Buff Bill's Circus

written by J.P Browne

The Buff Bill in Buff Bill’s Circus was William Kayes. Born in Peebles, Scotland in 1856 the Kayes were even at that stage one of the many show business families that travelled around the country performing in fairs and music halls. The fifth child in a family of ten siblings William was trained from an early age in a skill that would give him a trade as an entertainer learning knife throwing and sharp-shooting. Becoming a double act along with this brother Richard (known as the Great Ricardo) they performed a cowboy act which were popular at the time due to the popularity of performers like Buffalo Bill who toured Britain with his circus in 1887 and came back several times after, due to popular demand (National Fairground and Circus Archive, 2018). At some stage Buff Bill and the Great Ricardo got their own tent and like their family before them they started putting on shows at fairs and other places making good money. Their usual tramping ground being the north of England. Their show was extremely successful as over the following seasons they were able to add several big cats to the line-up as well as a pony show.

Sometime in the late 1890’s Buff Bill and his brother seemed to have parted ways which was a normal part of circus life as performers left when they either got married or they started a family. Buff Bill now calling his show Buff Bill’s Wild West Show became Buff Bill’s Circus during the 1899 season. The same year that Buff Bill’s became a circus, William 'Buff Bill' Kayes himself also became a married man for the second time, marrying Elizabeth Baker. The Bakers were a well-established Circus family and it may have been Elizabeth who influenced Bill to make the leap to becoming a full-size circus.

Buff Bill had been married before and had at this stage had three children William Jnr, Timothy and Helen. Unfortunately, we don’t know what happened to his first wife, a lady called Harriet Reader but most likely she died, but when and how are unfortunately lost to us. Regardless by 1899 William Kayes was married again to Elizabeth Baker a superb circus performer in her own right being able to tight-rope walk, dance as well as Juggle. Buff Bill himself was a most able sharp-shooter and knife thrower his specialty being able to throw six knives into a cigarette card (Weaste Cemetery Heritage Trail,2018).

They also trained their children up in the trade with William Junior becoming well known as the ‘Great Macomo’. William and his brother had seemed to have performed in Ireland on numerous occasions as an act which may explain why Buff Bill felt comfortable enough to bring his Circus to Ireland at the early part of the 20^th century because in 1907 Biff Bills Circus decided to come to Ireland to tour here announcing their coming arrival in the Irish Independent newspaper on July 6th.

American Circus for Dublin

Mr. Buff Bill who in the proprietor of a great American circus and menagerie, is at present on tour in Great Britain and will visit Dublin shortly. Mr Buff Bill brings with him Master Tomassi, the renowned American rough-rider of the world.” In addition the circus includes a “female human serpent,” who is described as a boneless wonder, and who is said to be a mystery to the leading medical experts of the day. In addition to numerous other attractions the circus is accompanied on tour by an Indian snake charmer, who charms at each performance some of the finest specimens of reptiles in captivity. A pack of “educated” wolves form part of the menagerie. Many will look forward with interest to Mr. Buff Bill’s visit to this city. Fuller details of the performances will appear later (Irish Independent, Jul. 6th 1907).

The Circus here in Ireland did not get off an auspicious start. Only weeks after landing in Ireland a mini-riot took place in the circus ground at Balbriggan, Co. Dublin.  According to the Irish Independent “The circus came to the town on Saturday morning and at night gave an entertainment at which large crowds were present. During the show some local men got into disfavor with the circus officials by trying to obtain admission to some of the side shows against the wishes of those in charge. Just as the performance was over about 11 p.m. a scuffle took place at a side show, where a very large rat was being exhibited, and in a few minutes a general fight took place in which upwards of 200 persons, were engaged.” (Irish Independent, 22 July 1907).  Unfortunately, these types of events were not rare for circuses to face and could lead to someone being killed or livelihoods destroyed, as would happen to the Paulo Families Circus a few years after this incident. The Duffy Circus when faced with a similar event in Coalisland, Co. Tyrone charged into the crowd with horses, and faced a few years later with a similar event in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford they charged the crowd again that time riding elephants. William Kayes because of the proximity of the people involved had a more eloquent way of dealing with his rioters.

He shot them.

Luckily no one was killed but several men were badly wounded. Two men both called Rath were the worst wounded one being shot in the neck and the other in the arm. Others were less seriously wounded. The same reporter writing about the aftermath the next day stated “in the town there were many traces of the fight in the shape of bandaged heads etc.”

