Melbourne's First Movie Screening

Located at 235 Bourke Street, the rather drab Tivoli Arcade:

Functional and thoroughly unlovely, it's hard to imagine that this same location was once home to one of Melbourne's grandest and most popular theatres. In 1872, the Prince of Wales Opera House occupied this location, featuring an elaborate design and seating for more than 2000 people.

The Prince of Wales interior, circa 1872.

As was usual at the time, the Prince of Wales presented a wide variety of live entertainment; everything from vaudeville and three penny opera, to live music, drama, comedy and novelty acts. Among others, the first performances of HMS Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance in Australia were staged at the Prince.

In 1895 Harry Rickards, a former actor who had previously performed at the Prince, took over the building and re-named it the Melbourne Opera House. Rickards would continue to present a similarly varied bill as before, now augmented by his own troupes of minstrels and vaudeville acts, but was always on the lookout for new attractions. He was particularly keen on novelty acts; anything that was new and different that he could use to generate publicity.

The facade of the 'Melbourne Opera House.'

A technological marvel, invented in France and unveiled the same year that Rickards leased his new theatre, was about to provide him with a sensational show business opportunity.

The Lumiere Brothers (Auguste and Louis) were born into the photographic trade. Their father, Claude-Antoine, ran a large photographic plate and film development firm near Lyons. Both brothers went into the family business after attending university and showed an immediate aptitude for photographic processing, helping to refine and advance the still developing medium.

The Lumiere Brothers

Inspired by Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, a viewing device that flashed a series of still images in sequence into a single eyepiece and so gave the impression of movement, the young brothers soon set themselves an ambitious new task; to design and build a 'moving picture' camera, capable of capturing live action, developing it and then broadcasting it onto a screen for mass viewing. Their creation, dubbed the Cinematographe, is undoubtedly one of the defining inventions of the modern age.

A drawing of Edison's 'Kinetoscope.'

A photo of the Lumiere's 'Cinematographe'

The first major public screenings involving the Cinematographe took place in Paris in September 1895, where the Lumiere's screened short films they had shot themselves. Amazed audiences flocked to the 1 minute long silent projections, which depicted scenes from everyday life, and the new marvel spread like wildfire.

Within a year, the movies would make their way to Australia.

Carl Hertz; magician and
cinema pioneer

Carl Hertz was an American born magician based in England, who had toured the world extensively and had already had success in Australia. He had seen the Lumiere's invention when it arrived in England early in 1896.

Visiting the UK and looking for acts, Rickards booked Hertz for a series of dates later in 1896 and Hertz, concerned that his act was not significantly different from what he had previously presented in Australia, was determined to bring a Cinematographe with him. Such was the the sense of wonder attached to the new motion picture process that presenting it as part of a magic show seemed a natural association.

But the Lumiere's agent in London, Felicien Trewey, had been instructed not to sell the devices under any circumstances. After repeatedly being rebuffed by Trewey, Hertz then turned his attention to Robert W.Paul, a British inventor who had viewed the Cinematographe and come up with his own version, which he imaginatively named the Theatrograph. While similar in design and construction, Paul's version was less sophisticated and was considered inferior to the Lumiere's model, in terms of both film quality and projection.

Nevertheless, Hertz was determined to have one of Paul's machines. Again told that they were not for sale, Hertz convinced Paul to show him his workshop and demonstrate the workings of the device in person. In his autobiography, Hertz recollects:

He (Paul) took me on to the stage and showed me the whole workings of the machine. We were there for over an hour, during which I kept pressing him to let me have one of the machines. Finally I said,

'Look here! I am going to take one of these machines with me now!'

And with that, I took out a hundred pound in notes, put them into his hand, got a screw driver and unscrewed one of the machines from the floor. The next day I sailed for South Africa, with the first Cinematographe that had ever left England.

Paul would later claim that Hertz had 'stolen' the machine from him. It's also interesting to note that Hertz referred to the machine as a Cinematographe which, strictly speaking, it wasn't. Although it would be billed as such during its tour of the Southern Hemisphere.

