Nellie Boswell

James and Rebecca had three children, two sons and a daughter: James Clements (J.C.) and Harry and Ellen Clara, known as Nellie. They were all expert in horsemanship.Nellie was famous in Hengler’s Circus for nearly two decades. She performed dashing character acts appearing as a Scottish fish wife with a creel of herrings, changing to the ‘Jolly young waterman’ and ‘Highland Laddie’ while on the back of the galloping horse. “You made your changes on horseback”, she explained in a “World’s Fair” interview in 1935. “I reappeared to dance the Highland Fling in the centre of the ring if I got an encore – and I always did.” Nellie married Fred Cattle, known as “comical Cattle”. Their eldest son, William, became adept on unsupported ladders, and as “du Calion” toured all over the world, including the Schlesinger circuit in South Africa.