Buff Bill and his brother-in-law Thomas Baker were arrested for the incident but were never charged. Unfortunately for the Buff Bills Circus they were not so lucky when a similar incident happened two years later in Ballaghadereen, Co. Roscommon. The incident seems to have stemmed from an argument about money with the people whose field the circus was on demanding an extra 10 shillings then was previously agreed. What happened next is conjecture but there are two theories. The first theory is when the extra money was not forthcoming one of the aggrieved farmer’s party waited until the circus began and then started a false alarm stating that a Lion had gotten loose. The second theory is that the “a lion has gotten loose shout” was a ploy used by the circus when things looked ugly. Many a belligerent drunk will happily face down another human but coming face to face with a lion is another thing completely. It had been shouted at Balbriggan to try and deter the rioters and failing that Buff Bill had to fire at the crowd. Perhaps one of the circus folk seeing that things were getting ugly with the farmer and his cronies demanding more money gave the alarm?

If that was the case then it backfired spectacularly.  In the ensuing panic a huge amount of damage was done. A report from the local sergeant who investigated stated that he visited the scene and saw “90 feet, of the tent canvas cut and torn, lamps broken, ropes cut up, carriage windows smashed, and the carriages injured and indented.” About £60 worth of damage was done, a massive sum at the time. Unfortunately, the judge who heard the case for compensation was not a sympathetic one. He refuted the charges saying “that the injury was not caused by malice, but by the people escaping in terror from the show owing to a false alarm…the breaking of the windows he believed to have been maliciously done by people who would not got their money back, on account of there being no performance… The judge further remarked that he always found circuses most popular in every part of Ireland that he knew” (Freeman Journal, 1909). In the end Buff Bills Circus was given 30 shillings for the carriage windows that were broken with stones and nothing for the tent damage.

Ironically in 1914 a lioness actually did escape from Buff Bills Circus. It happened in Kilcormac, Co. Offaly with search parties having to set out after her. The Donegal News reported that along with the police, “Buff Bill himself who carried a colt revolver, spread out in pursuit of the beast” (Donegal News, 1914).  Obviously, the rest of the circus folk went after her as well and she was lucky to be taken alive with a net rather than being shot dead. No doubt she was star attraction that night in Kilcormac where the locals could see the terror herself up-close with all publicity being good publicity.

Reputedly a circus owner who was having a bad season once came to a village and stated that he was near bankruptcy thereby if he didn’t get a good crowd that night he would regrettably have to release all his lions into the wild around that village. Needless to say, that night he got a full-house. Could this be where the story comes from?

There were other things for a circus to look out for. For example, in 1912 in Buncrana, Co. Donegal a circus member who was sent to bring back three ponies who had wandered from their pasture was shocked to find them shorn of their tails and manes. This type of behavior was done several times before to various circuses usually by an offended farmer or someone else that had a grudge against a circus. This is a particularly cruel thing to do to a horse as horses need their tails to communicate, for warmth in winter and to swat insects during the summer months. It can also take up to a year for a tail to grow back. One owner who had his horse’s tail stolen after being cut off nearly to the bony tip, said, “stealing its tail is like cutting off a person’s limb” (Coates, 2018). The thieves in this case were two local youths called Matthew Longwill and James Doherty. Apparently the two youths wanted to see the circus but being short of funds saw the three ponies and cut the tails and manes off them before selling them to a local dealer. With the money the dealer gave them they then bought tickets to the circus to watch the ponies they had maimed just hours earlier.

In this particular case both boys were arrested after an investigation (and after they had watched the circus show). Buff Bills Circus estimated the damage done to the poor ponies was yet another £60 (Freeman Journal, 1912). It must have galled the Kayes and other circus folk that people could cause significant damage to a circus and its property but the courts did very little to up-hold their cause. In the case of the pony cutting, Longwill and Doherty both being minors were let off with a court warning for the damage caused.

On the other hand, if a circus was brought to court then that company could face stiffer penalties than a local. The Nenagh Guardian brought up such a disparity when the Circus was brought to court in 1908 for working a worn-out horse and apparently ‘stealing goslings’. “Prosecutions for cruelty were recently "heard, but the "impositions" were merely nominal except in the case of Buff Bill, the circus man, who was fined 15s, though the local "boy" was let off with a shilling! Between goslings and worn-out horses "Buff Bill" will have cause to remember his visit to the Midlands” (Nenagh Guardian, 1908).

