been removed, and that the authorities intended to close the building, the Sangers moved out. In 1851, the brothers took their show to The Great Exhibition fair in Knightsbridge, an event that, due to heavy rain, was a disappointment to the showmen. The fair was abandoned and the Sangers moved on to the north of England. After another successful season at Stepney Fair (with a 'tame oyster'), the brothers decided to start a circus. Their first purchase for the circus was a Welsh pony, for £7 and their assistants were two nieces, a nephew and four apprentices. In 1871, the Sanger brothers bought Astley's Amphitheatre for £11,000 and George Sanger ran it for 28 years until the London County Council ordered it to be closed in 1893. Sanger ended his professional relationship with his brother John in 1884. Later life From the 1880s, Sanger became active in defending the rights of showmen and was the president of the Van Dwellers Protection Association (which later became the Showmen's Guild of Great Britain). George Sanger built his Amphitheatre on the corner of High Street and George Street in Ramsgate, Kent, in 1883. Initially it was a circus building but was also used for opera and drama from its early days. The building was converted to a theatre in 1908 by Frank Matcham, a well known and prolific builder of theatres, and was renamed the Royal Palace Theatre. Films were also shown and in 1929 the theatre was equipped to facilitate talking movies. Films, variety and theatre continued until early 1961 when the last pint was pulled in Sangers Bar and the theatre was demolished along with the adjoining Sanger's Hotel. In 1903, he presented a statue of Queen Victoria to the town of Newbury, to stand in the same position occupied by his father's stall years before. In 1905, Sanger sold off his zoo and circus effects, auctioned by circus auctioneer Tom Norman. He retired to Park Farm in East Finchley, north London, and published an autobiography in 1910. Death On 28 November 1911 George Sanger was murdered with a hatchet at his home by employee Herbert Charles Cooper, for unknown reasons. Cooper then committed suicide on a railway line. Sanger was buried on 4 December next to his wife's grave in Margate. Works References Notes Footnotes Sources External links (Contains images of Sanger's Circus from around 1900) > (Vintage photographs of