The Story of the Gnome Fly Part 2 - Introducing Signor Hervio Nano; Harvey Leach (1801-1847)

In late 1837, after almost eight years working exclusively on the continent, the American born performer Harvey Leach returned to England with a new identity, as the Neapolitan Signor Hervio Nano, and a sensational new act, the Gnome Fly. A notice of the previous night’s performance at the Adelphi in The Times of February 1st 1838 gives some idea of Leach’s extraordinary act:

A very curious performance was exhibited at this theatre last night. The plot of this, to use the phraseology of the 'Philologos’ of the theatre, Bizarre Flights of Fancy, is scarcely worth detailing. It consists in the loves of the rightful heir to the kingdom of Tartary and the heiress of the estates of the Great Mogul. The plot and the Incidents of the drama are all very good in their way; but they are all ancillary to the performance, and it may be justly said the most astonishing performance of a very astonishing personage, called Signor Hervio Nano, who enacts a baboon and a fly. To what order of animals or Insects this very strange gentleman belongs would puzzle the most recondite students of entomology to determine. He represents a baboon with such aptitude to nature that everybody would take him for a monkey If It were not that in a few minutes he is seen buzzing and fluttering across the stage in the shape of an enormous fly, and though innoxious in his transport, sufficiently alarming from his size to give terror to those by whom he is beholden. - In a word, Signor Hervio Nano performs some of the most astonishing feats ever exhibited within the walls of a theatre. He appears to fly from the stage to a lofty tower, with the celerity of an insect; he runs up places perfectly perpendicular; he climbs, without any apparent exertion, along the side of the theatre, gets into the upper circle in a moment, catches hold of the projection of the ornaments of the ceiling of the theatre, crosses to the opposite side, and descends along the vertical boarding of the proscenium. It is a most extraordinary performance, and if it creates a rather nervous sensation during its actual process, it affords a commensurate admiration at its termination. Signor Hervio Nano is the most extraordinary man in his way. It is difficult to describe a performance of this kind; it must be seen even to be understood. It will suffice to say that it deserves to be seen by all who are anxious to see something out, very much out, of the common way, and to encourage the uncommon in dramatic excellence. The performance was given out for repetition by Mr. Yates, amidst the loudest applause from a very crowded house.

So popular was the Gnome Fly that when Leach refused to take the stage at the Royal Theatre in Birmingham because of a dispute over £10 that he felt the management owed him, the audience took his side and there was a near riot. This is from Aris's Birmingham Gazette of Monday 8th October 1838;

A disgraceful riot took place at the Theatre in this town on Monday night last. It appears that a dispute had arisen between the Manager and Signor Hervio Nano, with reference to a pecuniary demand of the latter in a settlement which took place on Saturday. Hervio Nano at the time when his presence was required for his part on the stage, was seated in one of the boxes of the theatre, and on being applied to, in an audible voice refused to take his part until a settlement was made to his satisfaction. The Stage Manager explained that there was no claim existing on the part of the complainant, as a full settlement had been made with Mr. Yates of the Adelphi, to whose company the Signor was attached. An attempt was made to remove Nano forcibly from the box, and in the scuffle the latter passed over into the pit and on to the stage, and in the course of the struggle was aided by some of the audience —from the stage he proceeded again to the boxes. After another attempt on the part of the Manager to proceed with a different piece, Signor Nano addressed the audience, and being so advised, proceeded to the greenroom, soon after which a scuffle was heard on the stage, and Nano, having raised the curtain, was seen struggling with several persons. A rush was made by some of the audience from the pit and boxes, but to no avail, as the subject of sympathy did not reappear. Hereupon the occupants of the gallery, having given notice of their intention to those assembled in the pit to clear away, began to tear up the benches of the gallery, and to throw them into the pit, breaking the chandeliers and whatever came in the way of the missiles, the havoc and confusion continuing until the lights were extinguished. At the Public Office on Thursday and Friday last the above riotous proceedings were the subject of long investigation. On the first-mentioned day, Mr. Simpson, the stage-manager, charged Hervio Nano with an assault, which after a lengthened hearing was dismissed. The defendant was then charged with disturbing the audience, and instigating others to outrage and violence; and depositions having been taken, warrant for his apprehension was granted and being subsequently bailed he appeared to answer the charge on the latter day. After a long examination of witnesses for the prosecution and defence, it was agreed that the defendant should enter into sureties to appear at the Sessions to answer any charge that may be made against him; and having done so to the extent of 50/. Mr. Simpson was bound over to prosecute. Mr. Edmonds defended the accused, and Messrs. Suckling and Greatwood appeared for the prosecutor — it will be observed that a reward of 10/. Has been offered by the Proprietary of the Theatre, for the detection and conviction of any participator in the outrage.

