The mystery of an Italian who travelled to Inverness with a dancing bear and buried in a grave marked “lion tamer” has been solved by Highland archivists.
Edinburgh-based singer songwriter Dean Owens discovered the story of his great-great-grandfather Ambrose Salvona while researching his family history for a song about his grandmother Dora Salvona Owens.
She grew up in a family circus in Scotland, which had been founded by Mr Salvona.
However, information on his distant relative was scant, with the only details being that he travelled from Italy in the company of a dancing bear, at some point in the late 19th century, that he was a lion tamer, and was buried somewhere in the Highlands.
Mr Owens told the story to a crowd at a festival in Perth before performing the song.
By chance, in the audience was High Life Highland senior cultural manager Judi Menabney.
On her return to Inverness, she told the story to some of her colleagues at the Highland Archive and Registration Centre who set to work trying to track down the lair of the lion tamer.
The grave was discovered in Tomnahurich Cemetery, with the inscription: “In Loving Memory of Ambrose Salvona. Lion Tamer. Died at Inverness 13th October 1917. Aged 88 years.”
The centre team set to work trying to fill in the story behind the intriguing grave.
What the team established was that Mr Salvona was married twice, the father of at least ten children and that he was already around 80-years-old when he came to Inverness.
He died in the then Inverness Poor House, which subsequently became Hilton Hospital.
A procession across the town took him to his final resting place, where he was “buried by friends” according to cemetery records.
But gaps remain – including why the lion tamer travelled to the Highlands in the first place.
Mr Owens, accompanied by his father, George, has now finally visited the grave where his relative was buried.
He said: “I can’t believe the final resting place of my great great grandfather has been found. I’m very grateful to Judi, Anne (Fraser, family historian) and their colleagues for all the work they’ve put into discovering his story.
“I’m delighted they want to use it and my song Dora – which started the search – in their own presentations.
“You really don’t know what’s up there, way up in the family tree. And maybe there’s another song in that.”