Some Circus History

Australia has a long long circus history and the place to discover it is at Dr Mark St Leon's website . The website has an incredible variety of resources, including genealogical resources. It is an amazing history site.

I suppose Ashton is the most famous name in Australian circus history. However, another famous name is Wirth. The Wirths ran circuses around Australia for decades their most famous offspring, who wasnt really their offspring at all, was May.

May was an Australian born bareback rider who enthralled audiences with her astounding acrobatic tricks on horseback.She was applauded and idolised in America and worked as a starring act for Barnum and Bailey, but she was never really appreciated in Australia. More on May here

The Wirth family ran a circus until the 1960s and one day I accidentally discovered and subsequently purchased the following items.

Firstly, a Xmas card from Wirths dated 1953-1954

There is a lovely picture of an acrobatic rider in the top left hand corner.



With the card were these photographs, which give some indication of how a circus travelled in the 1960s.









I'm not sure a circus would be allowed to have so many elephants today.



Circus is a long held Australian tradition. Circus folk were often derided in the past, but hopefully we've outgrown that sort of prejudice . What is incredible is the sheer skill of circus performers. Some evidence of this is in this youtube video of Australian acrobats,The St Leons in the United States in 1959, posted by Mark St Leon.



-Leann

Stage Hands Union 1890

I mentioned earlier, that last year I was able to purchase some memorabilia from descendants of Jack Ricketts. Jack was a scenic artist who eventually became the manager of Wonderland City for William Anderson. Jack was also a union man.


Life in the 1890s was unkind to workers. There was a depression and a consequent increase in worker organisation. The result was the formation of many different unions. One such union was the Stage Hands Protective and benefit union.

It was formed at a meeting held in Trades Hall ( in Melbourne I think) in September 1890, and Jack was there and elected secretary. Below are some of the notes he took from that meeting.


The first resolution passed was the proposition to form a stage hands union. The aims of it were First to maintain a fair rate of wages in theatres Secondly to obtain a finality of hours of labour in theatres. Thirdly to protect the employees of theatres against the introduction of cheap unskilled labour.

Of course every union must have funds and the stage hand union was no exception. They met the first Sunday of each month at the Trades Hall in Carlton and charged an entrance fee of two shillings 6 pence or 6 pence weekly. Of course nobody was allowed entry unless they had a union card like this.


Jack must have been either particularly rich in April 1891 or a long way behind in his dues because that month he contributed 14 shillings to the cause




Im not sure how long the Stage Hands Union lasted, but by the 1920s scenic designers had their own associaton, the Society of Scenic Artists of Australia .

Sydney Theatres past and present

I was born and bred in Sydney and sometimes I'll even admit it. One of the side effects of this affliction is, that to me, a real city is a city that is constantly destroying and rebuilding its streets. In my opinion, if a city is not a building site, it is not a real city.

Today I took some photos of the sites of two of Sydney's most famous theatres, Her Majestys and The Criterion.

Her Majestys Theatre was built in 1887 on the eastern side of Pitt Street on the corner of Market Street. This was Her Majesty's in the early years.

And this is the building site it is today.

Her Majesty's closed in 1933 with a performance of Maid in the Mountains, starring Gladys Moncrieff. A Woolworths store opened on the site, but it is probably best known as the former site of Centrepoint.

More on Her Majestys is here

The next demolished theatre I looked at was the Criterion. The Criterion was built in 1886 and lived on the corner of Pitt and Park Streets Sydney.

Below is the Criterion Theatre at the height of its glory.

The Criterion was demolished in 1935 so that Park Street could be widened. Basically they demolished the theatre and kept the pub! Here is the pub as it appeared today.





You can read more about the 'Cri' here

There's a nice document from 1993 which has a list of Sydney's old theatres and their locations. It was done by the Masonic Historical Society of NSW and a copy is held at the Royal Australian Historical Society in Sydney.

By the way, why was Queen Victoria wearing such colourful clothes today? I think the council workers were trying to undress her. Scandal!




-Leann

Miscellaneous pictures (non theatrical)

Often I purchase or receive boxes full of memorabilia. Most of it is theatre related, but often it contains material which is fascinating as general history.

The pictures from the last post came from a box of memorabilia I bought about a year ago from descendants of Jack Ricketts, a scenic designer. Obviously a lot of the material relates to scenic design and Jack's life in the theatre, however, there is also much that is related to general life in the late 19th early 20th centuries.

Here is a small sample of that material.

