Flashback: Unveiling the history of the Michaelmas Fair

It was a combination of cattle fair, hiring fair and pleasure fair.

The hiring took place in the yard of the Wheatsheaf.

Farm workers, looking to find a more generous employer, stood in a line, each wearing an emblem of their calling.

A carter would have worn a piece of plaited whipcord, a shepherd a tuft of wool, a cowman would have had hairs from a cow’s tail and a ploughman straw.

As the 19th century progressed, the cattle and hiring elements diminished and the event became predominantly, and later exclusively, a pleasure fair.

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It attracted a large influx of country visitors and showmen and comprised “a great number of shows, booths, and stalls in the Market Place and streets adjacent”.

In the 1830s small circuses visited the fair where “the spangled Misses of the circus, in silken smalls and mere abstracts of petticoats” attempted to lure potential customers into their tents.

Menageries also visited “with divers specimens of the wild and wonderful in nature”.

Thimble players and other tricksters tried their luck at the fair on their way to Weyhill Fair, while in some years “pickpockets were in abundance”.

The Reading Mercury gave a colourful description of the Basingstoke Michaelmas Fair in 1856: “The poker swallower beat his cymbals; the peep-show man his drum; the clown began his usual string of jokes; the ‘flying lady’ gave a very tantalising specimen of her powers outside; boys got giddy on the ‘round-about’ but declared they didn’t feel it; penny trumpets squeaked; the ‘wheel of fortune’ revolved; anxious pennies were expended at the ‘whirligig’ where a prize rewarded each adventurer; crackers exploded; loud and jolly laughs were heard at the ‘cheap-Jack’s’ jokes, and everybody seemed bent on buying and selling.”

The fairs other attractions included fire eaters and fortune tellers, Miss Price, the fat lady, Tommy the learned pony in 1841 whose place was taken in 1849 by Billy the learned pig who “manifested extraordinary powers in discovering the particular characteristics of his visitors”, the performing pony and the two dwarves.

In the evenings some of the pubs had fiddle players and other musicians where, by the help of “that stimulating beverage, beer”, the townsfolk and visitors from the country “contrived to dance most heartily until somewhat late in the evening”.

However, the Reading Mercury also described the Basingstoke Michaelmas Fairs as “a mere excuse in most cases for getting drunk and spending money” and in the morning after “the magistrates were engaged, as usual, in disposing of several cases, the ordinary results of the fair”. 

The “ordinary results” were charges against card sharps, proprietors of illegal gambling machines, pickpockets and prostitutes, as well as the usual drunk and disorderly.

After the Michaelmas Fair in 1831, there was a disturbance between “a desperate gang of gypsies, under the command of the noted Sam Ayres” and some country carters at the Horse and Jockey in Hackwood Road.

The landlord sent for the constables and in attempting to break up the fight “Mr Renouf, one of the constables ... was, knocked down and beat in a most shameful manner and had his watch stolen from him”. 

In 1863, John Wheeler, a visitor to the fair, was followed into an alley by Eliza Harvey, who “commenced pulling him about” and, while doing so, managed to steal his purse containing 11 shillings.

In 1868 the town council received a petition signed by about 120 of the more joyless residents of the town and neighbourhood that “the fair does much harm to the young men and women from the villages by gathering then together at an age when they have not learnt self-control, and at a time when they have just received the balance of the year’s wages, and thus places before them temptations to drink and debauchery which they are generally unable to resist”.

Councillor Soper said he had “for a long time witnessed the evil effects of the fairs. The evils were to be seen in the streets, but the worst evils were public house drinking and night revelling”.

The Town Clerk placed a notice in the local press that, after the present year 1868, the Michaelmas Fair would no longer be kept. Further notices were issued in 1869 and 1870.

Berkshire Chronicle, October 1, 1870 (Image: Newsquest)

Despite the ban, an unofficial Michaelmas Fair was started in 1870 in the Wheatsheaf meadow with stalls selling toys and gingerbread.

There were also rifle galleries, “shows, roundabouts, sparring booths and other attractions”. As a result, “large numbers of the agricultural population of the district visited the town, some of the streets being literally crowded”.

Berkshire Chronicle September 24, 1870 (Image: Newquest)

Some years later those stalls that could not find room in the Wheatsheaf meadow set up in the Market Place, apparently without any opposition from the authorities.

The shopkeepers welcomed the additional trade the fairs brought in.

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For many villagers this was their annual visit to Basingstoke, which they used to stock up on items of clothing and household items that were not available in their villages.

The Hants and Berks Gazette described the 1898 fair as having a switchback railway, roundabouts, shooting ranges, coconut shies, penny and twopenny shows, toy and gingerbread stalls. It added that at night “some of the larger proprietors lit up their roundabouts with the electric light to brilliant effect”.

The funfair continued well into the 20th century.