Luckily for the circus there could be times when a little revenge could be gotten. For example, in Westport in 1914 a bailiff called Whiskers Joyce who had gotten a decree against the circus for an unpaid bill decided to make a public example of the circus by seizing property belonging to it in front of everybody at the circus parade been held there and while a public example was made it wasn’t the one that Whiskers Joyce expected. It seems Joyce tried to seize Buff Bill’s horse while he was riding it during the parade. This led to Joyce being publicly pistol whipped by a member of the Buff Bill company rather severely in front of the good people of Westport (Connacht Tribune, 1914). The bill was then paid later that day. 

The other momentous event that had happened in 1914 was the outbreak of World War I and the Kayes being a patriotic family was determined to play their part. The Buff Bill’s Circus was now being ran by Elizabeth Kayes, Buff Bill’s wife. William Kayes suffering from an eye disease gradually lost his sight over a number of years with his wife taking more and more responsibilities until she was running the entire circus sometime after 1910. 

We can tell from a fairly mild rat sheet by the Fossett Family under the name of Heckenberg’s Circus brought out in the Connacht Tribune in June, 1914 that Buff Bill’s Circus toured the 1914 summer season but sometime between 1915 and 1916 they made their way back to England.

During the 1915 season when competing with Duffy’s Circus in an unnamed town, Lena Kayes and James Duffy (a co-owner of Duffy’s Circus) got engaged. This was after James Duffy had ‘invaded’ the town where they were about to appear in, and plastered over the Buff Bill Circus posters with his own. Buff Bill doesn’t seem to have minded as he’s quoted to have said “You’re a real man, Duffy. I’ll give you a thousand pounds if you marry my daughter’”. The thousand pounds being her dowry (Sunday independent, 1971).

The Great War hit the circus hard like it hit all other circuses. Though it seems to hit Buff Bills harder than most. His three sons were all called up to the front seeing active duty with Timothy Kayes losing a leg in 1918 (The World’s Fair, 1918).  But it wasn’t only the sons who were called up. Johnny Quinn a famous clown and top-performer had left Buff Bills in 1914 volunteering for duty with the Royal Munster Fusiliers spending over two years fighting at the front mainly in the Dardanelles before being transferred to other duties in Tipperary (Ward, page 136). Captain Albert Williams their musical director was called up and served as musical director putting on concerts for the troops at home (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 1918).

With entertainment being a large part of keeping up morale in 1916 Lizzie Baker-Kayes, Buff Bill’s wife and mother of ten decided to do something particularly daring. She became a lion-tamer. The Yorkshire Evening Post wrote the story “Faced with the responsibility of keeping the show on the road (and the keep of the Lions it was no insignificant item, by the way), the proprietors (Buff Bill) were in a fix. The show, since the departure of the three brothers, has wandered around the vicinity of Leeds like a ship without a rudder. Mr. Wm. Kayes, who is 70 years old, is afflicted with defective vision, which, apart from his age, would in its self prevent him from going into the lions’ cage to put them through their usual performance. Then Mrs. Kayes, who has still six younger children left at home, determined that she would do her most to keep the show on the road, and took the show people by surprise and astonishment by announcing her determination to assume the role of lion tamer…The circus and menagerie has been located at Castleford during the early part of this week, and before the awe stricken audience, Mrs. Kayes boldly entered the cages of the two distinct groups of lions, and successfully put them through their paces.” Thank God,” she exclaimed as she made her exit from the huge lion with an awkward turn of temper, “I’ve done it, and the show will carry on” (Yorkshire Evening Post, 1916).

The show did continue but not as a circus. With a lack of men and horses to move stuff the circus was shelved for the duration of the war with Mrs. Kayes doing music hall or other entertainment engagements rather than a full-blown circus. As she stated herself “Candidly, I’m not fond of the job, but it’s either a case of going on showing, or of shooting the animals, for you cannot sell them now” (Nevil, 2004).

With the end of World War 1 Buff Bills Circus did not appear back on the road. With his eye-sight now practically gone Buff Bill retired. Mrs. Kayes with six children to rear stayed with him with the older siblings going off and joining other circuses that had reappeared around Britain. Arthur Kayes a clown and his brother Tommy a lion tamer joined Bostock's Circus, and Johnny joined the Great Carmo’s Circus in Ireland as a rider. But the Kayes never forgot Ireland.

