The Toronto Circus Riot of 1855

When Clowns Beat Up Firefighters In a Brothel

A bizarre brawl between circus performers and local firefighters in a 19th-century brothel sparked one of Canada’s strangest riots and accidentally reformed an entire police force.

A City on the Edge

Toronto in 1855 wasn’t the polite, multicultural metropolis people know today. With 40,000 residents packed into what was still essentially a frontier boomtown, the newly incorporated city had earned a reputation that was anything but respectable. Sixty-eight taverns lined Yonge Street alone – one roughly every 1,200 meters stretching all the way to Barrie. Within the city limits, 152 more taverns competed with 203 beer shops for customers’ attention and coin.

The brothels thrived just as openly. Mary Ann Armstrong ran one of the busiest establishments near King and John Streets, catering to a rotating cast of immigrants, laborers, and anyone else looking to blow off steam in a city where Victorian prudishness hadn’t yet taken hold.

Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants had brought their ancestral grudges across the Atlantic, turning Toronto’s streets into an extension of conflicts that had raged since time began. The Protestant Orange Order controlled virtually every lever of power – from city council to the police force to the fire brigades. Catholics found themselves on the wrong side of nearly every official decision.

The Star Troupe Arrives

S.B. Howes’ Star Troupe Menagerie & Circus rolled into town in early July, setting up their canvas city at Fair Green near the waterfront. The traveling show from New York State brought everything a frontier town craved – acrobats, trick riders, exotic animals including elephants and even a giraffe. After two successful performances on July 12th, several clowns decided to sample Toronto’s notorious nightlife.

These weren’t the harmless entertainers modern audiences might expect. Circus performers of the era doubled as laborers, responsible for the backbreaking work of setting up and tearing down the entire operation at each stop. They were tough, seasoned travelers who could handle themselves in any rough crowd.

The clowns made their way to Armstrong’s establishment, where they encountered members of the Hook & Ladder Firefighting Company. In 1855, firefighting wasn’t a public service but a private enterprise. Competing companies raced to blazes, with the first crew on scene claiming the right to charge property owners for their services. Just two weeks earlier, the Hook & Ladder crew had brawled with a rival company in the streets while a building burned behind them – an incident that became known as the Firemen’s Riot.

A Fight at the Brothel

Nobody agrees on exactly what sparked the confrontation at Armstrong’s place. Some accounts blame a particularly mouthy clown. Others claim the circus performers cut in line or knocked a firefighter’s hat to the floor. One version specifically names a firefighter called Fraser as the instigator, saying he knocked the hat off a clown named Meyers and refused to pick it up when asked.

The details matter less than the outcome. When fists started flying, the clowns systematically dismantled the Hook & Ladder crew. At least two firefighters ended up hospitalized with serious injuries while their colleagues dragged them to safety. The victorious clowns returned to their evening’s entertainment, probably assuming they’d seen the last of Toronto’s volunteer firefighters.

They were catastrophically wrong.

Friday the 13th Revenge

The brawl had taken place on July 12th – the annual Orange Order parade day, when Protestant power in Toronto was on full display. The next morning brought Friday the 13th, and with it, a gathering storm.

Word of the firefighters’ humiliation spread quickly through Orange Order networks. By afternoon, an angry crowd had assembled around the circus grounds at Fair Green. Merchants and farmers who normally set up stalls nearby received warnings to clear out. Something ugly was brewing.

Chief of Police Samuel Sherwood heard about the trouble but took his time responding. As an Orange Order member himself, Sherwood had little incentive to protect a bunch of American entertainers who’d bloodied his fellow Orangemen. Years earlier, he’d helped organize a Tory attack on a Reform Party parade that left one man dead. When he finally dispatched a few constables to check on the situation, the violence had already begun.

The Riot Explodes

Rocks flew first, pelting the circus tents as performers and workers tried to defend their temporary home. The circus folk held their ground initially, but when the Hook & Ladder Company arrived carrying pikes, axes, and iron bars, all restraint vanished.

The firefighters stormed through the grounds like an invading army. They overturned wagons, pulled down tents, and set fires throughout the circus encampment. Clowns who’d been so confident the night before now ran for their lives. Some dove into Lake Ontario, preferring the murky water to the mob’s fury.

The few police officers on scene watched the destruction unfold without intervening. Even when Chief Sherwood eventually arrived, he claimed he could only prevent the rioters from setting the animal cages ablaze. The mayor finally took control, physically wrestling an axe away from a firefighter who was about to murder one of the clowns. Only when the mayor called in the militia did the violence finally stop.

Justice Denied

The aftermath followed a depressingly familiar pattern. Seventeen rioters were arrested, but every police officer at the scene suddenly developed amnesia when it came to identifying Orange Order members. The same convenient memory loss had occurred after the Firemen’s Riot just weeks earlier.

One constable claimed it was too dark to see faces clearly. Another suggested the riot had been carefully planned so only strangers would participate, making identification impossible. Of the seventeen men charged, only one was ever convicted. The others walked free, their Orange Order connections providing an impenetrable shield against consequences.

Seeds of Change

The blatant corruption couldn’t be ignored forever. Public outrage over the police force’s selective blindness began building momentum for reform. When Toronto elected its next mayor, voters chose someone outside the Orange Order for the first time in over twenty years – a clear signal that the old system was losing its grip.

The pressure for change intensified when similar incidents occurred in the following years. Each time Orange Order members escaped justice through police “forgetfulness,” the calls for reform grew louder. The circus riot had exposed the fundamental corruption at the heart of Toronto’s law enforcement, and that exposure proved impossible to cover up permanently.

The System Collapses

By 1858, the provincial government could no longer ignore the obvious problems with Toronto’s police force. An official inquiry was launched, supported by the reform-minded mayor and a public fed up with decades of corruption and incompetence.

The investigation’s findings led to sweeping changes. In February 1859, the entire police force was fired – every officer from Chief Sherwood down to the newest constable. A new, professional force was created from scratch, with proper training, oversight, and accountability measures. About half of the old constables were eventually rehired, but under strict new rules that broke the Orange Order’s stranglehold on law enforcement.

The fire department underwent similar reforms, transforming from competing private enterprises into a unified public service. The changes didn’t eliminate corruption overnight – that would take decades – but they established the foundation for modern professional police and fire services.

The Clowns’ Legacy

The S.B. Howes’ Star Troupe Menagerie & Circus gathered what remained of their equipment and fled Toronto immediately after the riot. Their tour was effectively ruined, forcing them to return to New York State with massive losses. Most of the performers, including the mysterious clown named Meyers who may have started it all, disappeared into history.

The circus performers probably never realized their drunken brawl in a brothel would reshape an entire city’s government. Their defiance of Toronto’s Orange Order establishment, followed by the riot’s brutal aftermath, created a perfect storm that finally broke decades of institutional corruption.

The Hook & Ladder Firefighting Company got their revenge, but it came at a cost none of them anticipated. Their pyrrhic victory exposed the very system that had protected them, ultimately leading to its complete destruction. Toronto’s transformation from a rough frontier town into a more professional, accountable city can be traced directly back to that chaotic night when clowns and firefighters settled their differences with fists instead of words.

SOURCES: Spacing, The Star, The Circus Diaries, C.D. Gallant King, Brady Carlson, Hushed Up History

NOTE: Some of this content may have been created with assistance from AI tools, but it has been reviewed, edited, narrated, produced, and approved by Darren Marlar, creator and host of Weird Darkness — who, despite popular conspiracy theories, is NOT an AI voice.