The Southbank Cultural Precinct and the Arts Centre (1980s) encompasses the world class Hamer Hall and National Gallery of Victoria. The evolution of this place alongside Birrarung/Yarra as an entertainment destination began in colonial times, and tracking the entertainment here gives us an insight into the cultural, social, and economic development of the City of Melbourne.

The short-lived ‘Canvas Town’ that materialised here in the crazy days of the 1850s gold rush offered plenty of raucous, drunken, and subversive entertainments to the mostly single men on their way from the ships to the gold fields. Canvas Town only lasted a few years and a relatively quiet couple of decades followed near the south bank of the river. But in 1877 the arrival of Cooper and Bailey’s Circus from America marked the beginning of this as an entertainment space between the river and Emerald Hill (South Melbourne). The circus attracted thousands of spectators and both adults and children were awestruck by the menagerie of leopards, elephants, and camels.

Melbourne evolved into a prosperous, cosmopolitan, and cultured city. High-calibre international acts followed Cooper and Bailey. The Fitzgerald Brothers purchased the site in 1890 and brought to Melbourne wonderous acts that fascinated Melbournians including Japanese Sumo wrestlers, aerial artists, a tiny pony called Commodore and a lion that rode on the back of an elephant.

However, Wirth Bros Circus, ‘The Greatest Show on Earth!’, really claimed this site as an entertainment centre. Arriving here permanently in 1906, having toured the country since the 1880s, Wirth Bros leased the St Kilda Road site and some adjacent properties to establish the 4.5-acre Wirth Park. For three generations Wirth Bros presented an array of frightening and exciting acrobats, jugglers, trapeze artists, performing animals, comedians, and many other artistes. A fire in 1953 combined with the arrival of radio, cinema, and television, resulted in the closure of Wirths by 1963. A mosaic, designed by Joe Attard and David Jack, and unveiled in June 1998 on a wall of Hamer Hall, honours Wirth Brothers’ Circus, the longest running circus to have operated on this site, and celebrates 150 years of circus entertainment in Australia.

In 1906 entertainment and river trade merged in the form of the newly-opened Glaciarium. This unique building was primarily to provide cold storage for Melbourne’s rapidly expanding international and interstate maritime trade. It consisted of a large basement able to hold 5000 tons of dairy and vegetable produce, with tracks for trams and carts intersecting the partitioned areas for different commercial operators. The ceiling of this vast basement contained an intricate system of pipes carrying ammonia, which kept the basement cold and the floor above frozen, providing a skating rink for the delighted public in winter; in the warmer months, the rink was rented to air movies, circuses, and carnival. One of the more memorable shows was the ‘Naval Warfare’ show in 1909, exhibiting naval warfare from ancient to modern times. In 1926 Glaciarium Ltd switched from steam-powered refrigeration to electric-powered operations and the cold store and ice factory closed. Unfortunately, in 1963 just ten years after the Wirth Bros Circus Olympia fire, the Glaciarium was also destroyed by fire.

During the 1930s and 1940s, Indigenous people managed to combine entertainment and activism. In the early 1940s, Bill Bull, a gum-leaf player, often played near Princes Bridge. In 1946 Indigenous activist Bill Onus moved to Melbourne, founded the Australian Aborigines’ League and near Princes Bridge performed Corroboree, a variety show with Indigenous actors from Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia.

As part of the Victorian Centenary celebrations, in 1951 Bill Onus helped to produce An Aboriginal Moomba: Out of the Dark, which attracted crowds said to be large enough to fill the Princess Theatre. This marked the beginning of today’s Moomba Festival, much of which still takes places along the banks of Birrarung/Yarra upstream from Princes Bridge. Onus described Moomba as meaning ‘gathering of the tribes, not secret and mystic like the corroboree but joyous and open-hearted. It means ‘get together and have fun’.

FURTHER READING

• The Museum of Lost Things, https://www.museumoflost.com/the-wirths-circus/
• William ‘Bill’ Onus: a leader and pioneering entrepreneur, https://www.firstpeoplesrelations.vic.gov.au/william-bill-onus
• The Argus, (Melbourne) 10 March 1955, p.3,
  https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/71637818?searchTerm=Bill%20Onus%20Moomba#

IMAGE CREDIT
Wirth Brothers’ Circus mosaic plaque at Arts Centre, Melbourne, photographer Liz Rushen 2022