Rosa Lee, Equestrian Juggler, in Australia and New Zealand 1879/1880

 Some of the earliest jugglers in Australia were circus jugglers. In the 19th Century, the circus jugglers, many of them women, juggled props on horseback. The horse galloped around the ring, and the juggler, precariously balanced on the bareback horse, juggled various props to the delight of the audience.

The English Lee family, which was internationally famous, were noted exponents of juggling on horseback. The patriarch of the family, Henry C Lee married three times and had 16 children. At least three of these children, Polly, Levater and Rosa were equestrian jugglers.

Rosa and Levater came to Australia and New Zealand in 1879/1880 with Chiarini’s Circus. On this tour Rosa was the featured juggler. 

Rosa Lee was born in the United States in 1862, to Henry and his second wife Juliet. Rosa was born in a circus and born to be a circus performer. Her elder sister Polly was a juggler on horseback and Rosa followed in her footsteps.

In 1879/1880, Rosa, her brother Levater, and her father, Henry, featured in Chiarini’s Circus’ tour of Australia and New Zealand. 

In New Zealand Rosa rode a bareback horse and juggled knives, plates and balls whilst it galloped around the ring. Rosa’s feats were considered the finest display of equestrianism ever seen in the colony.  Her feats were described as ‘Indian juggling’ but this referred more to her use of knives rather than clubs. There is no record of Rosa juggling clubs on horseback in Australasia. 

Rosa juggled three and four balls in the air, she juggled three knives from hand to hand, she juggled two balls in one hand whilst spinning plates in the other, she also juggled flaming torches. In addition she balanced plates on a knife and held the  knife in her mouth as the plate teetered upon it. She was an extremely talented juggler. As an encore she did gymnastic feats on horseback.

Most of the New Zealand critics raved about her performance, but there were a couple of naysayers.

One was convinced she was a man pretending to be a woman. This was due to a controversy in December 1879, when after a rapturous round of applause, Rosa, with youthful enthusiasm, she was only 17, did a couple of somersaults after alighting from her horse. The critic looked on in horror;

‘and then she did an act which was unfeminine and ungraceful. She turned several somersaults and then, being applauded by a section of the audience, repeated the indelicacy. This, at once, to our mind proved that the woman was no woman at all, but a boy or a young man.’

In Wanganui ,another critic also derided this extra show of somersaults, but did not question Rosa’s gender, merely saying that ‘ her vanity was in excess of her ability.’

Rosa attracted less attention when the circus came to Australia later in 1880. In June, the Sydney papers called her one of the ‘cleverest jugglers ever seen here.' In July she was still finishing her act with somersaults but the Australian press did not deem them unladylike or vain. Perhaps she had changed her costume or the Australian press were less judgmental than their New Zealand counterparts? In Australia she was considered one of many high class acts, including brother Levater, in the show.

After leaving Australia, Rosa left Chiarinis. She had a very long career in the circus and performed professionally until aged in her 50s. She spent a lot of time in the United States, married, and died in Los Angeles in 1952. 

Australia's early circus jugglers.

Circus and Juggling seems to be a natural association, and so it proved in early 19^th Century Australia. Whilst the main attraction of early circus was equestrian feats, juggling was included as another, less important, feature. The Australian circus began in Tasmania in 1847, and by the 1850s several different circuses had evolved. The gold rush which started in 1851 led to further demands for entertainment and a consequent increase in circus activity.

One of the early exponents of circus in Australia was James Ashton and juggling played an important role in his show from the very beginning. In fact, as early as 1849, in Melbourne, he had a benefit which featured Monsieur Risley, a juggler. By 1852, Ashton was in New South Wales and promising juggling, balancing and acrobatic feats for the entertainment of people in Singleton, a country town.

Ashton seems to have also performed Risley juggling, that is juggling people with the feet. This type of juggling was named after Richard Risley Carlisle who introduced it in the USA in the early 1840s. However, this was not the same Risley who performed with Ashton in Melbourne in 1849. Ashton also seems to have juggled other items with his feet, this is known as ‘foot juggling’. There is some evidence that Ashton popularised foot juggling in Australia, as one of his apprentices, Robert Taylor, was well known for this skill.

Taylor, born in Windsor New South Wales, was foot juggling in Sydney by 1855, firstly with Ashton and later with Burton’s Circus. An early picture of juggling published in the newspapers, showed Mr R Taylor upside down laying on his back, with a large ball balanced on his foot. Taylor is dressed in a one-piece frilled body suit which resembled the costume of a clown. His lower legs are encased in decorated stockings and his feet covered by flat pointed shoes with bows. In 1857, Taylor performed at the goldfields at Bendigo with Burton’s circus. In this performance he put a large ball ‘through a variety of evolutions moving it with the same facility with his feet as if they were his hands.’ He also stilt walked and balanced on a large ball whilst juggling.

Ashton was not the only circus proprietor at this time, in Sydney his circus had a rival, Malcolm’s Royal Australian Amphitheatre. At Malcolm’s they had a house juggler called Signor Cardoza, called the juggling king, who performed a ‘grand juggling act on a courser’, a horse.

