History of Puppetry
in Canada

Joseph and Bryan Vaughan

During the 1920s, Joseph McCarthy Vaughan, an architect by trade, created a series of hand puppets and built a small theatre to amuse his children. He also produced a delightful handwritten manual on the construction, manipulation and history of puppets. The lessons in his manual would serve his family well: in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, his son Bryan decided to earn a living with the puppets. Joseph wrote some scripts for his son and helped produce the shows. Bryan Vaughan went on to perform his Punch and Judy shows to audiences of children throughout the Toronto region, particularly in large department stores, at carnivals and at children's parties.