“Born and brought up through childhood with wild animals for playmates”, Frank C. Bostock was no ordinary child. From the age of 15, he became the “Boy Trainer” for his parents’ travelling menagerie, and went on to become a pioneers of showbiz across Britain - before monopolising the prime real estate of Dreamland in Coney Island with his epic displays. From fighting the world’s first boxing kangaroo to fishing one of his performing lions out of the sewers of Birmingham, Bostock’s career was a rollercoaster ride of success, disaster and death.
Also this week - a debate on the merits of “ragging” at universities, and an Australian poem (-?).
Yesterday's Chip Paper is the history podcast where your hosts, Jim and Violet, scour historical newspaper archives and unearth forgotten stories. From mad scientists to murderers, elaborate con artists to the elaborately conned, the only limit to what we can find is that someone, somewhere has to have written about it.
You can find us on Facebook and Twitter @paperpodcast, and on email at chippaperpodcast@gmail.com
Archives used in this episode:
https://britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/
Other sources:
https://archive.org/details/trainingofwildan00bostuoft/page/48
http://www.bostock.net/tree/bostgen/names/leek/frank1866.html
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/nfca/projects/frankbostockbio
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