Buff Bill himself died in 1933. Two of the Kayes Brother,s Jimmy and Johnny who having worked through the intervening years and completed their apprenticeship, had now become a headline act. Billed as the Riding Ranleighs they were topping some of the biggest shows in Britain and Europe and they were in Belgium when World War 2 broke out.

Managing to get back, both men enlisted in the army with Jimmy seeing heavy fighting with the R.A.F in Greece and Palestine. In 1946 both brothers had come through the war unscathed and were looking for what to do next. Both had good horses for their act and the death of their eldest brother Tommy in 1946 meant they inherited his lions letting them put on his fighting Lion Act if they wanted to. But as one of the brothers stated later ‘we soon found they had more animals than work’ (Nevil, 2004). After one-year tenting with another show both brothers decided to strike out together setting up their own circus. Johnny was now a full-time lion-tamer and Jimmy became producer and ringmaster. They imaginatively called their new circus the Kayes Brothers' Circus.

The show quickly gained a reputation for excellence and in 1952 decided to refollow their father’s footsteps and once again crossed over to Ireland. As the Kayes Brothers were an unknown quantity over in Ireland and their parents show was known and well-liked by the Irish public both brothers decided to use name the circus from the Kayes Brother’s Circus to Buff Bills Circus in memory of their late father who had died in 1933.  

Their first gig back in Ireland was playing at the King's Hall, Belfast, for the Christmas Shows of 1952/53. That year they went tenting and as usual seemed to have run into the usual trial and tribulations that circuses have in Ireland. In Ballymahon, Co. Longford their tent was wrecked by a storm which upset their schedule but no injuries occurred.

A year later they were also sued by man named John T. Brady when he fell off the top row of the seats in their circus. He was sitting on the top seats and when, at the end of the performance the National Anthem was being played Mr. Brady promptly stood up and fell down. The case dragged on for three years before the Kayes were found innocent (Anglo-Celt, 1957).

Another event that stuck in people’s mind was a fairly spectacular car crash that the circus had in Dungannon, Co. Tyrone in 1954 when several trucks belonging to the Kayes capsized and rammed into shop fronts in Irish Street. Amazingly no one was hurt but it did make for an interesting day as people who had come to watch the show exchanged stories of how they were nearly killed (Irishidentity.com, 2018).

Overall the new version of Buff Bill’s Circus was thought of just as highly as their parents was, as this description of them entering Galway City shows. “The Mayor, Ald. P. Greene, formally opened the Kayes Bros. Buff Bill's Circus at South Park, Galway, on Saturday. It was the first 'Circus to be held at that venue for many years, an it showed for two days. The city had its first Circus parade since, pre-war- days on Sunday when the Circus artistes and menagerie paraded through the main streets; led by; the Guth na n-Og Pipers' Band and Mr. Johnny Kayes, joint owner, on horse-back. The "big top" brought music and a breath of the jungle to South Park as the outfit included a large menagerie of wild animals, lions, bears, baboons and monkeys. Highlights of the programme were displays' of strength by a German troupe, the performances of the Liberty horse string and a trapeze act” (Connacht Tribune, 1956).

Buff Bills Circus ended in 1957 when Jimmy Kayes decided he wanted a quieter life leaving the Circus behind him and going into Fairgrounds instead. Most of the equipment was sold to circus proprietor Billy Mack and was the foundation for Circus Hoffman. Jimmy kept three lions and assisted by his brother Arthur Kayes mainly worked the fairgrounds until caged animals were banned from fairgrounds in 1967. He later ran a Zoo and Pets’ Corner at “Ramsgate's Merrie England” (Barnes, 1998). Retiring to Scotland Jimmy Kayes occasionally came out of retirement to perform as a ringmaster, a job he did in his own show with aplomb for Circuses who performed in the Glasgow area such as the Robert Brothers' Circus at Kelvin Hall. In 2001 he received a special Lifetime Achievement Award by The World's Fair. He died in 2004 of natural causes.

As for the rest of the Kayes family Tommy Kayes died in 1946. Violette had a career as a lady rider. Patie Kayes married out of the business. Cilla Kayes died aged 82. Arthur Kayes went to Seaton Corew and finally managed an amusement park in Seaburn, England. Johnny Kayes went to Denmark and opened a riding school, but came back to Olympia to take over ‘Knie's Football Dogs’ and later worked with Hoffman’s Circus (Barnes, 1998).

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