After a stopover in South Africa where he performed a few dates, and so became the first man to show moving pictures in that country, Hertz arrived in Melbourne in early August 1896. His series of magic shows commenced at the Melbourne Opera House on the 15th and he unveiled his version of the Cinematographe to a select private audience on the 17th. Hertz had five short films to show:

Highland Dances

Street Scenes in London 

Trilby Dance

Military Parade

Soldier's Courtship

This last had been shot by Robert Paul himself on the roof of the Alhambra Theatre, Leicester Square, and Hertz's showing of it casts doubt on the inventor's claim that they had had a falling out. While Soldiers Courtship was an early attempt to shoot a movie with a simple, comic narrative, and Trilby was a scene from a play, popular at the time, the rest were documentary style depictions of the titular events.

And just as everywhere else that the cinema had ventured, they caused an immediate sensation. Especially once they were incorporated into the magician's public act, as they were from the 22nd onward.  August 22nd 1896 then becomes a red letter day in the history of the Arts in Australia; the first public movie screenings in this country.

The films were so popular that Rickards was soon promoting them above Hertz's name on the advertising material (although perhaps Hertz was compensated for this by being mentioned twice?):

Crowds flocked to the screenings and the films were the talk of the town.

Their success was so great that Rickards would almost immediately set about sourcing another Cinematographe (or, realistically, any such similar device he could lay his hands on).  Once he had obtained one, which was dubbed 'The Second Edition,' Rickards set sail for Sydney, determined to capitalise on the time when he was the only promoter in Australia with moving picture machines. He set up a series of screening dates in that city, commencing mid September.

Hertz, whose original series of shows was meant to incorporate Sydney with the Cinematographe still included as part of his act, now found himself performing only his magic when he moved on from Melbourne. But he would take his projector with him when he left Australia to continue his tour around the south Pacific, screening films to stunned audiences in Fiji and Japan, among other exotic locations.

But  the motion picture screenings he and Rickards had presented in Melbourne had been enormously popular and had changed the entertainment culture in the city, and the country, for good. By the end of the year, three more Cinematographes, one of them a genuine Lumiere designed model, would be in operation in Melbourne, such was the demand for the moving pictures. They were so prominent in the city that a local newspaper would note:

The country visitor who returns home from Melbourne still in ignorance of the marvels of the Cinematographe must have gone nowhere and seen nothing.

                                                              - 'The Australasian,' 7 November 1896.

The movies had arrived in Australia.

Victoria's First European Settlers

Beside the Yarra will normally keep this blog confined to Melbourne History topics, but I was away in Port Fairy over New Years and felt that a small diversion was in order. For this small coastal town, about 300 km's south west of Melbourne, is one of the oldest settlements in the state and, as such, has a rich history.

It is interesting to note that Melbourne, while Victoria's capital, was not the first place in the state to be settled by Europeans. In 1834 Edward Henty, a British farmer who had settled in Van Diemen's land, brought his family and stock to Portland Bay on Victoria's south coast and established a farm there. A few months later Henty was joined by his brother and the first kernel of a town was established. 

Etching of Edward Henty in the 1860s.

A drawing of Portland Bay from 1852.

John Batman would sail into the Yarra and establish what would become Melbourne a year later, in 1835.

But even Portland may not be Victoria's oldest settlement. 

The south west coast had been an attractive destination for adventurous young men since the beginning of the 19th century. With seals and whales in abundance in the ocean, and kangaroos on the land, fisherman and trappers were able to make a good living from the area. A number of temporary camps sprang up to support these fledgling industries, dotting the rugged coastline.

John Brabyn Mills was born in Launceston in 1810 and grew up on a farm in the Northern part of Van Diemen's Land. Hungry for adventure, John (and his younger brother Charles, born in 1812) left home as a teenager and went to sea. The south coast of Victoria, a short if treacherous voyage across the straits to the north, was an obvious destination for someone like Mills.

