Tricks Gallery

Suffragettes Pankhurst and Gawthorpe Rutland 1907

Christabel Pankhurst and Mary Gawthorpe in the Market Place, Uppingham, holding a meeting during the 1907 Rutland bye-election. The campaign saw Mary Gawthorpe the victim of dirty tricks by supporters of the Liberal candidate, W.F Lyons. Sylvia Pankhurst later gave an account of an incident when Mary was struck on the head by a pot-egg (a china dummy egg) and knocked unconscious. Youths were apparently paid by a wealthy Liberal supporter to hurl sweets at suffragette speakers (see Votes for Women 6th August 1909) Polling was held on11th Juneand the Conservative was duly elected. Date: 1907

© The March of the Women Collection / Mary Evans Picture Library

Dreamland with Chevalier Ernest Thorn

Dreamland with Chevalier Ernest Thorn (22nd September 1853 -21st May 1928) was a touring magician and inventor from Austria. After first being an assistant to Bellachini, he made extensive tours of Europe, America and the Orient. He was assisted by his wife Julia. His act An Hour in Dreamland introduced a number of his creations. Among his innovations was the cremation illusion in which his assistant vanished in flames as she stood within an asbestos curtain. Another was "Noah's Ark" in which a model of the Ark, first shown empty, produced various animals, climaxing in the production of Noah's wife. The image shows a black and white photograph of Thorn asleep in a chair surrounded by an illustrative dreamlike scene. This features a woman floating behind him with a flowing dress and a white dove flying beside her. Date: 1800s, 1900s

© The Michael Diamond Collection / Mary Evans Picture Library

Flying the Flume at Crystal Palace 1904

French Mademoiselle Dutrien (le fleche humaine), the human arrow, performing at Crystal Palace, London. After riding down a curving track on her bicycle which falls some seventy feet (without a helmet!) an angle of over fifty degrees, utilises the great velocity thus gained by jumping a non-existent gap and spinning through the air of between thirty and forty feet, landing opposite side of where she began. Date: 1904

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans