Joseph Jacobs (magician)

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{{Infobox person

| name = Joseph Jacobs

| image =

| alt =

| caption =

| birth_name =

| birth_date = c. 1813

| birth_place = Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom

| death_date = {{death date and given age|1870|10|13|57|df=y}}

| death_place =

| nationality =

| other_names = {{hlist|The Wizard Jacobs|Jacobs the Wizard|The Great Jacobs}}

| occupation = Entertainer

| years_active =

}}

Joseph Jacobs (c. 1813 – 13 October 1870), also known by the stage names The Wizard Jacobs, Jacobs the Wizard, and The Great Jacobs, was an English magician, improvisatore, and ventriloquist.

Biography

Jacobs was born to a Jewish family in Canterbury, Kent.{{r|prawer}} He appeared on stage at an early age, visiting Dover, Brighton, Bath, and other provincial towns during the summer and autumn of 1834.{{r|frost}} He first appeared in London at Horn's Tavern, Kennington, in 1835, where he performed the Chinese ring trick.{{r|JE}} Four years later he had the honour of performing before the Princess Augusta at Brighton.{{r|frost}}

At the Strand Theatre in 1841, he made a great show of expensive apparatus in imitation of J. H. Anderson.{{r|boase}} He performed in 1846 the trick of turning ink into transparent water in which goldfish swam, and in 1850 he introduced the trick of producing from under a shawl bowls of water containing goldfish, afterwards throwing the shawl on the floor, and then, on raising it again, disclosing live ducks or rabbits.{{r|frost}}

He appeared at the Adelaide Gallery in 1853, in America in 1854, and in 1860 in Australia and New Zealand. In 1860 he also opened the Polygraphic Hall in London.{{r|boase}}

References

{{Jewish Encyclopedia|article=Jacobs, Joseph (known as Jacobs the Wizard)|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8476|first1=Joseph|last1=Jacobs|first2=Goodman|last2=Lipkind|volume=7|page=46}}

{{Reflist|refs=

{{cite encyclopedia|encyclopedia=Modern English Biography|volume=2|title=Jacobs, Mr.|first=Frederic|last=Boase|author-link=Frederic Boase|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_IVmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA43|page=44|date=1897|location=Truro|publisher=Netherton and Worth}}

{{cite book|first=S. S.|last=Prawer|author-link=Siegbert Salomon Prawer|title=Israel at Vanity Fair: Jews and Judaism in the Writings of W. M. Thackeray|pages=206–207|publisher=E. J. Brill|year=1992 | isbn=978-90-04-09403-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uhM7aD5OXgAC&pg=PA206}}

{{Jewish Encyclopedia|article=Jacobs, Joseph (known as Jacobs the Wizard)|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8476|first1=Joseph|last1=Jacobs|first2=Goodman|last2=Lipkind|volume=7|page=46|no-prescript=1}}

{{cite book|title=The Lives of the Conjurors|first=Thomas|last=Frost|publisher=Tinsley Brothers|date=1876|location=London|pages=214–220|url=https://archive.org/details/livesconjurors01frosgoog/page/n228/mode/2up}}

}}

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Category:1810s births

Category:1870 deaths

Category:19th-century English Jews

Category:English Jews

Category:English magicians

Category:Jewish entertainers

Category:People from Canterbury