Woodyear’s Electric Circus and Great London
Equesquiriculem paid a visit to Thames in April 1884. After an arduous journey
through the Thames Valley, the circus set up shop on the reclaimed land near
Curtis’ Hotel on Albert Street. Boasting wonders as unique as The Only Lady
Contortionist in the World, educated dogs and monkeys, the Most Complete Troupe
of Highly Thoroughbred Horses, and The Marvellous Japanese, Woodyear’s Circus
was one of many which regularly made the journey to the Thames gold fields.
Woodyear’s also claimed among their many attractions a
performer they called the ‘Australian Blondin,’ a tightrope walker who
performed for donations each evening outside the main venue. This popular
performer took his stage name from the internationally-famous tightrope walker
Charles Blondin, who was no stranger to Thames himself; he had crossed Pollen
Street, between Captain Butt’s Shortland Hotel and the Warwick Arms Hotel, on a
tightrope in 1876. Charles Blondin’s most famous feat had been his multiple crossings
of the Niagara Falls in 1859, which he completed in successive trips while on
stilts, while blindfolded, while in a sack, while carrying his manager, while
standing on a chair with only one chair leg touching the wire, and finally
while stopping halfway across the Falls to cook an omelette.
Blondin was so synonymous with wire-walking that by
the 1880s Sydney was awash with Australian tightrope walkers referring to
themselves as the ‘Australian Blondin.’ The most famous Australian Blondin was
Henri L’Estrange, a successful funambulist and an accident-prone aeronautical
balloonist, who to this day is the only tightrope performer ever to have walked
across part of Sydney Harbour. L’Estrange’s brief stint as a balloonist also
saw him become the first person to make an emergency parachute descent in
Australia, but after a separate incident involving a massive fireball he quickly
made a return to his original career in tightrope-walking.
Also on the Australasian circuit were James Alexander,
another Australian Blondin; Charles Jackson, a third Australian Blondin; Signor
Vertelli, the Great Australian Blondin; Collins, the Original Australian
Blondin; Alfred Row the Young Blondin; Azella the Female Australian Blondin; Young
Morris the New Zealand Blondin; and the Blondin Brothers, as well as many more
in between.
With so many Blondins to choose from, it’s hard to
know which one entertained the crowds in Grahamstown outside Woodyear’s
Electric Circus. A February 1884 review of the circus from its visit to Nelson
refers to Woodyear’s Blondin as Mr Alexander.
However, the New Zealand Herald report the week before the circus
reached Thames calls The Australian Blondin’s Auckland show his final New
Zealand performance, before ‘he leaves for America by the outgoing mail.’
Whether he decided the lure of Thames was greater than chance for American
stardom, or Woodyear’s simply replaced him with yet another Blondin, is
anyone’s guess.
Whoever he was, the Thames locals were impressed with his
performance. The Thames Star reported the crowd ‘gave vent to their approval of
his clever rope walking feats by repeated applause, and the collection boxes
also seemed to be fairly patronised. Shortly before 8 o’clock his performance
was brought to a close by his carrying a boy along the line on his back, and
the people then began to flock into the circus tent.’ Woodyear’s Circus
performed to a crowd of over a thousand that night.
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