Sergeant Pepper (nearly) lived in my house

This discovery shows the type of interesting and unusual things that can show up in historical research.

A friend of mine looked up the details of his own Belgrave St. house in the 1861 census. As well as the large number of people living there (nine in a small two-bedroomed house), most of their occupations were listed as 'Equistrian'.

Pablo Fanque's circus posterA bit of digging showed this to be a circus performer in a horse act. When he looked into the actual names more closely, one of them had recently been co-promoter of Pablo Fanques Fair. This is the circus mentioned in the Beatles song 'Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite' on the 'Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band' album. John Lennon was inspired to write the song after buying an antique poster advertising a performance by Pablo Fanque's circus.