Captain John B. Mills as an older man.

According to local tradition, Port Fairy, east of Portland,  had been discovered in 1810 when captain James Wishart sailed his vessel, Fairy, into the harbour to shelter from a storm. This story has it that John Mills would later sail with Wishart and the older captain would pass on his charts of the area to Mills. Charts which indicated Port Fairy. This lead to Mills visiting the area himself and establishing a camp there in 1826.

But all the details of this story have been questioned, to varying degrees. It is not known exactly when John Mills first came to the Port Fairy area, nor when he established himself there, nor how permanent his camp was when he did settle in the area. It is not even known when Wishart bestowed the name Port Fairy on the harbour, although most historians think it likely it was later than 1810.

Mills' camp certainly seems to have been less well organised than Henty's farm further along the coast, which is why Henty is normally considered Victoria's first European settler. But there is still a view that John Mills should occupy this place in history. His grand niece Olive Mills stated:

John and Charles Mills, who settled permanently in Victoria in 1826 and remained there until the death of Charles in 1855 and John in 1877, should be recognised as Victoria's first settlers.

And this latter part of the story can certainly be confirmed.

Another ambitious young man, John Griffiths, established a whaling station at Port Fairy in 1835 and shortly afterward founded a town on the Moyne River that fed into the Bay.

A sketch of 'Belfast' from 1856.

Port Fairy, 1857

Griffiths named the town Belfast, after his place of birth, a name it would bear until 1887.

Having suffered financial losses in the shipping trade, John Mills took a position as Belfast's harbour master in 1851, a position he would hold until his retirement in 1871. The cottage he lived in during these years, one of Victoria's oldest, is still intact on the Port Fairy harbourside. 

Melbourne's Eccentric Laneway Names

AC/DC LANE

Perhaps Melbourne's most famous laneway is also one of the newest, as 'AC/DC Lane' was so named only in 2004. The name is a tribute both to the legendary Australian rock band and to the prominent position rock music holds in the city's psyche. The lane itself has existed since 1895 and was known as 'Corporation Lane' until it adopted it's current moniker. The current street sign has proved popular with AC/DC fans; it was stolen six times within two years of being put up, before it was more securely attached to the wall on the lane's edge.

CELESTIAL AVENUE

This through alley in Chinatown dates from the 1840's, and so is nearly as old as the city itself. The cosmic sounding name is actually taken from a slang term for Chinese people, 'Celestials,' used in Australia in the 19th century. Celestival Avenue was so named when the first Chinese merchants started using the alley for business in the 1860's.

Celestial Avenue in 1972

COVERLID PLACE

Initially called 'Healy Place,' this was renamed Coverlid Place after Henry Coverlid, a British migrant who operated a barber shop on the corner of Coverlid and Little Bourke for about 30 years from 1870. Once a busy thoroughfare, featuring a number of restaurants and bars across the years, the only tenant today is an adult movie theatre.

DUCKBOARD PLACE

Connected to AC/DC lane via a U-bend, Duckboard Place takes its name from the building at the lane's entrance; 91 Flinders Lane, AKA Duckboard House. 

Built between the wars and now used as an office building, after World War II Duckboard House was a popular returned serviceman's club. A 'duckboard' was a temporary wooden walkway, placed across muddy or boggy ground, common in Army camps of the period.

EQUITABLE PLACE

Built in the 1890's, Equitable Place takes it's name from the Equitable Life Assurance Buildings which used to stand on the corner of Elizabeth and Collins streets, and so backed onto the laneway.

Drawing of the Equitable Life Assurance Building from 1894.

In a historical footnote, the builder of the Equitable Life Assurance Building was David Mitchell, the father of Dame Nellie Melba.

EXPLORATION LANE

Another lane named after a building, Exploration Lane takes it's name from the Exploration Hotel, which stood nearby on Little Lonsdale Street in the 1860's. The hotel was named to mark the ill fated cross country expedition of Burke and Wills.

