Circus Yesterday

Elsie St Leon (1884-1976) and her horse Bingo. She was born in Sydney to Alf and Ida St Leon and was the third generation of St Leons, one of Australia's early circus families. Alf and Ida left Australia in 1895 with Elsie and their other children to tour the Far East with Wirth's Pacific Circus. They never came back to Australia and by 1898 had landed in the United States. Elsie and her family had many starring engagements with the great American circuses such as Sells-Forepaugh and Barnum & Bailey. The family appeared with their act in a newsreel in 1903 and in a feature film in 1913, but copies are now lost.