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MACCOMO the lion tamer is dead – that was the shocking news that readers of The Northern Echo were waking up to 150 years ago this week. Martini Maccomo had died in The Palatine Hotel in Sunderland and is probably the only person to be buried in the North-East with the words “lion hunter” on his headstone. Even more remarkably, one of the lions which mauled him has for generations been one of the region’s most curious museum exhibits. Maccomo was said to have been born in Angola (although he might just have been a Liverpudlian called Arthur Williams who invented a glamorous ba...

Martini Maccomo advertising poster - the lion tamer's death was reported byu the D&S 150 years ago this week From the Darlington & Stockton Times of January 14, 1871 THE headline of “Death of Maccomo, the lion-tamer, at Sunderland” would really have caught the eye of the reader of the D&S 150 years ago. Martini Maccomo was the most famous lion-tamer in the north, probably because his act was so dangerous. He was said to have been born in Angola (although he might just have been a Liverpudlian called Arthur Williams who invented a glamorous back story), and he was billed as “the Afri...