The Cowboy in the Coal Smoke: Richard Shufflebottom and the Wild West of Hull

In the gritty industrial landscape of 1930s Northern England, life was a cycle defined by the factory whistle, the shift change, and the pervasive grey of soot-stained brick. Yet, in the heart of Yorkshire’s manufacturing hubs, a peculiar and vibrant cultural anomaly flourished. Amidst the heavy atmosphere of the interwar period, a performative mythology of the American Frontier took deep root. This article investigates the unlikely dominance of Wild West shows in the region, focusing on the iconic imagery of Richard Shufflebottom - known to the masses by his exotic stage persona “Ricardo Colorado.”

The surviving photographs of Richard Shufflebottom at Hull Fair serve as a portal into a lost world of trans-Atlantic cultural hybridity. Standing on the “front” of a canvas booth on Walton Street, clad in pristine white cowboy regalia against the backdrop of a Northern English autumn, Shufflebottom represented something far more significant than mere entertainment. He embodied a complex intersection of working-class escapism, the lingering legacy of Victorian imperialism, and the burgeoning influence of Hollywood cinema. By analyzing the Shufflebottom dynasty and the sensory architecture of Hull Fair, we can reconstruct how a family of Sheffield publicans convinced a generation of Yorkshiremen that the Wild West began just outside Doncaster.

The Stage: Hull Fair in the 1930s

To fully comprehend the impact of the Shufflebottom Wild West show, one must first understand the monumental stage upon which it was set. Hull Fair was not merely an event; it was a temporary city, a “Light City” that descended annually upon the East Riding of Yorkshire, effectively suspending the normative rules of urban existence. By the 1930s, it had evolved into the largest travelling fair in Europe, a sprawling labyrinth of sensation that occupied Walton Street and drew visitors from across the entire North of England.

Deep History: The Weight of Tradition

The Hull Fair of the 1930s was underpinned by nearly seven centuries of history, lending it a gravitational pull that newer amusements could not replicate. Established by Royal Charter in 1279 under King Edward I, the fair originally served a purely mercantile function, providing a period of economic exchange that lasted for six weeks. However, the fair’s transition from a market to a hub of amusement was punctuated by moments of intense civic passion that cemented its place in the local psyche.

Perhaps the most notable testament to the fair’s importance occurred during the calendar riots of 1752. When the British Empire transitioned from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, necessitating the removal of eleven days from September, the populace of Hull rioted in the streets. Their famous cry, “Give us back our eleven days,” was not an abstract protest against temporal adjustment. It was born of a specific, tangible fear that the loss of these days would curtail or cancel the fair. The resulting compromise - fixing the fair’s start date to October 11th (or the nearest Friday) - established the rhythm of the autumn calendar that persisted into the 1930s and remains today. By the time Richard Shufflebottom arrived with his troupe, this history had calcified into a rigid tradition. The fair was a civic right, a protected space of excess sanctioned by centuries of usage.

The Architecture of Sensation

The 1930s represented a pivotal era in the technological evolution of the fairground. It was the decade where the dominance of steam power finally ceded ground to the versatility of electricity, creating a sensory environment of unprecedented intensity.

The Visual Landscape: The epithet “Light City,” used by the showmen’s newspaper World’s Fair, was literal. The 1930s fairground was a blaze of incandescent bulbs. While earlier fairs had relied on naphtha flares that cast a flickering, smoky glow, the interwar fair utilized thousands of electric lamps to banish the night. This illumination was strategic; it extended the operating hours well into the dark northern evenings, maximizing revenue from the working class. For the Wild West shows, this lighting was crucial. The show fronts - elaborate facades painted to resemble forts or saloons - were bathed in light to highlight the performers during the “parade,” the pre-show ritual designed to entice the crowd.

The Auditory Landscape: The soundscape of Hull Fair in the 1930s was a dense polyphony. It was the golden age of the fairground organ. Massive mechanical instruments built by famous makers like Gavioli, Marenghi, and Mortier were integrated into the center of rides like the Gallopers and the Scenic Railways. These organs produced a wall of sound, simulating full orchestras with percussion, brass, and wind sections. They played a repertoire that bridged the Victorian and the modern: Strauss waltzes clashed with the latest jazz numbers and popular hits from the music halls. In the 1930s, this mechanical music began to compete with early amplification systems. The “barkers” and “spielers” on the front of shows like Shufflebottom’s had to project their voices over the mechanical din. The result was a “cacophony of sound” described in historical accounts not as noise, but as an atmospheric texture - a sonic envelope that signaled the suspension of ordinary life.