I can find no reference to further charges being pressed against Leach in Birmingham and presumably, in time, his £50 surety was returned. He did not let the matter drop though, and we know from later bankruptcy proceedings in 1843 that the battle was fought out in the courts with Leach taking an action for false imprisonment against Mr. Simpson, the manager of the Birmingham Theatre, and a police constable named Rook. The action was not successful and Leach found himself liable for £266 of his opponent’s costs which, typically, he did all he could to avoid paying.

Just five weeks after the Birmingham episode, on Thursday the 15th November the Gnome Fly found himself in further trouble when he became involved in an altercation with a man called John Williams on Ludgate Hill. According to William’s testimony he was the completely innocent party. He had tried to overtake Leach, who was riding with a lady in a chaise, on his pony and the showman swerved the carriage to knock William’s off his horse. When William’s tried to remonstrate with Leach he had been lashed with a horsewhip. Refusing to give up the argument William’s received further injuries. Leach was summonsed to appear at the Guildhall in Early January to answer charges of assault. The Morning Chronicle, of January 3rd, 1839 gives this account of what happened:

Harvey Leach, the 'Gnome Fly', was brought up on a warrant by Herdsfield, charged with having assaulted a young man, named John Williams, residing in Water-lane. The complainant stated that as he was riding a valuable pony down Ludgate-hill, on the 15th of November, he overtook the defendant who was driving a lady in a chaise, and seeing an opportunity to pass, he attempted to do so. This gave offence to Mr. Leach who swerved from the [illegible] to throw him down on the pavement, and did so. The pony's hock was cut. He went up to the chaise, to ask why he had served him so, and immediately received a cut from the defendant's whip, which laid his cheek open. He approached him again, and received a cut over the hand which drew blood; and, on going to stop the defendant's horse, till he got his address, the defendant cut him round the neck, and pulled him off the pony. Two gentlemen had given him their cards, but neither of them was able to attend that morning.

 The defendant denied the charge and said he would draw a refutation from the complainant himself in five minutes. His questions were for the purpose of showing that the young man had followed him from Cheapside to Ludgate-hill; had holden up his hand to draw attention to the defendant; that the whip was intended to be applied to defendant's horse to extricate him from the complainant's hold; and that complainant gave defendant's horse a thump in the face. The complainant, however, answered none of the questions to Mr. Harvey Leach's satisfaction, and Mr. Alderman Gibbs ordered the defendant to find bail for his appearance at the London Sessions on Saturday next.

The London Courier and Evening Gazette of the 7th January briefly reported on the hearing at the London Sessions, getting Leach’s name wrong but making it clear that the bench accepted Williams’ version of events:

At the London sessions on Saturday, Mr. James Leach, alias Senhor Hervio Nano, alias the Gnome Fly of the Adelphi Theatre, was tried for horse-whipping a man on Ludgate-hill. The particulars of the case were recently given in a police report. The defendant conducted his case in person, and indulged in violent language against the complainant, for which he was called to order by the Chairman. He was found guilty, and sentenced to pay a fine of £20

