Galloping horses….

Anyone who has been to Brighton will recognize this carousel, the Golden Gallopers which is an amazing one hundred and twenty-seven years old. It was built in 1888 by Frederick Savage who was the person who invented the mechanical fairground ride which not only went round and round but went up and down as well. Frederick had designed this first carousel in 1870; before that, the wooden horses were attached to chains suspended from a circular frame which went round and round and swung out, but it’s the up and down which made it so much more exciting and more like a real galloping horse.

In 1871, the year after this invention, Frederick was living in King’s Lynn with his wife Susannah and his six children, Anne, Eleanor, John, Julia, Mary and Sarah. Frederick had been born in Norfolk in 1828, in a small village called Heveningham, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. His parents were hand-loom weavers, and no doubt extremely poor – so poor that Frederick’s father was transported to Tasmania for poaching and his son had to go out to work at the age of ten. The little boy worked as a labourer but then, fortunately was apprenticed to a machine maker and white smith, from which he learned the basics of engineering.

Ten years before the 1871 census, Frederick and Susannah had five of their children living with them, including Frederick junior; Frederick is described as an ‘Engine Manufacturer Employing 15 Men & 14 Boys’, what a long way he had come from the ten-year old farm labourer!

The carousels invented by Savage became a standard for fairground entertainment, beautifully ornate and decorated, both the exotic horses and other beasts and carriages for two passengers, and also the panels which fronted and concealed the working parts. The name ‘carousel’ may have come from a Spanish word, carosella, which means ‘little war; this in turn may have come from a Turkish horseback game played by soldiers

I remember carousels from the fairs which used to visit Cambridge when I was a child, sometimes called Jollity Farm, sometimes called Galloping Horses, but the one we saw in Brighton, the Golden Gallopers, Savage’s own ride, was built in King’s Lynn. This wonderful ride toured northern England and was then bought by an American entrepreneur. It returned to England in 1990 and has been cared for by the present owner since 1997.