A house in Exploration Lane, 1935.

KITZ LANE

Louis Kitz was a Swiss imigrant who arrived in Australia in 1853. A jack of all trades, Kitz worked as a silversmith and watchmaker before finding success in the wine business, eventually operating several profitable stores in the city (one of which was near the lane that bears his name). Kitz was also one of the entries in the first Melbourne phone book, which contained listings for only 12 people.

MERLIN ALLEY

Research to date has not been able to source the origin of the name of this short alleyway off Little Bourke Street. A query lodged with the Melbourne City Council revealed that they no longer have a record of it's origin either. This page will be updated once the mystery has been solved...

NIAGARA LANE

Another lane dating from the early years of the city, this handsome throughway was originally known as Millers Lane. In 1856, the Niagara Hotel opened here, and was such a success that the street was soon renamed after this establishment. The owners of hotel had chosen the name Niagara as this was the name of the ship they arrived in Melbourne in. 

The Niagara Hotel, circa 1912.

Home to various businesses - confectioners, plumbers and restaurants among them - Niagara Lane was largely rebuilt in 1887 and turned into well appointed residences, making it one of the most desirable addresses in the city. The individual residences were sold in 1923 and converted into apartments, the function they serve to this day.

OZIMEK LANE

This was not on my list of eccentric laneway names when I started researching this piece, as it does not appear on any maps of Melbourne. And there's a good reason for this; Ozimek Lane is not an official street name. This tiny alley runs west off Hardware Lane and is fronted by a large office building, the owners of the which, Ossie Investments, have dubbed the lane behind their property 'Ozimek,' as a sort of shortened, slang version of their business name. The photo above shows a fake street sign that the company have apparently had made up themselves and erected on the wall behind their building. Melbourne City Council have removed these signs from this location before. The actual laneway in question, really just an access point to the rear of the building, is unnamed.

PUNCH LANE

Similar to Merlin Alley, I have been unable to source the origin of the name of this lane running between Little Bourke and Bourke Streets. The investigation continues...

ZEVENBOOM LANE

Named after Dutch born brush maker Jan Zevenboom, this laneway housed his factory, the first brush making works in the Southern Hemisphere, for many years. Zevenboom later served as a Melbourne City Councillor.

The Zevenboom building, corner of Little Lonsdale and
Zevenboom Lane, pictured in 1946.

The First Boxing Day Test

December 26; as Australia lazily celebrates a post Christmas public holiday, in Melbourne all roads lead to the MCG for the Boxing Day Test. As local sportswriter Greg Baum put it in 2012:

'It is said that Boxing Day is for going to the cricket, and the subsequent days of the Melbourne test for watching it.'

Large numbers of cricket fans, families and tourists turn up every year, regardless of the opposition (in the game Baum described above, some 67 000 turned out to watch Australia take on an undermanned Sri Lankan side) and the match has a celebratory, carnival atmosphere. The Boxing Day Test has become part of the scenery of the Christmas season and is now entrenched as one of Melbourne's most popular local traditions.

Another large crowd turned out for Boxing Day 2012 (ph: Getty)

So it's interesting to note that staging a test match on December 26 is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Previously, from a cricket perspective, Boxing Day in Melbourne was reserved for a state fixture, with Victoria traditionally hosting New South Wales (much to the chagrin of the NSW players, who were stuck with spending Christmas away from home). Even with international teams touring each summer, such was the rivalry between Australia's most populous states that this game was one of the biggest of the season, and crowds of more than 20 000 a day were not unusual.

But in the 1950's, Australia's cricket administrators decided to try something different.

The first test in Melbourne to feature play on Boxing Day was the second of the 1950-51 Ashes series. Starting on the 22nd and, with rest days on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the third day's play fell on the 26th. A bumper crowd of more than 60 000 turned out to watch Australia, batting on a green pitch, struggle to 181 and then England, chasing a modest 179 for victory, lose two cheap wickets before the end of the day (Australia pinched a narrow victory by 28 runs the following day).

