The Belle Vue Archive Visit made me aware of the darker side to the fairground and entertainment industry. The park was operational between 1836-1980, founded by the Jenison family and was described as being 'bigger than Disneyland'. It was one of the biggest successes in the entertainment industry at the time and the Jennison family made a huge amount of money from it due to making everything themselves - beer, designing signs and catering for example. There were things featured at the park that people hadn't seen before such as wild animals in the zoo and impressive fireworks to exhilarating rides and dramatic circus shows. Belle Vue was advertised to be something really beautiful, but it was a dark place sometimes - it had an 'ugly' side.
The animals in the zoo didn't survive very long due to being mistreated and worked to death. Once they arrived at Belle Vue the animals only lasted weeks/months.
In addition, once an accident had occurred (such as a member of the public being decapitated on a ride because he stood up), the Jenison's didn't acknowledge it or enforce any safety procedures. Another worrying event was when George Jennison (grandson of the founder) was bitten by a Chimpanzee, so he shot it dead in front of the public. A famous chimpanzee called 'Consul' was also made to smoke and ride a bike, but only survived 5 years and was replaced with a replica chimp to deceive the public. Baring in mind chimps live to be 30/40 usually, this was horrific.
Other attractions included, 'The Palace of Strange Girls' which was suspected to be either 'fat' or 'dwarfed' girls that the public went to laugh at.
The park was sold in 1920 and the new owners built a fairground on it which was successful for many years due to it having the fastest and highest roller coaster in the world there - the 'BOB'. However, the popularity of the whole park declined around 1960 due to better places being available to go.
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