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181:. Norman falsely claimed to his audience, as he had often done in the past, that his show had been booked to appear at Barnum's 'Greatest Show on Earth'. Barnum was much amused and afterwards, seeing Norman's silver necklace and noting his gift for oratory, dubbed him the 'Silver King'. With 13 shops in London alone, Norman ran into a shortage of curiosities and travelled the country looking for new acts. He enticed human novelties into his employ with promises of generous salaries.
150:. There, Mlle Electra, "The Only Electric Lady – A Lady Born Full of Electricity" gave audience members an electrical shock via her handshake. Norman was impressed with the exhibition, realised its lucrative potential, and left his job to enter into business with Mlle Electra's manager. He quickly discovered Electra was a fake connected to a supply of electricity.
81:. In his 1923 memoirs, Treves portrayed Norman as a cruel drunk who ruthlessly exploited his acts. Norman refuted this characterisation and said that he had provided Merrick (and his other "freaks") with a means of making money independently. Norman continued a successful career as a showman and later became an auctioneer of novelty shows and circuses.
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newspaper that year, as well as his own autobiography. Norman's opinion was that he provided
Merrick (and his other exhibits) a way of making a living and remaining independent, but that on entering the London Hospital, Merrick remained a freak on display, only with no control over how or when he was
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The exhibition of the
Elephant Man was reasonably successful, particularly with the added income from a printed pamphlet about Merrick's life and condition. At this time, however, public opinion about freak shows was starting to change and the display of human novelties was beginning to be viewed as
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Norman died of throat cancer on 24 August 1930 at
Croydon Hospital, aged 70. Five of his children followed him into circus careers: George and Arthur Norman became circus clowns while Tom and Jim Norman worked in fairgrounds. Ralph Van Norman (known professionally as Hal Denver) became a travelling
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Over the next few years, Norman's travelling exhibitions featured Eliza
Jenkins, the "Skeleton Woman", a "Balloon Headed Baby" and a woman who bit off the heads of live rats—the "most gruesome" act Norman claimed to have seen. Other acts included fleas, fat ladies, giants, dwarves and retired white
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proprietors Sam Torr and J. Ellis, and the travelling showman 'Little George' Hitchcock. Collectively, they presented
Merrick as "The Elephant Man, Half-a-Man and Half-an-Elephant". They quickly realised that they would not be able to show Merrick for too long in one place, for fear of the novelty
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Norman was introduced to his father's trade at an early age and left school to work with him when he was 12. He decided to go travelling two years later to seek a career as a performer. He was unsuccessful and after a short while, he moved to London where he worked as a butcher's assistant. A keen
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distasteful. After only a few weeks with Norman, the
Elephant Man exhibition was shut down by the police, and Norman and Merrick parted ways. Treves later arranged for Merrick to live at the London Hospital until Merrick's death in 1890. In Treves's 1923 memoir,
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who arranged to have
Merrick brought into the hospital to be examined. According to Norman's autobiography, Merrick went to the hospital "two or three" times, but then refused to go any more, as the examinations made him feel "like an animal in a cattle market".
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which he attended in his spare time. After viewing an exhibition called "Electric Lady" next door to his place of work, he went into business with the exhibition's manager and began his career as a showman of human oddities. He quickly became successful, for his
204:, a young man from Leicester who had extreme deformities. Unable to find work due to his physical appearance, Merrick ended up in the Leicester workhouse for four years. In 1884 he left the workhouse and put himself in the charge of the
280:'s zoo, and then all of Sanger's circus effects, an achievement Norman called "the crowning point in my life as regards the auctioneering business". He made his comeback in 1919 with the exhibition of 'Phoebe the Strange Girl' in
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157:. He learned that his skills as an entertainer were as important to his success as the novelties he exhibited. At some point, he changed his birth name to Tom Norman, and renounced his inheritance. According to
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But you could indeed exhibit anything in those days. Yes, anything from a needle to an anchor, a flea to an elephant, a bloater, you could exhibit as a whale. It was not the show, it was the tale that you told.
