In England at least, in the sport of cricket, it used to be that, instead of getting any sort of pension when you retire, when a player had played for 10 years, his team would designate one match as a “benefit match” where pretty much all of the proceeds would to go him as his retirement fund. I assume that circus performers didn’t make that much money “back in the day,” and they did something similar for them.
I couldn’t read the bottom part of the poster, but a clearer version reveals that Mr. Kite will be performing on the tight rope, so not retired or disabled.
This has been an education. Somerset is an archaic spelling of somersault, which in turn is derived from the obsolete French word sombresault.
It could be a final performance: Kite is healthy enough to perform, but doesn’t want to do a daily grind.
According to his Wikipedia article, Kite had just transferred from Wells’s Circus to Fanque’s. He performed for Wells in 1842 and 1843, and the date in the playbill is February 14th, 1843. He went on to perform for Fanque until 1845, so this is more likely his premiere than his finale.
That said, reading the playbill without the parentheticals and puffery, it says, “Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite and Mr. J. Henderson.” I would suggest that this means Kite and Henderson are co-beneficiaries, with Kite getting the top billing because he’s the new talent. (Although it’s Henderson facing that hogshead of REAL FIRE.)
Now, to Schnitte’s main question, about specifically what the “being for the benefit of” entails:
Ferreting through a thicket of links to antique playbills led to me another Wikipedia article explaining the practice of benefit performances during that era. It was a contractual matter; when performers signed on with an impresario, part of the deal was sometimes a stipulation that the performer would receive a set percentage of the proceeds from at least one performance per year as a bonus on top of their regular wages.
So, what we have here is an instance in which two performers had contracts with Fanque stipulating that they would receive half the proceeds of a performance as a bonus. The three came to an arrangement whereby they would have a single benefit performance with Kite and Henderson splitting the take, after which the Circus would return to its regular playbill. It no doubt simplified things for the manager while allowing Messrs. K and H an opportunity to promote the performance as a special event together in an effort to increase their bonus earnings.
You guys have put way more thought into this than John ever did.
I love the Dope.
That is all.
Benefit meaning “the profits from this event go to a person or cause” is normal UK & Commonwealth English usage.
I play in bands and have played benefits, most recently for refugees. A Benefit for Refugees is what the gig was called, and no one needs that explained to them here in Australia, it’s standard vocabulary. If I say “we played a benefit” everyone knows what I mean.
I’m guessing this usage didn’t make it to the USA, hence Americans and other non-English speakers not getting it.
It did, but it’s generally used specifically for charity benefit events, not just to say that a particular performer is getting an extra cut of the box for a normal event. That’s probably why some posters suggested that Mr. Kite was in some form of distress at the time. I think everyone understood that Mr. Kite was getting extra cash out of it; they were just questioning the reason.
In any event, as I posted above, the phrase carried a very specific subset of that meaning in connection with performers at the time the playbill was posted. (In fact, the practice was in use from the late 1600s to the late 1800s.)
Still, I’d rather listen to the song than a recitation of this thread. 