Charles Ancaster- plate spinner and juggler in Australia 1922

 Charles Ancaster, best known as a plate spinner, came to Australia and New Zealand in 1922, with plates, bottles, hats and clubs.

Charles, it seems, was born in Brussels around 1896, and his birth name was Charles Alfonso Ancaster Harson (see endnotes) . He later told Australian newspapers that he ran away to the circus as a young man,  a story that was often told by jugglers at the time. Charles' version had a twist. His father, catching him at the circus, sent him to Japan with some medical students with the aim of becoming a doctor. When he returned to England, war was raging. During the war , he learned how to juggle.  Charles claimed to have served five years in the army, but newspaper accounts have him juggling in English music halls in late 1917. By the end of the war he had a reputable juggling act and in 1921 was employed by Moss Enterprises. His wife, 19 year old Agnes, was living with him at that time.

In 1922 Charles sailed to Australia, seemingly without Agnes. After a brief stop in Sydney in March, he played New Zealand in April and May, spinning plates, and juggling hats and clubs. He was billed as the 'inebriated juggler' and affected a 'keystone' manner to entertain the audience. New Zealand reports say that he 'danced' 12 plates on a table. 

 In June 1922 he arrived in Australia for a five month tour.

Charles was working for Fullers, the second tier Australian vaudeville circuit, the Tivoli being the premier circuit. Fullers had an extensive chain which included many regional towns and cities. 

The juggler began his tour in Melbourne. He was well received in the city, but not a sensation. The general view was that he was the highlight of a long and satisfying series of turns, His juggling was praised as 'adept' and unique, but he was not a superstar. 

 In  Newcastle, a regional city, he 'danced ' 9 plates. One trick which drew  notice was his bottle juggling. He manipulated bottles around each other in mysterious ways, at one time making one bottle revolve around the side of another for several minutes. As he was  the 'inebriated' juggler, bottle spinning was probably a good match for his persona. 

Charles' trip to Australia did not cause any major stir, but it was solid act, regarded warmly by reviewers and audiences. When he returned to London he continued his career and his plate dancing was memorialized in several videos such as the one below from 1938.

He passed away in 1965 in London. 

BIOGRAPHICAL ENDNOTES; 

Charles Ancaster with wife Agnes is on the 1921 UK census living in Wales and working as a musical artist for Moss Empires. born c 1896.

Charles Alfonso Ancaster Harson  (variety artist) with wife Agnes Ancaster Harson on a shipping manifest to the US in 1947. (this seems to suggest his birth name was Harson.) 

There is also a hand written note on a shipping list with the name "Harson" over the name Ancaster. 

There are several other relevant references.

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. 

Club Juggling in Australia- a short history.

 This is just a very brief discussion about club juggling in Australia and 

an opportunity to look at the evolution of props 

and style between 1890s-1940s.

A brief overview of club juggling in Australia (a work in progress)

It seems that club juggling came to Australia around the late 1800s and

South Australians were some of its earliest exponents. Most of these

displays were in small venues such as Town Halls or private functions

and in the context of Indian club swinging. Some early examples were

Mr George Steel/e in Adelaide in 1889 and Mr Soutar in the same year.

Whether this was club juggling as understood today, or just two club

twirling is unknown.

Marizles Wirth of the Wirth Circus family is traditionally said to have

juggled clubs on horseback.She certainly juggled a lot of other things,

plates, balls and lighted flambeaux, as a horse cantered beneath her. This

was as early as 1886. Her sister Madeline, at the same time, was

swinging Indian clubs, so it's entirely possible that Marizles juggled them too.

An interesting note is that in her diary, Marizles talks of getting new props

made in Adelaide. It seems the city had a significant juggling community

in the late 19th Century.

Below is a picture of Marizles.

One of the earlies club jugglers in an Australian theatre was John Pamplin,

a performer with Orpheus McAdoo's Georgia Minstrels. John, like Marizles

was a skilled juggler who specialised in juggling guns whilst dressed as a

Zouave. There are newspaper reports of him juggling Indian clubs at the Theatre

Royal in Adelaide in November 1899. In later years he was a noted club juggler,

which supports the idea that he was one of the the first people to juggle clubs on

an Australian stage.

It is difficult to find pictures of John because the individual members of 

touring minstrel groups were rarely identified. Below are two photos. One a

group shot and another a pair. The first seems to show a man in a white

hat with possibly a gun- perhaps this is John? The second shows the same man

with what could be an axe? I could be mistaken

 Is this John Pamplin in Australia in 1899?

Americans, Derenda and Breen came to Australia in 1902 and introduced club
passing to the Australian theatrical world. From that time passing became a

staple of the Australian vaudeville circuit.

Local club passing acts started appearing in the theatres after their visit. Lennon, Hyman

and Lennon were early Australian club passers and here they are in 1906.

By 1910 there were many Australian club jugglers.

The Kavanaghs and the Creightons were examples and they soon

took their acts to the US.

Some jugglers remained in Australia.  Carl Bracken of the Bracken family

included a passing act as part of the family travelling show.

His partner was Frank Uren, of later Frank, Lank and Alice fame. 

Here they are  in 1912. This picture is courtesy of a family member

Used with permission, please don't reproduce it.

Frank Uren and Carl Bracken, c.1912

Photo courtesy of the Uren/Thomas family private collection.

Passing provided more opportunities for women to perform

with clubs and Frank, Lank and Alice were a passing trio who

appeared during the early years of the First World War. They

were Victorians.Alice later became a well known and loved dance

instructor in Melbourne. She also married Frank. 

The popularity of club passing continued into the 1920s

when the Littlejohns sparkled up their clubs and maintained a

solid juggling career for over a decade. Frank Littlejohn

made his own clubs and patented the design for

his sparkling props. Frank always included women in

his act.

Above Frank's patent

Below- in costume (1920s)

A famous club passing duo of the 1930s in Queensland

were the McIvor sisters who were filmed in Brisbane in 1935.

Their father was a juggler who taught the girls at an early age.

Their career as adults was relatively short,

but very memorable.  Here is a bad copy of the video. It is apparently

one of the earliest known videos of women passing.

During the late 30s club passing and club juggling

continued its popularity, but opportunities for performance

declined due to competition from movies and the consequent

decrease in vaudeville performances and popularity.

But of course there were still club jugglers.

In 1940 PIX magazine published pictures of Ossie Delroy, a circus legend and

Jimmy Wallace juggling in Sydney. Jimmy was ‘the’ juggler in Australia

for about two decades. He grew up in Marrickville in inner Sydney

and his father was a well known magician and puppeteer. 

Below Ossie and Jimmy in Pix Magazine 1940.

Ossie and Jimmy entertained the troops with their

club juggling during the war and the entertainment unit was

organised by another juggler, West Australian, Jim Collins.

- to be continued .........

This is what I've discovered so far...

and of course the research continues.

Feel free to comment etc...

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