Gerald Ward Cottle (7 April 1945 – 13 January 2021) was a British

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclis ...

owner and the owner of the

Wookey Hole Caves Wookey is a village and civil parish west of Wells, on the River Axe in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. The parish includes the village of Henton and the nearby hamlets of Yarley and Bleadney where the River Axe travels the length ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. He presented the

Moscow State Circus The title Moscow State Circus is used for a variety of circuses. Most commonly, it refers to one of the two circus buildings in Moscow, the " Circus Nikulin" (the old circus, featuring animal acts) and the "Bolshoi Circus" (the new circus, feat ...

and Chinese State Circus in Britain, founded Gerry Cottle's Circus, and co-founded The Circus of Horrors.

Early life

Gerry Cottle was born in

Carshalton Carshalton () is a town, with a historic village centre, in south London, England, within the London Borough of Sutton. It is situated south-southwest of Charing Cross, in the valley of the River Wandle, one of the sources of which is Carshalto ...

, Surrey. His father was a stockbroker and grand-master in the Freemasons. Gerry Cottle was educated at

Rutlish School Rutlish School is a state comprehensive school for boys, formerly a grammar school with the same name originally located on Rutlish Road, Merton Park, and relocated in 1957 on nearby Watery Lane, Merton Park, in southwest London. History The sc ...

Merton Park Merton Park is a suburb in the London Borough of Merton. It is situated between Colliers Wood, Morden, South Wimbledon and Raynes Park. It is 11 miles (11.7 km) southwest of Charing Cross. The area is part of the historic parish of Merton ...

, south London and left home in 1961 at the age of 16 to join the Robert Brothers Circus.

Circus career

Cottle started by doing menial tasks, but worked his way up to have his own

juggling Juggling is a physical skill, performed by a juggler, involving the manipulation of objects for recreation, entertainment, art or sport. The most recognizable form of juggling is toss juggling. Juggling can be the manipulation of one object ...

act, billed as ''Gerry Melville the Teenage Juggler'', and then to own his own show, which opened in July 1970, with just five performers. He established his Big Top in 1974 and ran it until 2003. By the mid-1970s the Gerry Cottle Circus was touring Britain with three shows. In 1975 he purchased a unimproved plot in Surrey for £40,000 and lived there for 30 years, eventually selling it for £3m. He also presented the

and Chinese State Circus in Britain. In 1995, he co-created The Circus of Horrors with Doktor Haze which debuted at the Glastonbury Festival and has toured the world since then. This was a collaborative venture with Archaos, a French

contemporary circus Contemporary circus (also known as new circus, and ''nouveau cirque'' and ''cirque contemporain'' in French-speaking countries) is a genre of performing arts developed in the late 20th century in which a story or theme is conveyed through traditio ...

. In 2003 he auctioned off much of his circus paraphernalia in order to concentrate on running

, a tourist attraction in

. In 2012 he celebrated fifty years in the business with a new show, ''Turbo Circus: 50 Acts In 100 Minutes'', on a 31-week tour. Cottle and his Magic Circus undertook another months-long tour in 2017.

Animal acts

Gerry Cottle's Circus originally toured with a variety of animals including horses, zebras, elephants, lions, tigers, monkeys, and llamas. The 1980s saw an increase in public opinion against animal acts. Cottle sold his last elephant and by the end of 1993 had a non-animal circus. In 2012 he said that he now reluctantly supports the ban on circus animal acts, which he says will improve the image of circuses in Britain.

Wookey Hole

After purchasing Wookey Hole Caves, a tourist attraction that featured show caves, penny arcades and restaurants, he added a theatre, circus museum, hotel and circus school. At the latter, local youth were trained in a wide range of circus skills, and performed at the theatre and in Cottle's touring show ''Turbo Circus''.

Personal life

He married Betty Fossett, youngest daughter of circus showman Jim Fossett, in 1968. The couple had three daughters and a son. In the 1980s he became addicted to cocaine and was jailed. His daughters set up Cottle Sisters Circus. He was separated from Betty and had another partner, Anna Carter of

Carters Steam Fair Carters Steam Fair (no apostrophe is used in the name) was a travelling vintage fair. Founded in 1977 by John Carter (1942–2000), this family business is now managed by the second generation of Carters. Carters operated and maintained a large ...

. They had also separated. Cottle was the guest for BBC Radio 4's ''

Desert Island Discs ''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a "castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usua ...

'' on 15 September 1984. His choices included the "

Radetzky March "Radetzky March", Op. 228, is a march composed by Johann Strauss Sr. and dedicated to Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radetz. First performed on 31 August 1848 in Vienna, it soon became popular among regimented marching soldiers. It has bee ...

" by Johann Strauss Sr., and ''

Help! ''Help!'' is the fifth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles and the soundtrack to their film of the same name. It was released on 6 August 1965. Seven of the fourteen songs, including the singles " Help!" and " Ticket to Ride", ...

'' by the Beatles. His favourite was " American Pie" by

Don McLean Donald McLean III (born October 2, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for his 1971 hit song " American Pie", an eight-and-a-half-minute folk rock "cultural touchstone" about the loss of innocence of the early ...

Death

Cottle died in hospital in Bath, Somerset, in January 2021, aged 75, after contracting

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. "Gerry Cottle: Somerset circus star dies with coronavirus", ''BBC News''
Retrieved 14 January 2021

References

External links

Wookey Hole Caves

"Confessions of a Showman: My Life in the Circus"
by Gerry Cottle with Helen Batten at

Goodreads Goodreads is an American social cataloging website and a subsidiary of Amazon that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and read ...

"Gerry Cottle, circus showman, dies of coronavirus at 75"
- obituary at ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Cottle, Gerry 1945 births 2021 deaths Circus owners Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in England People educated at Rutlish School People from Carshalton