The Olfactory Dimension: Oral histories preserved by the National Fairground Archive highlight the distinct olfactory profile of the 1930s fair. It was a mixture of the industrial and the organic: the sharp, acrid smell of coal smoke from the traction engines that hauled the rides; the ozone tang of the electric dodgems; the sawdust scattered on the mud of Walton Street; and the pervasive aroma of traditional fairground foods. Brandy snaps, a ginger-based confection synonymous with Hull Fair, provided a sweet counterpoint to the savoury scent of “hot peas” and pomegranates, creating a sensory memory that lingered long after the fair had packed up.

The Mechanized Sublime

While the Wild West show relied on human skill, it operated in an environment increasingly defined by the machine. The 1930s saw the introduction of “thrill rides” that utilized centrifugal force and speed to induce disorientation. The “Moon Rocket,” introduced in this decade, featured rocket-shaped cars travelling on a sloped track, pinning riders to their seats with G-force. The “Waltzer” evolved from earlier platform rides to become a staple, offering a chaotic, spinning experience. The “Dodgems” introduced the concept of interactive chaos, allowing the working class to experience the thrill of driving - and crashing - in an era when car ownership was a luxury reserved for the elite. Amidst these chrome behemoths, the presence of Richard Shufflebottom’s canvas booth was a deliberate anachronism. It offered the thrill of the organic, the dangerous, and the human, a visceral counter-narrative to the industrial mechanization of leisure.

The Dynasty: The “Yorkshire Cowboy”

To interpret the photograph of “Texas Bill” at Hull Fair, one must dissect the genealogy of the Shufflebottom family. The man in the 1930s photograph is almost certainly Richard Shufflebottom, performing as “Ricardo Colorado,” the son of the original patriarch, William Shufflebottom.

The Patriarch: William “Texas Bill” Shufflebottom

The origin story of the Shufflebottom dynasty is a classic example of fairground myth-making. William Shufflebottom (c. 1862–1916) was a Yorkshireman, born in Bradford and later a publican in Sheffield. His transformation into “Texas Bill” was catalyzed by the cultural shockwave of William F. Cody’s (Buffalo Bill) tours of England in the late 19th century. Family lore offers divergent accounts of his radical career change; some claim William traveled to America with a circus, witnessed Cody’s show, or even worked within its periphery. Others suggest he simply saw the show in England and, recognizing the immense commercial potential of the Western myth, decided to replicate it. Archivally, it is verified that he worked with Annie Oakley in the late 1890s.

William did not merely adopt a costume; he adopted a lifestyle. He trained his family in the arts of the frontier - knife throwing, sharpshooting, and horsemanship - and toured the fairs of Northern England for decades. His death in 1916 was fittingly dramatic: he was crushed by his horse while performing in the ring at Milford, Surrey. This tragic end solidified his legend, turning him into a martyr of the showland profession.

The Heir: Richard “Ricardo Colorado” Shufflebottom

Following William’s death, the family business faced a critical juncture. His widow, Rosina (herself a snake charmer and knife thrower), and their ten children had to navigate a crowded market. Their solution was a strategic “division of England.” To avoid competing with one another, the siblings split the country into territories. Richard Shufflebottom took the northern circuit, including the lucrative Yorkshire fairs like Hull.

To distinguish himself from his father and his brother John (who took the name “Texas Jack” and “Rifle Bill”), Richard adopted the persona “Ricardo Colorado.” This choice of name evoked the “Mexican Vaquero” archetype, adding a layer of exoticism. At Hull Fair in the 1930s, Richard was the impresario of “The Colorados” or “Colorado’s Troupe.” He was a master showman, described in oral histories as a charismatic figure who could hold a crowd with the sheer force of his presence. His act was a terrifying display of precision. He would throw knives and tomahawks at his wife, Laura, or his children, who stood strapped to a wooden board. The margin for error was non-existent; his daughter Florence later recalled, “my father wouldn’t have any duds,” meaning he refused to use trick knives or fake throws.

The “British Annie Oakley”

The Shufflebottom show was a hermetically sealed family unit where every member contributed to the spectacle. Florence Shufflebottom, Richard’s daughter born in 1931, became a star in her own right. Known as the “British Annie Oakley,” she began performing at the age of five. Her acts were a bizarre blend of the Western and the grotesque. She was a sharpshooter who could shoot a cigarette from her husband’s mouth, but she was also a snake charmer. Her signature trick, “The Kiss of Death,” involved placing the head of a python inside her mouth - a feat that terrified audiences. The wider family network included troupes like “The Dakotas” and “The Texans” (run by youngest brother Wally), creating a ubiquity of Shufflebottoms across the British fairground circuit.

Cultural Context: The British Obsession with the West

The popularity of a fake Wild West show in 1930s Yorkshire was the result of a specific cultural hunger, a “Western obsession” that permeated British society during the interwar years.

