AUSTRALIAN
CULTURE 1789-2000
By
Paul Bentley
October 1999
The
Crown of Wattle, 1851-1900
The population increased
dramatically from the 1830s. Assisted immigration schemes, unemployment,
urban overcrowding and poverty in Britain, and land opportunities in
Australia, encouraged free settlement to compete with transportation and, by
1850, the population stood at about 400,000. The discovery of gold increased
the momentum.
The rapid influx of people
brought social changes. The cities became larger and more cosmopolitan. The
population reached further into country areas. There were changes in
education, discrimination and taste, changes in social and intellectual
expectations. A wealthier population had more disposable time and money for
the enjoyment of literature and entertainment.
Theatre expanded rapidly
and gained respectability. Between 1850 and 1900, 60 new theatres opened in
the capital cities, 40 of them in Sydney and Melbourne. Melbourne became the
theatre capital of Australia.
This post gold rush
expansion was driven along chiefly by young English immigrant actors, whose
enterprise and determination moulded them into formidable Australian
actor-managers.
Theatre
George Coppin (1819-1906),
a comic actor, selected Australia over America as his land of opportunity on
the toss of a coin. He arrived in Sydney on 10 March 1843, exploring theatre
and other business interests in Sydney, Hobart, Launceston, Melbourne and
Adelaide with fluctuating success. Financial difficulties in Adelaide led
him to the Geelong goldfields, where he retrieved his position, entertaining
the miners. After paying his debts in Adelaide, he returned to England,
where he engaged the tragedian G.V. Brooke for a tour of Australia. Brooke
opened at the Queen's Theatre, Melbourne, with a triumphant season of
Othello in 1855.
Briefly in partnership
with Brooke, Coppin expanded his control of Melbourne theatres, and for the
rest of the century played a vital role in Australian theatrical life as
theatre owner, manager, entrepreneur and actor, often in competition with
his political commitments as a member of the Victorian Parliament between
1858 and 1895. His theatrical career is highlighted by his use of celebrity
imports, notably the American actor Joseph Jefferson in 1862, Charles and
Ellen Kean in 1863, and, in 1874, J.C. Williamson and Maggie Moore.
Other English immigrants -
notably George Darrell (1841-1921), Alfred Dampier (1847-1908) and Bland
Holt (1853-1941) - achieved popularity as masters of melodrama, using
spectacular and unusual theatrical effects. George Darrell's adaptation of
The Double Event included the running of the Melbourne Cup, featuring 20
thoroughbred horses ridden by professional jockeys. Bland Holt's production
of Riding to Win featured a fast and furious bicycle race and a real dog
which rescued a drowning murder victim from the Yarra River (a hidden water
tank).
But it was an American
immigrant who made the biggest impact of all.
After his triumphant tour
of Australia for George Coppin in 1874, J.C. Williamson returned in 1879 and
three years later established a theatre enterprise which dwarfed all others
for almost a century.
While the big
entrepreneurs made their fortunes in the capital cities, touring companies -
local and foreign - explored the growing country markets, often under very
primitive conditions. These included men like Dan Barry, described by J. C.
Williamson as "the worst actor and best showman in Australia". The Dramatic
Year Book of 1891 provided advice to English managements on the routes and
viability of places like Albury, Wagga Wagga, Goulburn, Newcastle, Maitland,
Tamworth, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Windsor, Bathurst, Young, Hay, Echuca,
Sandhurst, Castlemaine, Kynston, Daylesford, Creswick, Ballarat, Geelong,
Colac, Warrnambool, Port Fairy, Portland, Hamilton, Ararat, Stawell,
Horsham, Broken Hill and many towns in between.
Circus
These were also the paths
of the itinerant circuses which traversed the eastern states in search of
modest financial returns - among them the circus of Henry Burton and the
Ashton and St Leon families and, towards the end of the century, the Perry,
Wirth and Fitzgerald families. American circuses - "the Yankee big shows" -
appeared intermittently between 1851 and 1892, mainly in the capital cities,
including J.S.Noble, J.A.Rowe, Chiarini's Royal Italian Circus and Cooper &
Bailey, the forerunner of Barnum and Bailey.
During this period, the
circus evolved from the essentially equestrian and gymnastic displays of the
mid-nineteenth century to include clowning and more versatile forms of
acrobatics, trapeze acts in 1865, and wild animals in 1882. Brass bands were
a feature from the mid-1850.
Among the wandering
musicians to find employment under the big top were three Bavarian brothers,
Joachim, Johannes and Peter Wirth. They performed at goldfields, dance
halls, races, agricultural shows and the occasional circus during the late
1850s and 1860s before Joachim and his sons, John, Harry, Philip and George,
joined Ashton's. After Joachim died, his sons formed their own circus in
1882 and quickly overtook St Leon's as the premier Australian circus of the
1880s. In 1893, with the depression casting its shadow, Wirth's travelled to
South Africa in search of financial reward - the beginning of a seven year
tour round the world, leaving Fitzgerald's as the leading circus at home.
Music
Brass band musicianship
spread rapidly in the second half of. the 19th century. Apart from
professional opportunities provided by the circuses, this amateur strand in
Australian music making developed from British and German influences,
particularly in mining districts, and from the Salvation Army movement which
reached Australia in 1880. British and German influences were also important
in the development of the choral societies which were formed from the 1850s
onwards. However, music very much revolved round the piano in the home: "it
had become a sort of sacred object, symbolic either of what the colonists
had left behind or of the hopes they had for the future." 4 Sales of both
pianos and sheet music were high.
Opera
Opera had been performed
in Australia as early as 1796 and there were performances occasionally
throughout the 1830s and 1840s. George Coppin had organised a season in
Melbourne in 1856. But, with the arrival of W.S. Lyster and his company in
1861, regular seasons of a high standard were held until Lyster's death in
1880. Indeed, the Lyster years have been described as a golden age in
Australian opera.
Publishing
For Australian authors,
newspapers and periodicals of a high quality provided the main avenue for
publication of their literary efforts. Booksellers also took a greater
interest in publication of Australian literature, notably George Robertson
(1825-1898), a Scottish immigrant with bookshops in Melbourne, Sydney,
Adelaide and Brisbane and London. Robertson, described by George Ferguson as
"the true father of Australian publishing", published about 600 titles,
including the works of local authors Adam Lindsey Gordon (1833-1870), Henry
Kingsley (1830-1876), Marcus Clarke (1846-1881) and Rolfe Boldrewood
(1826-1915).
Although Australians had,
by the 1880s, established a reputation as avid readers and buyers of books,
there was still little demand for local literature and it was impossible for
local authors to make a living from writing. Publications were subsidised
either by the author or the publisher.
This situation was
challenged in the 1880 when J.F.Archibald (1856-1919) published the first
issue of The Bulletin, which became a stimulant to the Australian
literary endeavours and Australian nationalism and a creator of a local
market as it introduced Australians to the works of A. B. Paterson
(18641941), Henry Lawson (1867-1922), James Furphy (1843-1912), and Bernard
O'Dowd (1866-1953), among others. In 1888, the firm of booksellers, Angus
and Robertson, published its first work, A Crown of Wattle, and in
1895, Paterson's The Man from Snowy River. Regular publishing of
Australian literary works had begun.
Next
Section Strike Me Lucky! 1901-1950