Another competitor who arrived around 1852 was Henry Burton.  On Boxing Day that year he introduced his Grand Fete at the Sir Joseph Banks Hotel at Botany Bay Sydney. It featured his great equestrian artistes, including Major John Downey, who juggled whilst his horse galloped at full speed, and an equilibrist who, on the back of a white horse, spun plates and manipulated other items.

It seems therefore that object manipulation was a major part of the circus tradition, although only a tangential part of the show. Juggling complemented feats of equestrian acrobatics, probably played a role with the clowns and tumblers and was in the skill set of most circus performers.

The discovery of gold in Australia changed everything for entertainers in the country. It brought wealth, thousands of people, and a multicultural mix to the small insular society. This resulted in a higher demand for shows, and many circuses responded by becoming itinerant and visiting the gold fields, chasing the money of those who were chasing their dream.

With this desire for more entertainment came a requirement for more performers. One way the circus met the demand was by adopting or acquiring unwanted Aboriginal children.   One of these was a young indigenous boy, nicknamed ‘little nugget’. In 1852 the young boy was juggling with Burton’s circus near the gold fields at the Commercial Hotel Bathurst. He performed as one of the jugglers of Antwerp, ‘spinning plates and throwing balls’.

The young man was ‘adopted’ or kidnapped, as many young Aboriginal children were, and trained in circus as an added, exotic attraction Later he was renamed ‘Billy Jones’ after John Jones, a former Burton employee who left to form his own circus and took Billy with him. Billy Jones was the first  documented Aboriginal person to perform in a circus, he was an acrobat, juggler, equestrian and superb performer.

By the 1860s circus had become a featured entertainment in Australia and juggling was part of the show. These early jugglers were some of the first to introduce juggling to large Australian audiences and from them comes a large part of the Australian juggling tradition.

- A lot of the background information for this article, particularly about 'Billy Jones',  comes from Dr Mark St Leon's superb book, Circus The Australian Story

If you are interested in present day juggling try Sydney Juggling

Ma'mselle Rhodesia- The only lady juggler ever seen in these parts

Described by various writers in Australia as ‘beautiful’ ‘pretty’ ‘ladylike’ and the ‘lady Cinquevalli’, Ma’mselle Florence Rhodesia was one of the first female jugglers to perform in Australia.

Florrie was born around 1885 in England according to a US census. This means that she was a bare 15 years old when she came to Australia. It is, however, entirely possible that Florrie may have ‘fudged’ her age a bit.

 She made her debut in the antipodes in 1900, when she toured Australia and New Zealand with Fitzgerald Brothers Circus. The brothers, Tom, and Dan Fitzgerald, called her Rhoda.

According to an interview she gave in New Zealand, she began her circus career at 8 years of age as a slack wire walker. When her apprenticeship ended she toured South Africa with Fillis Brothers and began juggling. Whilst there she met Cecil Rhodes and acquired the name ‘Rhodesia’.  She then returned to England and began juggling on the variety stages where the brothers Fitzgerald found her and asked her to tour Australia.

Rhoda toured for several years. Her act incorporated several skills that Cinquevalli had introduced to the Australian stage. Florrie turned herself into a billiard table and rolled balls around her body until they slipped into the pockets of a specially designed coat, she also did ‘everything Cinquevalli did’. However, most contemporaneous accounts focused on her looks and ladylike demeanour, with one Australian newspaper saying, ‘the lady is personally very attractive which is a feature unto itself.’ For a publicity shot in 1902, Rhoda wore male attire, including pants, a suit coat, and a shirt, she also had a top hat by her side. This costume placed her firmly in the tradition of gentleman juggler and contributed to her appeal, particularly to male audiences.

Rhoda was well liked by her peers and when she left Australia in 1903 she was farewelled with a cart full of bouquets, the music of the circus orchestra and a gold medal from her employers. They also penned her a note,  

Dear Rhoda, as you are now leaving Australia, we must express our sincere regret at your departure. You have behaved yourself always in a ladylike and graceful manner and you leave behind you many true friends and well-wishers. We consider you a true artist, and a credit to your profession- T and D.

According to a contemporary newspaper, Rhodesia was the only lady juggler ever seen in ‘these parts’, probably referring to Australia and New Zealand.

In 1905 Florrie wrote a letter to friends in Sydney announcing that she had married Mr William Seeley in Capetown South Africa. Seeley had performed in Australia on the Tivoli circuit as one of a team called Seeley and West, it is possible that the pair met during Rhoda’s Australasian tour.

Florrie returned to Australia, as Madame Rhodesia, with her husband in 1907 and performed at the Tivoli. However, this time her act was not as widely applauded. One newspaper dismissed her show saying the only unique part of it was that she was female. Time and imitators had apparently eaten away at her novelty.

Florence continued to perform with her husband, primarily in the United States. In 1910, Florence and William settled there.By the late 1920s Florence was the proprietor of an Inn in Suffolk New York. Genealogical information suggests that she passed away around 1938 in the same area.

For information about present day juggling try Sydney Juggling