Who was John Henry Anderson, the Great Wizard of the North?

John Henry Anderson (1814–1874) was a Scottish magician from Aberdeenshire, billed as “the Wizard of the North”. He took his show from small Scottish towns to London, performed for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, made the bullet catch a well-known part of his act, lost two theatres to fire and toured Europe, Russia, North America and Australia. He died in Darlington, England, in 1874.

Anderson is remembered as much for his showmanship as for his tricks, and the stories around him grew with every tour. This post sticks to what at least two of our sources agree on, and says so where they disagree.

Where did John Henry Anderson come from?

He was born in 1814 in Aberdeenshire, in the north-east of Scotland. Our sources name different places near Aberdeen (Kincardine O’Neil, Torphins and Craigmyle all appear), and one gives his birthday as 14 July.

He started young and in the theatre. Our sources agree that as a boy he worked with a travelling theatre company, and that is where his path into magic began.

How did he become the Wizard of the North?

By 1837 he was touring with his own magic show. Playbills called him “Professor Anderson, the Wizard of the North”, and he is widely remembered as “the Great Wizard of the North”. He styled himself “Professor Anderson”, a common habit among stage magicians of the time.

In 1840 he reached London, where he appeared at the Strand Theatre. Britannica describes him arriving with “the most elaborate collection of magical apparatus ever seen there”.

What were his famous tricks?

The trick most linked to his name is the bullet catch, in which a gun is fired at the performer, who appears to catch the bullet. Anderson did not invent it, but it became one of his best-known feats, and on his American tour of the early 1850s it was part of the show. The bullet catch has killed performers and is never something to try; we mention it only as history.

Anderson is also linked to the rabbit pulled from a top hat. Some sources describe him as the first to do it on stage. We can’t confirm who did it first, so we’ll only say that his name is often tied to the trick.

A Canadian archive of his tour programmes lists acts such as “The Magic Bottle”, “The Magic Laundry” and “The Magic Scrap Book”. You can read how tricks with those names were done in that era in Professor Hoffmann’s Modern Magic, which has sections on the inexhaustible bottle and the magic laundry.

Why did his theatres keep burning?

Fire followed Anderson. Back in Scotland he opened a large new theatre in Glasgow, and it burned down in 1845, only months after it opened.

The bigger disaster came in London. Anderson rented the Covent Garden Theatre, and at the end of a season, after a late-night masked ball, the theatre caught fire and burned down. Our sources disagree on the year (1856 or 1857). The fire destroyed his apparatus and left him in debt, although Britannica notes that it also added to his fame.

Where did he tour?

Anderson performed across Europe and in Russia, then toured North America from 1850, including several tours of Canada and the United States, and also took his show to Australia.

He also performed for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Our sources disagree on whether that was in London or at Balmoral, so we leave the venue out.

Robert-Houdin’s Memoirs include a chapter about his 1848 trip to London that mentions “the Great Wizard”, and you can read it in the free ebook below.

What did he write?

Anderson published several popular books on magic for the home audience, including The Fashionable Science of Parlour Magic. One of his books promised experiments “adapted for performance at the parlour or drawing-room table or fire-side”, which tells you exactly who he was writing for.

How did his life end?

Anderson’s family was part of the magic business too: his wife and several of his children performed in magic acts. He died in Darlington, County Durham, in February 1874.

Why does he matter today?

Anderson’s career shows magic moving from the street and the fairground into big theatres, with large apparatus, heavy advertising and a stage name people remembered. Many habits of the touring stage magician, from the grand title to the poster campaign, are on full show in his story.

What helps you take it further?

• Memoirs of Robert-Houdin is a free 382-page PDF of the French magician’s own story, including his 1848 trip to London.
• Modern Magic by Professor Hoffmann (1876) is a free 594-page PDF covering the stage tricks of that era, including the inexhaustible bottle and the magic laundry.

Browse our stage magic collection and the full shelf of free ebooks. For more stage history, read about Robert-Houdin, John Nevil Maskelyne and Chung Ling Soo.

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