Australia's Neil Harvey is run out on Boxing Day, 1950.

The trial was continued two seasons later when the second test of the 1952-53 series against South Africa also featured play on Boxing Day. The tourists had a team short of big names and only a small crowd, 24 000, was on hand to watch South African number three Russell Endean make a workmanlike century. Although the visitors may have been underwhelming on paper, they caused a major upset on the last day when off spinner Hugh 'Toey' Tayfield bowled them to victory.

After this, the Boxing Day test concept went back on the shelf. It would be 16 seasons before it would be revived.

The West Indian team that came to Australia for the 1968-69 season was a side in transition. A generation of great players - Wes Hall among them - had recently retired, leaving a crop of largely untried youngsters heavily reliant on champion all rounder and captain Gary Sobers. Sobers arrived in Australia worn out from 18 months of near continuous cricket and carrying a shoulder injury, the task he faced in trying to beat a talented and settled Australian line up appearing almost insurmountable.

Nevertheless, the unfancied tourists caught Australia out in the first test in Brisbane, Sobers himself exploiting a last day wicket and bowling his team to an upset victory. All eyes then turned to the second test in Melbourne.

The first test match in Melbourne to start on Boxing Day did not begin auspiciously. The 26th was a grey, cold, windy day, compared by Wisden to 'an English day in May,' and the weather undoubtedly contributed to the low turnout, with only 18 000 spectators braving the conditions.

Despite winning the first test, the West Indies made several changes and brought in three players for their test debut. The home side, for its part, made two changes, with Eric Freeman replacing Ashley Mallet and John Inverarity (later Australia's chairman of selectors) making way for Doug Walters, who had sat out the first game with injury. Australian captain Bill Lawry won the toss and sent the opposition in on a green, damp pitch.

The conditions were tailor made for Australian medium pacer Graham McKenzie, who took two wickets with the new ball and proved a handful all day. Only opener Roy Fredericks, one of the players making his debut, was able to bat with any certainty. Fredericks would finish a rain shortedned first day on 76 not out , dominating the West Indies score of 6/176. Sobers made a scratchy 19 before being bowled by a McKenzie inswinger.

Watching the 1968 Boxing Day from the outer.

McKenzie's form would continue on the second day, as he claimed a career best 8/71 while the West Indies were routed for 200. In reply, Australia lost an early wicket before Bill Lawry and Ian Chappell, captain and vice captain, combined for a mammoth stand of 298; Lawry batting efficiently while his younger partner (again in the words of Wisden), 'used his fast footwork to dictate to all the bowlers alike and demoralise the bowling.' The speed of the partnership, just over 300 minutes, made light of the conditions and demonstrated the thinness of the West Indian pace attack. Chappell was eventually bowled by Sobers for 165, while Lawry continued on to 205, his highest test score.

Bill Lawry on his way to 205 in Melbourne, 1968.

Chappell's hundred was the 1000th scored in test matches. Responding to Australia's tally of 510, the West Indian second innings subsided for 280, McKenzie completing a ten wicket match hall in the process.

The Boxing Day test concept went back into hiatus after this and did not come back till 1974, when the first day of the fourth Ashes test was played on this date.

Aerial view of the ground on Boxing Day 1974, Lillee and Thomson about to run amuck.

From 1980, the idea began to catch on, with most Melbourne test matches from that year onward starting the day after Christmas.

The last time a Melbourne Test did not feature play on Boxing Day was 1989, when Australia played Pakistan on the unnatural seeming dates of 12 - 16 January. A one day match was played on Boxing Day that year.

And the last test that did not start on Boxing Day was in 1994, when the Ashes test of that season started on Christmas Eve. But every year since has featured a Test match starting on December 26th, the date now permanently etched into the local sporting calendar.

Full house on Boxing Day.