Walking On The Ceiling

Will any manager, who's not a ninny,
To walk the stage give Roscius one poor guinea,
When he can double his receipts by dealing
With a man-fly, who walks upon the ceiling?
---James Robinson Planché, 1852

Awhile back I wrote a post about a snake charmer, Nala Damajanta, who was having a bit of trouble with her ex-manager, John Palmer. An advertisement that Palmer ran in the New York Clipper in 1884 mentioned that he was the son of James Palmer, "the celebrated ceiling walker." I could only find one small mention of him, a one-line obituary in The Era Almanack, which simply read : "Palmer, James. Ceiling Walker, [died] age 52, Dec. 24, [1883]."

Ceiling walking was often attributed to the forces of magnetism or "atmospheric pressure," a writer noted in Chambers's Journal in 1883. But it had more to do with cleverly-designed planks and shoes. Planks with special "traps" were attached to the theater ceiling, and into these "traps" fit the hooks or springs on the bottom of the acrobat's specially-designed boots. John Ayton Paris wrote in 1836 that ceiling walking was accomplished by attaching chains to the soles of a man's boots, pulling them through the special planks on the ceiling. Two or more people would hold the chains from above while the man shuffled along.

A London "Strong Man" told writer Henry Mayhew in the 1840s that the first man to ceiling-walk was a "dodge" or "wizard" called Herman; but Herman, like the other ceiling or air walkers I came across, was extremely hard to trace beyond the mention of his name.

The most celebrated of the ceiling walkers was not John Palmer's father, but a man known as Professor Sands. He may or may not have been the Richard Sands who designed the first circus poster in 1856, and ran a circus with one J.J. Nathan at that time. The circus poster, engraved by Joseph Morse, is below.

Professor Sands was killed during a performance in America, probably in the early 1850s. He had walked on a "marble slab in the circus," said Mayhew's Strong Man; then someone challenged Sands to do it on an ordinary ceiling. Sands took up the bet and went to the town hall, where the ceiling, not surprisingly, gave way. He broke his neck. Sands' assistant then took on his name and his special boots, and continued to perform as Professor Sands.

As early as the late 1850s ceiling walking was being mocked in the popular press, as being both sensational and laughable. One writer of the time described a street show put on by a ne'er-do-well named Bill:

When the white mouse, walking on the tight-rope, and carrying in its mouth a miniature balancing-pole, is caught by the wind, and blown over into an antipodal position, Bill announces that the little beast is imitating Signor Druirilani, the renowned ceiling-walker.

The author is making fun of the false-Italian stage names many acrobats adopted, such as Signor Antonio who ceiling-walked at the Queen's Theatre in London in December 1853. Drurilani refers to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, a famous London theater. Mr. Sands, "the American Air Walker" (probably Professor Sands' assistant) performed there in March 1853.*

Alfred M. Gillette, a performer with the Ringling Brothers' Circus, "was credited with originating the upside-down or 'ceiling-walking' act...50 years ago," according to his 1947 obituary in Billboard. But he was merely following a tradition nearly a century old.

The wonderful Barnum poster is from the Ringling Museum of Art. The lithograph of the ceiling walker is from Sports and Amusements For the Young Philosopher (1836), link at Google Books, here. Joseph Morse's 1856 woodcut poster of the Sands and Nathan circus is from the Library of Congress.

* The Drury Lane, as it is commonly known, is said to be haunted by no less than seven ghosts, including those of two famous Victorian clowns, Dan Leno and Joe Grimaldi (which suggests some future posts to me - Only the Dead Know London?).

SOURCES

"Athletes - Part II," Chambers's Journal (Vol. 60, W. and R. Chambers, 1883), p. 158.

Dramatic Register for 1853 (T. Hailes Lacy, 1854), p. 45 ["Ceiling Walking Wonders" advertisement] and p. 91.

Ledger, Edward. The Era Almanack, dramatic and musical 1883 (Era Almanack, 1883), p. 69.

Lewis, Robert M. From Traveling Show to Vaudeville: theatrical spectacle in America 1830-1910. (JHU Press, 2003), p. 120 [shows 1856 Sands-Nathan poster]

Mayhew, Henry. London Labour and the London Poor (London: Griffin, Bohn and Co., 1861 ed., orig. pub. 1851), p. 103. Interview with the "Strong Man" pp 98-104. Mayhew did the research for this groundbreaking book in the 1840s.

Paris, John Ayton. Sports and Amusements For the Young Philosopher (E. Hunt, 1836), p. 24.

Planché, James Robinson, et al. The Extravagances of J. Robinson Planché, Esq., 1825-1871 (S.French, 1879), p. 279.

"The Final Curtain," Billboard (Jun. 28, 1947), p. 47 [Gillette obituary].

Turner, Godfrey. "Pictures on the Pavement," The Train: A First-Class Magazine (Groombridge and Sons, 1858), p. 212.