British Trade Tokens, Tickets and Passes

Bell & Hutchinson’s Great United States Circus, uniface copper, 3rd Class, 36mm, 10.85g (W –; cf. Schulman e6, 3696). Very fine, scarce £30-£50

Mac McCarthy Collection.

Bell & Hutchinson’s Great United States Circus, a partnership announced in April 1871 and which appeared to have run until late 1874, was one of several such United States Circus ventures which toured England and the continent in the 19th century. Contemporary reviews of its performances were not kind and it would appear that the principal proprietor, George Proctor Hutchinson (1827-98), whose circus career began in 1847, then went to work for the American circus owner James Washington Myers (1823-92)