{{unreferenced, date=February 2011 Salt (c. 1900-1952) and Sauce (c. 1900-1960) were once two of Britain's most famous and notorious performing

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...

s (various sources including "The English Circus and Fair Ground" by Sir Garrard Tywhitt-Drake).

Career

Salt and Sauce were owned and presented by some of the most famous show business people of their era. Their owners included

Carl Hagenbeck Carl Hagenbeck (10 June 1844 – 14 April 1913) was a Germans, German merchant of wild animals who supplied many European zoos, as well as P. T. Barnum. He created the modern zoo with animal enclosures without bars that were closer to their natu ...

George William Lockhart George William Lockhart (real name Locker, 1849 – 24 January 1904) was a Victorian era elephant trainer. His original group of three elephants, Boney (pronounced Bonnie), Molly and Waddy, toured Great Britain's music hall scene, as well as Europ ...

, Herbet "Captain Joe" Taylor, John "Broncho Bill" Swallow,

Dudley Zoo Dudley Zoological Gardens is a zoo located within the grounds of Dudley Castle in the town of Dudley, in the Black Country region of the West Midlands, England. The Zoo opened to the public on 18 May 1937. It contains 12 modernist animal enclosu ...

, Tom Fossett, Dennis Fossett, Harry Coady and

Billy Butlin Sir William Heygate Edmund Colborne Butlin (29 September 189912 June 1980) was a South African-born British entrepreneur whose name is synonymous with the British holiday camp.''#refRiverside, American Heritage Dictionary 2004'', p. 135.#refSc ...

. Their presenters included Ivor Rosaire and Emily Paulo. Formerly members and believed to be the longest surviving members of

's "Cruet", they were featured in various books, newspapers and magazines in their day, and are the focus of a book, ''The Legend of Salt and Sauce''. The elephants were famed for their vast array of tricks, but also feared for their temperamental moods. Sauce (known as "Saucy" most of the time) killed George William Lockhart (her owner and trainer) in an accident at Walthamstow Station and Salt killed William Aslett (an elephant groom) when she attacked him in 1957 on Rosaire's

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 unicyclist ...

Deaths

Despite Salt suffering dropsy symptoms that had already killed two other members of "The Cruet" she went on to live for five decades. Her death was well documented in the Cambridge local press (source: The Legend of Salt and Sauce) when she accidentally got stuck in Vauxhall Lake in Sturry, Canterbury, Kent, whilst touring with Ringland's Circus in 1952. After seven hours and with the aid of a crane she was freed from the lake, but suffered from

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

and died after a week. According to the local press over a hundred wreaths were left for her at the circus. It was predicted that her lifelong companion, Sauce, would die soon afterwards (source: Salt and Sauce were Separated by John D. Swallow), but she lived until 1960, dying from "natural causes".

Media featuring Salt and Sauce

Salt and Sauce were booked on numerous famous British circuses (source: "World's Fair", "King Pole" magazine, various programmes, "The Victorian Arena" by John Turner and "The Legend of Salt and Sauce" by Jamie Clubb). Confirmed buildings they worked in included The Lyceum, Norwich Hippodrome, Blackpool Tower, Great Yarmouth Hippodrome and

World's Fair A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...

Islington. Circuses included

Tom Sylvester Tom or TOM may refer to: * Tom (given name), a diminutive of Thomas or Tomás or an independent Aramaic given name (and a list of people with the name) Characters * Tom Anderson, a character in ''Beavis and Butt-Head'' * Tom Beck, a character ...

's, Bertram Mills' Circus, Billy Smart, Sr.'s Circus, Broncho Bill's Circus, Rosaire's Circus, Paulo's Circus, Ringland's Circus and Cody's Circus (Sauce only) among many others. According to an article written in the "World's Fair" newspaper, the two elephants were also featured in the film Elephant Boy.

Books featuring Salt and Sauce

*''Grey Titan: The Book of Elephants'', W. Bosworth and G. Lockhart, 1938 *''The English Circus and Fair Ground'', Sir Garrard Tyrwhitt-Drake, 1946 *''The English Circus'',

Ruth Manning-Sanders Ruth Manning-Sanders (21 August 1886 – 12 October 1988) was an English poet and author born in Wales, known for a series of children's books for which she collected and related fairy tales worldwide. She published over 90 books in her lifetime ...

, 1952 *''The Circus Has No Home'', Rupert Croft-Cooke *''Fairs and Circuses in the Black Country'', Ned Williams *''The Victorian Arena: The Performers'' Volumes 1 and 2, John Turner, 1995 and 2000 respectively *

The Legend of Salt and Sauce ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in E ...

, Jamie Clubb

Career

Deaths

Media featuring Salt and Sauce

Books featuring Salt and Sauce

See also