The Shadow of Buffalo Bill: The demand was originally created by William Cody. His tours (1887, 1892, 1903) were cultural invasions that altered the British imagination, presenting the West as “living history.” When Cody left, he left a vacuum. The Shufflebottoms stepped into this space as “tribute acts.” The audience knew, on some level, that these were Yorkshire folk, but they “half-believed” the myth because they wanted to. The Shufflebottoms facilitated this suspension of disbelief by living the persona 24/7. They famously drove American Chevrolets with cow horns mounted on the bonnet through the streets of Yorkshire, picking their children up from school in full costume. They were “Yorkshire Cowboys,” a hybrid identity that fused local pride with American glamour.

The Silver Screen: By the 1930s, the cinema had become the primary vector for Western mythology. This was the era of the “Quota Quickies” and American B-Westerns starring figures like Tom Mix and a young John Wayne. The cinema and the fairground were symbiotic. The Shufflebottoms adapted their aesthetics to match the movies; the rough, authentic buckskins of the 1880s were replaced by the stylized, rhinestone-studded velvet outfits of the “Singing Cowboys” popular in Hollywood. Richard Shufflebottom’s white stetson in the Hull Fair photos is a direct visual quote of the cinematic “good guy.”

Escapism: For the factory workers of Hull, the Western obsession offered a potent antidote to the Great Depression. The 1930s were a time of high unemployment and grim industrial reality. The Western narrative - open spaces, clear morality, individual agency - provided a psychological escape hatch. The Shufflebottom booth was a portal to a world where a man was defined by his skill with a gun, not his employment status at the dockyards.

Colonial Voyeurism: A darker element of the show’s appeal was the “Great Indian Torture” act. This act, involving simulated violence, tapped into the colonial mindset of the British public. It presented the “Other” (often played by white family members in makeup) as a source of danger and titillation. This performance mode was stripped of Cody’s educational pretense, becoming pure, sensationalist horror akin to the “Grand Guignol.”

The Archive: Documenting the Showmanship

The reconstruction of Richard Shufflebottom’s 1930s show relies heavily on the materials preserved in the National Fairground and Circus Archive (NFCA) at the University of Sheffield.

The Visual Evidence: The photographs reveal the show front as a raised stage, backed by elaborate painted banners depicting scenes of “Sharpshooting Extraordinary.” Richard Shufflebottom is often depicted in a “commanding” pose - legs apart, hands near his holsters, white stetson cocked. This is the posture of the “King of the Showmen,” a visual assertion of authority over the chaotic fairground environment. The contrast between his pristine white outfit and the mud-spattered, dark-clothed crowds of Hull is a deliberate visual strategy to mark him as “otherworldly.”

Oral Histories and Ephemera: The NFCA collection includes oral history recordings that provide the “thick description” missing from photographs. Florence Shufflebottom describes the visceral reality of the act, recalling the physical sensation of the knife hitting the board next to her head and the cold reality of living in wagons during the Northern winters. Amateur film from 1936, captured by Rosslyn Smith, shows “Colorado’s Troupe” in motion, confirming that the “parade” was an active, athletic performance where they ran through lasso routines to attract punters.

The Decline: By the late 1950s and 60s, the “Parade Show” format was dying. The arrival of television and the changing tastes of the post-war teenager - who preferred Rock & Roll on the Waltzer to cowboy theatricals - rendered the Shufflebottom act obsolete. The family transitioned; Wally Shufflebottom added a striptease element to his knife-throwing act in the 1970s to survive, while Margaret Shufflebottom left the road to run a pub, The Gardeners Arms (known locally as The Murderers) in Norwich, trading the canvas booth for brick-and-mortar.

Conclusion

The popularity of Richard Shufflebottom’s Wild West show in 1930s Yorkshire was a triumph of atmosphere over geography. In the midst of the Great Depression, on a muddy street in Hull, a Yorkshire family successfully conjured the spirit of the American frontier. They did so by mastering the sensory language of the fairground and tapping into a deep cultural vein of escapism. Richard Shufflebottom, the “Ricardo Colorado” of Walton Street, was an avatar of this cultural exchange. He was a man who lived a double life: a Yorkshireman by birth, a cowboy by profession. His success lay in his ability to make the audience believe, if only for the duration of a twenty-minute show, that the Wild West was not a distant land across the ocean, but a tangible reality that could be touched, smelled, and feared right there in the heart of Hull.

References & Further Reading

1. National Fairground and Circus Archive (NFCA): The Shufflebottom Family Collection and Oral History Holdings.
2. The World’s Fair: Historic archives of the showmen’s newspaper (1930-1939).
3. Vanessa Toulmin: The recurring history of the fairground and the Wild West in Britain.
4. Hull History Centre: Archives regarding the 1279 Charter and the 1752 Calendar Riots.