John Anderson: The Wizard of the North
September 2005
JOHN ANDERSON: Apprentice blacksmith who dreamed of the stage
by Gilly Pickup
John Henry Anderson, a tenant farmer’s son, was born at Craigmyle, near Aberdeen on 14 July 1814. Orphaned at an early age, he was apprenticed to the local blacksmith. But John was an ambitious young lad who dreamed of becoming an actor. When a group of touring players arrived in the area, he fell under their spell; entranced by their devil-me-care lifestyle, John left the area with them.
His new lifestyle suited him down to the ground. He discovered he had a natural talent for acting and appeared on stage with a travelling dramatic company in 1830. But when John saw his first magic act he was enraptured. He knew he was destined to be a magician. Straightaway he began to make and acquire apparatus to put together a show and enthusiastically started to develop his own special brand of magic.
A few years further down the line he made his debut as a magician in Aberdeen, and by March, 1837, he was exhilarated to receive £10 for a performance at Brechin Castle at Lord Panmure’s behest. Even better was the endorsement he was given which he then quoted on his advertising material; “I have no hesitation in saying that you far excel any other necromancer that I have ever seen, either at home or abroad.”
This commendation was to mark the start of his extravagant advertising campaign and he was to become “the greatest exponent of publicity and promotion in the history of magic”. He certainly pulled out all the stops when it came to advertising techniques – even to the extent of sending special moulds to dairymen, so that butter pats with the inscription Anderson is here could be issued to hotels in the towns where he appeared.
Towards the end of 1837, seasons at Edinburgh followed, and he played Glasgow in 1838–39. At this time Anderson was billing himself as The Great Caledonian Conjuror and it was not until around 1840 that he emerged as The Great Wizard of the North, a title he claimed, without basis, had been bequeathed to him by that literary magician, Sir Walter Scott, the original Wizard of the North.
Flamboyant Anderson, a showman in the grand manner, was said to be the first conjuror to produce rabbits from a hat. His tricks and illusions included the Inexhaustible Bottle, which appeared to produce any drink requested by the members of the audience. The Great Gun Trick, described as ‘the most wonderful feat ever attempted by man’ – in which Anderson was seemingly able to catch a bullet fired at him from a musket – was always kept as the finale of his act in order that ‘ladies might withdraw, to avoid witnessing it’.
Anderson put much of the profits from his tours into the building of the new Glasgow City Theatre, in the Saltmarket on Glasgow Green. This enormous structure was “the biggest and most magnificent that Glasgow had ever seen”. It could hold 5,000 people and was said to be unequalled in the country for its interior splendour. The opening of the theatre coincided with the start of the city fair in July 1845 and the pit, which could hold 3,000 customers, was “crammed even to inconvenience”. Its success was short lived, however, because after five months disaster struck. On 18 November the theatre was burned to the ground. Anderson was under-insured and despite help from subscriptions and benefit performances held by friendly theatre owners, he was badly in debt and had to start touring again in order to revive his fortunes.
Anderson was a master publicist, a true mover and shaker of his time. He was certainly the first magician to demonstrate and take advantage of the value of advertising. He arranged elaborate street parades, produced glitzy posters and took advertising to a new level by painting the words ‘Anderson is Coming’ on pavements. His self promotion knew no bounds; he made exaggerated claims and went to the most incredible lengths to gain exposure for his shows; people paraded the streets carrying gaudy banners announcing the arrival of ‘The Celebrated Anderson’, so not surprisingly, he caused great excitement in London when he first played there in 1848.
One of the highlights of his career came the following year when he was summoned to Balmoral Castle to give a command performance for Queen Victoria.
In 1851 he toured America and such was the success of his publicity machine that a quarter of a million people saw him during his run at the Broadway Theatre in New York. He opened an exhibition of sleight-of-hand at Triplet Hall, as ‘Professor Anderson, the Wizard of the North.’ He went on to travel extensively in Canada and most European countries and was one of the first showbusiness acts to perform in Russia.
Disaster struck when another fire, at the Covent Garden Theatre in London which he had leased in 1856, plunged Anderson even more deeply into debt.
Undeterred, he continued to tour with his magic show as successfully as ever, as an article from a London magazine of the day, The Era, testified in September 1865: ‘Professor Anderson continues to cajole watches from boxes securely locked, and to bewilder the admiring public in the most inexplicable manner’.
John Henry Anderson toured right up until his death in Darlington on 3 February 1874. He was brought back to his beloved native Scotland, and lies buried in St Nicholas churchyard in Aberdeen.
GILLY PICKUP is a Gable Ender [a Montrosian], travelholic and animal lover. Ex-researcher in the House of Commons, she has written widely on Scotland, alternative medicine and the paranormal.
This is an article from the September 2005 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, see our subscription details.