Firstly, a very old union card from the Shipwrights provident union. It is made out to Mr James Nicholson, member number 268 and is dated, 16th March 1876. The caption under the coat of arms says, united we stand, divided we fall
.


Next is a postcard/letter from Ballarat. It is dated 27th April 1915. The top right hand corner of the postcard has been torn off, to either reuse or save the stamp. As it was war time, I guess stamps were at a premium.


Below is a picure of Prince Albert's statue at Hyde Park in Sydney. I'm not sure of the date, but there is a very fetching cart standing in front of the statue. The picture is quite yellow and faint with age.


Finally, a postcard of the US ship Louisiana.I am unsure of the date, but it could be related to the visit of the American fleet in 1908.




I hope you enjoyed looking at these wonderful items. If you wish to reuse or redistribute them, please credit HAT and me...

Leann

Miscellaneous pictures (Theatrical)

Updating the website takes hours, so I thought I would post some pictures tthat I haven't had the time to put on HAT onto here.

Firstly, we have some pictures from the Xmas card that Mr and Mrs Jack Fanning of the Tivoli Theatre in Adelaide sent to their friends in 1917.

Here are Mr and Mrs Fanning;

and here is the Tivoli Theatre in Adelaide.



This is an old advertising card for a play called A Woman of Pleasure., a melodrama. THe caption says ' The troopship on fire! The last boat!" It looks like an English production. probably early 20th century.

The next picture is a Talma photo of an old performer. probably early 20th century, possibly earlier. Talma was the most famous photographic studio in Sydney and Melbourne. They took most of the theatrical promotional pictures. They also produced postcards by the thousands. Talma postcards are worth far more than ordinary postcards of the Edwardian period.

This lovely gentleman is, I think, Mr Harry Gribbin. It looks like he was a comedian.
I hope you enjoyed a brief look at my theatrical pix. They will be posted to the HAT website when I get the time...whenever that will be....

-Leann

HAT-website update

Updated the website tonight.

Added some pages about William Anderson and corrected some mistakes on the Winifred Atwell page.

Also added a link to this blog on the front page.

-Leann

Amazing theatrical travels with Jack Ricketts, scenic designer

Being a lazy human being I can barely manage to walk a couple of kilometres some days, but our theatricals in the 19th and early 20th centuries were people of adventure and travellers extraordinaire.

Take for example, Jack Ricketts. Jack was born in Orange NSW in 1864 and was apprenticed to an illuminator and painter in Sydney when he was 16. His apprencticeship was over after 3 years and then he was left to fend for himself as a painter, scenic designer and illuminator.

Jack painted back cloths, wings and scenery for various theatre companies.He wasn't employed by the larger entrepreneurs and so had to travel with smaller companies to earn money. Often he combined his painting duties with minor acting roles. His diary of 1899 tells the story of an amazing man who travelled far and wide to make a living.

He began the year in New Zealand with the Alfred Woods/ Maud Williamson dramatic company.On 2nd January they were in Greymouth, then they travelled to Nelson two weeks later,and arrived in Blenheim on the 19th. He worked in Wellington on the weekend of the 21st and proceeded to Wanganui the next Tuesday 24th.They spent February in Napier and Hastings and then returned to Wellington on the 25th. After that, Jack left the Woods company to pursue a project back at Greymouth with the Opera House Company.

The people of the Greymouth Opera House Company were generous and gave him a 15 pound bonus after he finished the job. Jack bought new boots, a new coat and a new hat with the money. He also gave some to his mum.

In June he took ship back to Sydney and painted a drop cloth for Mr Ward's skating Rink.

That job finished in August and Jack once again hit the road and ended up in Brisbane, back working for the Alfred Woods Company. He stayed with them as they travelled around Queensland, finally leaving the irregular paying manager in October, when they reached Toowoomba.

He arrived back in Sydney later that month and started to work for the Commonwealth Fair. A celebration held in Sydney later that year. Jack managed a quick holiday to Pearl Beach in summer before starting work for Harry Plimmer at the Standard Theatre in Sydney.

1900 was equally as strenuous, but I will spare you the details. Suffice to say that Jack was willing to travel far and wide to get an irregular wage. He was an artisan with no respect and no income except that which was grudgingly given by stingy managers. His livelihood depended on his skill as an artist and his skill as a negotiator. It was a hard life and Jack had no time to start a family until much later when he found steady employment with the unreliable but loyal William Anderson at Wonderland City.

But that is another story....