Chipperfield's Circus  ] Chipperfield's Circus is a long-running British family touring show, continuing a 300-year-old family business. Chipperfield's Circus started with James Chipperfield with his performing animals at the Thames Frost Fair of 1684. Through the 19th century, the circus toured all of England, with a menagerie of animals, teams of acrobats and clowns. After World War II, under the management of Jimmy Chipperfield, the circus became one of the biggest in Europe, with a tent that could hold 6000 people. The family in the same headship diversified into safari parks (in England founding those at Windsor and Knowsley and co-founding with the Marquess of Bath, Longleat Safari Park also, with the Duke of Bedford, Woburn Safari Park) and supplying fairgrounds supplies, and since his death in 1990, the circus has toured only intermittently, sometimes featuring members of the extended Chipperfield family. The name "Chipperfield" dates back at least to James Chipperfield. He introduced performing animals to England at the Frost Fair on the Thames in 1684. His show performed for two months at the fair. Part of the fair was for showing animals. James William Chipperfield Sr. (~1775-1866) was a bootmaker's and made fancy-dress costumes for theatrical use in Drury Lane, London. His business was slow in the summer. So in the summer he joined travelling fairs and help put on small shows with his wife Mary Ann. The show grew to include dancing bears, monkeys, and trained pigs. In about 1803 James and Mary Ann had a son James William Chipperfield Jr. who would join the show. James William Chipperfield (~1799 or ~1803?-1866) grew up in his father's touring show. He was an assistant to Hamlin the conjuror. James married Harriet Amy Coan (4 December 1799-~1866) in Bury St Edmunds and had four children William James(1822- ), James William (1824-1913), Tom and Mary Phoebe (1826- ). James and Harriet tour with their own show in a horse drawn canvas wagon. Harriet died of pneumonia in 1841 at a fair in Rayleigh, Essex. Later James remarried and continued to tour with an even larger show. He retired and died in 1866. James William married Elizabeth Jones, their children continued the Circus tour.