Was it a completely unprovoked attack? It seems unlikely. Leach clearly reacted strongly to any attempt to ridicule him in public but there are no accounts of him launching one-sided attacks on other people for offences as trivial as overtaking his chaise on the public highway. Perhaps this was an early incidence of ‘road rage’ but it seems highly likely that Williams would have launched a few choice insults in Leach’s direction and may well have misjudged his opponent’s physical strength, allowing himself to be fooled by his diminutive status. It was a costly error for the young man though. The matter did not stop there – a couple of weeks later William’s was back in court, this time at the Alderman’s court, demanding damages for the assault. It quickly becomes clear that at the Sessions hearing Leach had been given the opportunity to pay William’s £10 in damages or to be fined £20 and that he had preferred to pay the larger fine rather than give anything to his supposed victim. This account is from The Times, January 16th;

Yesterday a Court was held for the despatch of business; Alderman Harmer presented a petition from a poor man named Williams, who prosecuted the dwarf called Hervio Nano (Harvey Leech) for a most desperate assault at the last London Sessions. Tho petition stated that the defendant was convicted of the assault, and was fined £20, with permission to speak to the prosecutor, and upon the understanding that if the defendant gave £10. to the prosecutor the penalty would be remitted that the defendant refused to give any remuneration to the prosecutor, and paid the penalty of £20; that the prosecutor having sustained considerable injury from the assault, and having lost the situation which he possessed at the time, he threw himself on the humane consideration of the Court, and begged, that as they considered the case an aggravated one, and recommended a course which was calculated to make some amends, but which was rejected, and as the prosecutor had been put to expense they would make an order for the payment of such part of the penalty to him as they might think fit. There was a strong feeling in the court that the prayer of the petition should be complied with. The Recorder said, that there was a fund out of which the corporation could make remuneration to the poor man. Alderman HARMER said, that the object of the Court at the time of the trial was to obtain some remuneration for the injury inflicted by the defendant, and as the sum they considered the prosecutor entitled to was £10., he moved that that amount be handed over to him. (Hear, hear.) Alderman LAINSON seconded the motion, which was carried unanimously, and gave a great deal of satisfaction, The bad feeling of the defendant has thus been completely disappointed, for he calculated that by paying £20 he would have prevented the injured man from receiving a farthing.

In 1839 February Leach began working at the Royal Victoria Theatre in London in two specially written dramas, ‘The Monkey of the Pyrenees or Woman’s Faith’ and ‘The Shipwreck or the captain and the monkey’ but his triumphant return to England was now irremediably soured and he was soon making plans to leave the country again. He was gone for almost the next three years, initially to the United States where he appeared in Boston and Philadelphia, then touring Europe, (Antwerp, Rotterdam, Alkmaar, Amsterdam, and Paris) before returning to the US for theatre appearances in New York and Washington. He returned to England in late 1842, performing at the Theatre Royal in Liverpool as the Gnome Fly before appearing before Commissioner Merivale at the Court of Bankruptcy in London in December and January. It seems Leach would rather declare himself bankrupt than pay the £266 costs still owed to Mr Simpson, the manager of the Birmingham Theatre, he had sued for false imprisonment. Leach was forced to admit that he had £400 deposited in a French bank but told the court that this “was all disbursed for travelling expenses in a professional tour he, with other parties, made through Antwerp, Rotterdam, Alkmar, Amsterdam, &c., which, like many other theatrical speculations, proved a failure.” He was back in court in January, by this time his creditors had given up all hope of ever receiving their money and did not appear. According to the Globe of 19th January 1843, “Mr. Commissioner Merivale said that no party appeared on the other side; he thought, however, that as the insolvent was an actor, a conditional order for the benefit of his creditors might be made out of his future engagements; but as no person appeared, he should not interfere. The Court made final order.” And with that order Leach was finally free of his debt which had started, let us not forget, with a dispute over a £10 appearance fee. 

