Dates

• Existence: 1912 - 1990

Biography

James Seaton Methuen Chipperfield aka Jimmy Chipperfield was born in 1912 into one of the most famous British circus families of all times.

Jimmy started training in the circus from a young age and learned all the key trades of the business including animal training, which had a long tradition in the Chipperfield family.

In the early 1930s Jimmy married Rosie Purchase (1912–2006), a performer from a well known travelling menagerie family and after her father’s death, the couple took over Purchase menagerie and merged it with Chipperfield Circus.

During the Second World War, Jimmy enlisted with the RAF and served as a pilot. Although the war had all but closed down the circus, on his release from service, Jimmy put the show back together and started travelling again. Jimmy travelled the Chipperfield Circus during the 1940s and early 1950s until he briefly retired to a farm in 1955 and worked as a manager providing acts for other shows and animals for the film industry.

In the 1960s Jimmy started to get involved in the drive through safari park business and opened or contributed to the opening of a long list of parks including Longleat Safari Park in 1966, Johannesburg Lion Park in 1967, Windsor Safari Park in 1969, Lambton Lion Park in 1972 and West Midland Safari Park in 1973. He contributed to the opening of the Woburn Safari Park and Blair Drummond Safari Park in 1970 and Knowsley Safari Park in 1971.

Although he spent much of his career away from the circus, in 1979 he returned to his original roots with the Circus World show, which he toured and set up in the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome. Jimmy died in 1990.

Jimmy together with his siblings Dick, Marjorie and John made the Chipperfield Circus one of the most successful and well known circuses in the world.

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