Leonard Bentley
Piccadilly Circus: 1909
This is an anonymously published colourised postcard showing Piccadilly Circus looking north from the junction with Lower Regent Street towards Shaftesbury Avenue. Once again, the London Pavilion is the clue to the date, this is June or July 1909 and Paul Hutt alias Paul Conchas is top of the music hall bill. Paul Conchas was a German national and one of the few strong man jugglers who were very popular at the time, assisted by his partner Julius Newmann, he could balance a small field gun and carriage on his forehead, juggle with six canon balls and his signature act was juggling with three loaded (blanks) rifles with bayonets attached and firing each one whilst juggling them. He began his stage career in Berlin, always dressed in a Prussian military uniform with a pickelhaube crowned with an eagle, he came to London in 1902 and appeared mostly at the London Hippodrome. He died in New York in 1916, in his will he left the proceeds of the sale of his flat and contents in Berlin to the “Blind soldiers fund of Berlin”. The bus bottom left is advertising “Proset” which was a sparkling non-alcoholic fruit drink produced by Schweppes, in one of its advertising blurbs it was described, “Proset is the beverage famous everywhere on the Continent as “Sinalco” free from alcohol. It combines the flavours and health elements of many fruits. It is not a stimulant. It refreshes simply by overcoming and banishing the poisons of fatigue. It leaves the same fresh clean feeling in the mouth and throat as a perfect melon or grapefruit and gives one a delightful consciousness of buoyant freedom and well-being.” I want some!
Piccadilly Circus: 1909
This is an anonymously published colourised postcard showing Piccadilly Circus looking north from the junction with Lower Regent Street towards Shaftesbury Avenue. Once again, the London Pavilion is the clue to the date, this is June or July 1909 and Paul Hutt alias Paul Conchas is top of the music hall bill. Paul Conchas was a German national and one of the few strong man jugglers who were very popular at the time, assisted by his partner Julius Newmann, he could balance a small field gun and carriage on his forehead, juggle with six canon balls and his signature act was juggling with three loaded (blanks) rifles with bayonets attached and firing each one whilst juggling them. He began his stage career in Berlin, always dressed in a Prussian military uniform with a pickelhaube crowned with an eagle, he came to London in 1902 and appeared mostly at the London Hippodrome. He died in New York in 1916, in his will he left the proceeds of the sale of his flat and contents in Berlin to the “Blind soldiers fund of Berlin”. The bus bottom left is advertising “Proset” which was a sparkling non-alcoholic fruit drink produced by Schweppes, in one of its advertising blurbs it was described, “Proset is the beverage famous everywhere on the Continent as “Sinalco” free from alcohol. It combines the flavours and health elements of many fruits. It is not a stimulant. It refreshes simply by overcoming and banishing the poisons of fatigue. It leaves the same fresh clean feeling in the mouth and throat as a perfect melon or grapefruit and gives one a delightful consciousness of buoyant freedom and well-being.” I want some!