Henry Johnson (25 December 1806 – 12 June 1910) was an English acrobat, equestrian gymnast, and tightrope walker for Hughes' and Sanger's circuses in the early 19th century.

He was orphaned at a young age, and started life in poverty, however by his early twenties he had performed before the Emperor of China.

After leaving the circuses and teaming up with Mullaba the Chinese Juggler, he performed privately by Royal Command for William IV.

[2][3][nb 1] When he was two years old, his father died and his family struggled to survive, eating swedes from the fields because they could not afford bread.

[8] Around 1866 Johnson and his wife moved to a "small tenement ... with a combined sitting and bedroom on the ground floor" at 6 New Street, Grantham,[1][4] but he continued to travel the country until 1885.

Johnson's rambling responses to interview questions gave rise to the publication of several contradictory versions of his career.

Having "a desire to travel the country", Johnson joined Hughes' Wild Beast Show and Circus,[nb 4] and was a "fully-qualified member of the equestrian staff" by the age of fourteen years.

[4][15] When his wage was cut by one quarter, he left Hughes' Wild Beast Show and joined Sanger's Circus.

[1] After leaving the circus in 1828,[7] and returning from Pekin to Durham, Johnson formed an independent partnership in 1830 with Pat Feeney who was known as Mullaba the Chinese Juggler or Old Malabar, and that association lasted until 1862.

Johnson followed his acrobatic career for over seventy years in total,[19] working ultimately as a street performer, and retiring in 1892.

[20] Johnson assisted at the "huge" 1838 Coronation Fair at Hyde Park, London,[8] in celebration of Queen Victoria's accession: "All showdom was there":[18] As the boom of distant guns announced the departure of the young Queen for Westminster Abbey the showmen struck their gongs and unfurled their cloths, while the keepers of the booths and stalls rolled up their canvas fronts and commenced operations.

The fair [was] open for several consecutive weeks ... A pot of beer rose to a shilling and a penny loaf to sixpence ...[18] Those were the days of the fat giantesses, the fair Circassians, the Hottentot Venus, the dwarfs, the living skeletons, the two-headed boys, the performing pig, the fortune-telling horse.

[4][22] The day after that, the pair performed by Royal Command for William IV, on a temporary stage on the lawn of Buckingham Palace.

[4] Johnson said: His Majesty was so delighted with my partner and myself, what with Mullaba's juggling and my gymnastics, that he ordered the pair of us to go to Buckingham Palace.

Mullaba and I did well, though I say it, and His Majesty gave us fifty guineas each (equivalent to £5,937 in 2023),[15] and a licence to perform anywhere we wanted in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, at any market town or fair.

[17] He said:[1] I had my carpet outside the Royal Hotel at Tunbridge Wells when the Duchess of Kent came down to me with the Princess Victoria and gave me £10 (equivalent to £1,214 in 2023).

[4] "It was at a dinner to the Royal tenantry when Johnson [claimed] to have danced a hornpipe on his head upon glasses supported by barrels".

[24] Lord George Sanger recalled seeing "American Malabar" doing the Tuppence More trick with a donkey at the Hyde Park Fair of 1838.

[25] In 1910 the circus performer Edward Pablo recalled seeing Malabar in 1880, "walking about the streets [of Glasgow] rigged up in his old Chinese dress", although he did not remember Henry Johnson.

He had once hired Lord George Sanger as a young man to patter (or attract trade) and to take part in the performance.

"The last appearance of Malabar in public was on the occasion of the great procession at the laying of the foundation of the New Municipal Buildings in George's Square", Glasgow,[28] on 6 October 1883.