieth century.

Mary Ellen married John William Snape in 1900, in Falkirk. John was an actor, violinist and composer, and was himself a third generation performer. He supported the musical side of his family’s travelling theatre, which no doubt crossed paths with the Manders shows often enough for the couple to have become well acquainted. It would have been unusual for show folk to marry outside the ‘business’.

Initially they lived in Scotland, where 14 of their 15 children were born (and now we may understand why Mary Ellen exchanged the thrill and danger of the circus arena for the relative safety of the theatrical stage). They both continued to work with a branch of the Snape family theatre, the “Star Theare”, which toured only in Scotland. Having married, they relinquished wagon life in favour of bricks and mortar, possibly in deference to Mary Ellen’s repeated confinements.

They moved to live in Foster Hill Road in Bedford in about 1924, and their last child was born in Bedford the following year. John had taken an appointment with the orchestra in Bedford. Their house was demolished some years ago to make way for the new roundabout in Foster Hill Road, but Mary Ellen and John now lie just a stone’s throw from where they finally settled. Grave ref. S-975