Charles Freeman, the American Giant, as depicted by the Illustrated London Life of 9th April 1843 

Leach’s career was now in the doldrums; although he continued to work, he struggled to recapture the successes of previous years. In February he was engaged to appear again at the Adelphi and the Theatre Royal in a specially commissioned piece by William Leman Rede ‘Son of the Desert or the Demon Changeling’ with Charles Freeman the American giant. Freeman, who was just shy of 7 feet tall, was a 22-year-old from Michigan who had earned his living as a non-descript in American Freakshows until employed to take part in staged exhibition matches with the English heavy weight boxing champion Ben Caunt who was then touring in the US. Caunt brought Freeman to England at the end of 1842 where he took part in two much hyped matches with William Perry, the Tipton Slasher. ‘Son of the Desert’ was an attempt to capitalise on Freeman’s short-lived celebrity but it did not prove to be especially popular. The piece had moved to the Olympic theatre by March where the management announced that  “the Lessee begs to announce to the Nobility, Gentry and the Public generally that he has entered into an Engagement with Mr. CHARLES FREEMAN, the American Giant, the great Pourtrayer of the Passions, and with Signor HERVIO NANO, the Miracle-achieving Dwarf, who will have the honour of making their first appearance at this Theatre.” Within a week or so ‘Son of the Desert’ was abandoned and Leach was appearing as an orangutan in the story of ‘The Indian Maid and the Shipwrecked Mariner’ and Freeman was appearing separately as Frankenstein’s monster.  According to the Pictorial Times of Saturday 1st April 1843, neither were a great success:

At the Olympic Theatre the dwarf "Hervio Nano" has been disguising himself in a monstrosity called the Ourangoutang, and the American Giant, in the drama of the Monster, or the Fate Frankenstein, has been drawing as much as a man of his dimensions can be expected to draw, seeing that he is not aided by the advantages of histrionic talent. A great deal has been said about these human curiosities, but we have good reason to suppose that neither the performances of the one, nor the deformities of the other, are calculated to improve the fortunes of the theatre.

Struggling to make a living in England Leach decided to once again return to the continent. He did not return alone, taking with him three young brothers, the Cottrell’s, who, according to a report in the Gazette des Tribunaux of 29 December 1844 were full of “boldness, grace, and lightness” and were discovered when Leach, who the paper called l’homme-mouche (the human-fly) was:

passing near a house in a London suburb, where the three Cottrells were frolicking in games. Harvey Leach, a true connoisseur, noticed their youth and precocious dexterity; he entered and, addressing their father, a poor man, offered to have the following children taken to France: 1. Henry, aged eighteen; 2. Thomas, aged six; 3. and finally, there was little Alfred, barely four years old. Mr. Leach promised to treat, house, feed, and clothe them properly, and even to give the two little ones all the care required by such a tender age. Armed with the father's consent, the human-fly instructed the children and exhibited them with him in the performances given in France

On the 26th October 1844 Leach signed a contract with a Monsieur Philippe, a magician, who had a theatre on the Boulevard Bonne-Neuvelle to appear in the theatre, along with the Cottrells (who were billed as ‘les jeunes Américains’, the Young Americans) for up to 100 performances over a five-month period, five performances a week at 200 francs per performance. The contract allowed Monsieur Philippe to terminate the agreement after ten performances with at least two weeks’ notice, if the performance did not meet the approval of the audience. Although Leach and the Young Americans were a decided hit with the public Monsieur Philippe’s theatrical license only allowed him to stage conjuring tricks and ‘physiques amusantes’ (educational scientific experiments) and the authorities threatened to revoke it unless he cancelled the human-fly’s performances. Le Courer des Spectacles of the 28th December reported that Leach had only performed 17 times when Monsieur Philippe was forced to cancel the show. He paid Leach a further 600 francs as notice but the performer was not happy with this and sought redress through the courts. He lost the case and to compound his problems, the Cottrells were unhappy with his treatment of them and managed to get word to their father who turned up in Paris demanding the return of his children. When Leach refused to give up the three boys, Cottrell senior swore out a complaint at the Civil Tribunal in Paris alleging “that none of the magnificent promises made by the impresario to the poor father  to persuade him to abandon his offspring, had been kept, despite the lucrative income they had generated; that, not content with this, Mr. Harvey Leach daily mistreated the Cottrell children, beating them violently, and even going so far as to arm himself with a knife to stab them.” (Gazette des Tribunaux) Leach surrendered the three boys before the case was heard at court but his lawyer argued that as a dispute between two foreigners, the court had no jurisdiction over it. The judge was inclined to agree, especially as the boys had been returned to their parents, but in any case, he ordered Leach to return the rest of the boy’s property to their family within 24 hours.