272:, presided over more such sales than any other auctioneer in the country at that time. Norman married the theatre performer Amy Rayner in 1896, and they had six sons and four daughters. The family moved to
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who was otherwise known as the "Elephant Man". Among his later exhibits were a troupe of little people, a "Man in a Trance", "John
Chambers, the armless Carpenter", and the "World's Ugliest Woman".
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Norman remained a travelling showman for another 10 years following his encounter with Joseph
Merrick, and exhibited, among others, a troupe of midgets, a 'Man in a Trance', John Chambers the
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Carpenter and the 'World's
Ugliest Woman'. In 1893, he announced that he was leaving for Chicago and advertised his goods for sale, but in the end, he never went. He became involved with the
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Merrick arrived in London and into Norman's care. Norman, initially shocked by Merrick's appearance and reluctant to display him, nonetheless exhibited him at his penny gaff shop at 123
77:, otherwise known as the "Elephant Man", and exhibited him for a few weeks until police closed down the show. Merrick later went to live at the London Hospital under the care of
161:'s biographers Michael Howell and Peter Ford, Norman may have changed his name to avoid shaming his family by his "distasteful" connections to circuses and fairgrounds.
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When Mlle Electra was exhibited at Kingston Fair, Norman realised he would be better off working alone, and successfully staged his own "Electric Lady" in
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wearing off, and towards the end of 1884, Hitchcock contacted Norman, an acquaintance of his, and transferred management of the Elephant Man to him.
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Norman started his working life as a butcher in Sussex before moving to London at the age of 14 where he sought a career on the
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Norman died in 1930 and was survived by his wife and 10 children, five of whom followed him into the entertainment business.
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After his unsuccessful venture in Berkshire, Norman returned to being a butcher, and, one day, viewed the "novelties" at a
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Norman was portrayed as a drunk who cruelly exploited Merrick. Norman counteracted these claims in a letter in the
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105:. He was the eldest of 17 children to Thomas Noakes, a butcher and a farmer, and his wife Eliza (née Haiselden).
434:"'It was not the show it was the tale that you told' : The Life and Legend of Tom Norman, the Silver King"
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seamen, painted black and speaking in an invented language, billed "savage Zulus". He displayed a "family of
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117:. He wound up penniless and resumed his butchery trade in London where he gained a new interest in
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268:). He became a showman's auctioneer, auctioning novelty shows and circuses and according to the
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as much as his exhibits, and was called the 'Silver King' by the American showman
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The Spectacle of Deformity: Freak Shows and Modern British Culture
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42:(7 May 1860 – 24 August 1930), was an English businessman,
177:. Unknown to Norman, the show was attended by American showman
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performer, appearing throughout Europe and the United States.
670:"The Elephant Man: close to the memoirs but not the man"
624:"The Elephant Man: close to the memoirs but not the man"
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The Penny Showman: Memoirs of Tom Norman 'Silver King'
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19th and 20th-century English businessman and showman
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97:Norman was born Thomas Noakes on 7 May 1860 in
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375:(online ed.). Oxford University Press.
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668:von Tunzelmann, Alex (10 December 2009).
658:, 24 January 2008, accessed 15 March 2015
622:von Tunzelmann, Alex (10 December 2009).
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231:The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences
372:Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
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216:, directly across the road from the
146:next to his place of employment in
196:whom Norman managed as a curiosity
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266:Showmen's Guild of Great Britain
720:University of California Press
369:. "Norman, Tom (1860–1930)".
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19:For the politician, see
714:Durbach, Nadja (2009),
442:University of Sheffield
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381:10.1093/ref:odnb/73081
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292:Final years and death
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278:"Lord" George Sanger
79:Sir Frederick Treves
813:English auctioneers
262:temperance movement
448:on 10 October 2010
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761:978-0-7490-0516-0
729:978-0-520-25768-9
387:(Subscription or
242:in the 1980 film
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311:David Lynch
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137:—Tom Norman
59:freak shows
782:Categories
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327:References
305:Portrayals
282:Birmingham
252:Later life
206:music hall
171:Nottingham
144:penny gaff
119:freak show
99:Dallington
93:Early life
55:music hall
36:Tom Norman
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299:Wild West
148:Islington
125:Novelties
111:Berkshire
88:Biography
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681:29 April
612:, p. 34
600:, p. 30
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