The Bottle Conjuror or Bottle Conjurer of 1749

In 1749, the same year that the Princess de Lamballe was born, on 16 January  at the New Theater in Haymarket, an anonymous person known as the “Bottle Conjuror” or “Bottle Conjurer” was set to perform a variety of amazing feats at six-thirty in the evening. He advertised that while wearing a mask he would be able to identify anyone who came to him and that he could draw the likeness of any dead person requested by any audience member. He also promised to take a common walking stick from someone in the audience and play “the music of every instrument … [while singing in perfect harmony].”[1] The York Herald reported:

“If any gentlemen or ladies after the … performance, either single or in company, in our out of mask, are desirous of seeing a representation of any deceased person, such as husband or wife, sister or brother, or any intimate friend of either sex, upon making a gratuity to the performer they shall be gratified by seeing and conversing with them for some minutes, as if alive; likewise, if desired, he will tell you your most secret thoughts in your past life, and give you a full view of persons who have injured you, dead or alive. For these gentlemen and ladies who are desirous of seeing this last part there is a private room provided.”[2]

But the conjuror’s final feat was to be the most startling and amazing. According to the Bottle Conjuror, he guaranteed that while on stage and in full view of the audience, he would stuff himself, from head to toe, into a common quart bottle. After doing so the bottle was to be passed to audience members so that they could examine and reassure themselves he was contained within it. Moreover, supposedly, this amazing and miraculous feat had already been witnessed by many of the “crowned heads of Asia, Africa, and Europe.”[3]

On the appointed day, at the appointed time, a large crowd appeared. Among those who came to view this unusual feat was the Duke of Cumberland, brother to King George III. The stage was set and everyone was ready. A single table stood on stage covered with a green baize. On the table sat a common quart bottle that the conjuror was to use for his feat. There was no music, and the audience sat quietly in dimmed lights until almost seven o’clock.

About that time, the stage lights came up, and, the crowd, now tired of waiting, began to hiss. Soon impatient audience members let loose with cat calls and that was followed by other unintelligible expressions of dissatisfaction. Suddenly a man appeared on stage and tried to pacify the agitated crowd. He promised their money would be returned if the Bottle Conjuror did not appear. However, the crowd was by this time incensed, and no one would listen. Then someone threw a lit candle on stage (some people claimed it was the Duke of Cumberland), which encouraged more uproar and resulted in the audience rioting. “Another man in the pit shouted out, at the same time, waggishly, ‘that if they would come again the next night, and pay double, the price, the conjurer would go into a pint-bottle.'”[4]

At this point, the peaceful spectators and most of the women left. Those who refused to leave began to gut the theatre: They tore up benches, pulled down the curtains, and ripped out all the woodwork and carried it to the front of the theatre where they set fire to it. During these riotous proceedings an alarm was spread and foot guard were notified. By the time the foot guards arrived, the rioters had fled and there was no one to charge for the theatre’s destruction.

For some time afterwards there was no satisfactory answer as to who the Bottle Conjuror was or why he did not appear on stage. Some people began to believe the whole thing was a hoax, just like the Turk, the Cardiff Giant, or the Berners Street Hoax. There were also rumors that the theatre manager, Samuel Foote, was the hoaxer. However, Foote adamantly denied he had anything to do with the Bottle Conjuror, and, furthermore, he said he warned the theatre manager that something didn’t seem right and that he should not allow the Bottle Conjuror’s performance. 

After some time, the perpetrator of the hoax was identified. His name was John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu. According to reports, the idea for the hoax began one night when the Duke was in the company of other noblemen. The Duke claimed that if he advertised to do “the most impossible thing in the world, he would find fools enough in London to fill a playhouse who would think him earnest.”[5] The nobleman did not believe him, and, after some discussion, a wager was agreed upon between the noblemen and the Duke. Luckily for the Duke, he was right. He won the bet, but, thereafter, reporters and pamphleteers wrote about the “folly and credulity of the age … and for many years afterwards ‘the bottle conjurer’ was a standing joke on English gullibility.”[6]

Supposedly after the fiasco there also appeared an advertisement that read:

“Found entangled in a slit in a lady’s demolished smock petticoat, a gilt-handled sword of martial temper and length, no much the worse of wearing, with the Spey curiously engraven on one side, and the Scheuldt on the other; supposed to be taken from the fat sides of a certain great general in his hasty retreat from the Battle of Bottle Noddles, in the Haymarket. Whoever has lost it may inquire for it at the sign of the Bird and Singing Land, in Rotten-row.”[7]

References:

• [1] “A Very Old Hoax,” in York Herald, 15 February, 1875, p. 3.
• [2] Ibid.
• [3] “The Bottle Conjurer,” in Fife Herald, 28 January 1862, p. 4.
• [4] Ibid.
• [5] “Bottle Noodles,” in Millom Gazette, 9 October 1903, p. 4.
• [6] “The Bottle Conjurer,” in Fife Herald, p. 4. 
• [7] “The Bottle Conjurer,” in Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 20 June 1865, p. 3.