Albert Hengler

Albert Hengler was born in Liverpool 1862, son of Charles Hengler a circus entrepreneur. His father had started his own circus in 1847. After working in traditional tented shows, over the 1850s he established a chain of permanent buildings for his shows. Albert was his father’s private secretary from age 16. Charles' sudden death in 1887 left his two sons Fred and Alfred in charge of the business, but after Fred’s death on May 7, 1889 Albert was left in sole charge. By 1891 he had established himself as a circus entrepreneur in his own right and in April 1892 Albert married Julia Stern Lane the daughter of a wealthy Bristol butcher. That same year he purchased from his father’s trustees the bulk of the business including circus buildings in Liverpool, Hull, Dublin and Glasgow. Albert developed a series of innovations such as the ‘Water Spectacle’ which he invented in 1897 in an attempt to draw the crowds, but the era of the grand circuses were coming to an end and Hengler’s business was going into decline. The Hull cirque was sold in 1898 with Liverpool following in 1901 but the Glasgow Circus continued on until 1924, although by then Albert had lost his fame and much of his wealth. Julia Stern Hengler died in 1902 and her only son Geoffery Charles Hengler would have little interest in the circus business and dropped the Hengler name sometime during the 1930s. Albert Hengler died in Hove in 1937.