A French playbill, possibly from 1845, when Leach was appearing in Le conte de fées 

Despite the action taken by Cottrell senior Leach evidently still hoped to use the boys’ services for another act he arranged to stage at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique on the boulevard du Temple. Le Courer des Spectacles of the 20th December, reports that Leach will be appearing in Le conte de fées along with ‘les jeunes Américains’ but says there is no word of the giant Leach has promised to bring from England, presumably Charles Freeman, to show off feats of strength. Le conte de fees did go ahead, quite probably without either Freeman or the Cottrells, until the 7th January when the management were forced to close because Leach was indisposed; Le Courer des Spectacles reported that a doctor had certified that he was suffering from inflammation of the lungs and needed several days rest. The show was closed for one night only though as the management of the Ambigu-Comique announced Leach’s place as the Breton Fairy would be taken by one Monsieur Alexandre. The theatrical journal L’Argus on the 9th January took up the story;

Now, do you know who Mr Alexandre is, the audacious acrobat who has unexpectedly replaced the astonishing, the surprising, the incomprehensible Harvey Leach, the human-fly? Well? Mr Alexandre is a young man, the manager of the Ambigu, whose devotion is unwavering and who had wisely judged that Mr Harvey Leach’s gymnastic feats were mere showboating and that he, a complete and agile fellow, could easily perform the exercises of the monstrous, shapeless individual. No sooner said than done: the Breton Fairy descended as nimbly as usual, astride her broomstick; then the fly took flight with equal lightness; the monkey was even more agile, funnier and less repulsive. Mr Alexandre cut the human-fly in two and we advise Mr Antoine Beraud to rid himself as quickly as possible of this heavy-handed cripple who lounges in a tilbury after having exploited the graceful talent and supple agility of the three young children whose guardianship was removed from him by the court due to mistreatment.

Monsieur Alexandre’s ability to perform all of Leach’s celebrated feats was a fatal blow for the performer. He never returned to the stage in France and no doubt humiliated and mortified he chose to take himself away from Europe altogether and return to the United States where he was engaged by Thomas Hamblin at the Bowery Theatre. We catch an extraordinary glimpse of him just a few months after the debacle in France, on the night of April 25th 1845, when the notoriously fire prone theatre burnt down to ground for the fourth time in less than twenty years. Shortly after 6pm, the fire, which started in one of the carpenters’ rooms, quickly engulfed the building, completely destroying it in less than an hour. In the account of the fire published in Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper on the 18th May, appears this:

Amid the turmoil of the scene, no one was more active than Hervio Nano, on the roof of Messrs. Bartlett's Hotel, in the Bowery, calling out for those below to send him up a hose, and crying aloud that he would save the buildings. But he was unheeded; not that it appeared to be actually necessary, but, at the same time, no one could have exercised himself more energetically.

An engraving of the fire in the Illustrated London News of 24 May 1845 shows a huge crowd watching the flames consume the theatre while the fire department direct three or four inadequate streams of water at the conflagration. Standing on the roof of the building next door to the theatre is a diminutive figure – is this Leach calling for a fire hose? 

The burning of the Bowery Theatre from the Illustrated London News of 24 May 1845