I was at the grand fancy dress roller skating carnival, on July 30, 1888 at the Jubilee Exhibition Buildings, Adelaide, South Australia given by the Columbia Elite Roller-Skating Rink Company
- Bib ID:
- 7899138
- Format:
- Picture
- Online Version:
- National Library of Australia digitised item. Broadside 1316 copy
- Printer:
- Adelaide : J.H. Sherring & Co.
- Description:
-
- [Adelaide] : Columbia Elite Roller-Skating Rink Company, 1888
- 1 broadside : colour illustration ; 42 x 33 cm
- Summary:
-
Souvenir presented to participants providing them with one week's admission to any [Columbia Elite] skating rink throughout the world, signed by A. N. Ridgely and C. M. Raymond; printed on Japanese (rice) paper; artwork in the centre is signed lower right, C. Penstone; issued by J.H. Sherring & Co, Adelaide. ‘The pictures form a border of representations of Japanese figures, with three larger figures, Mephistopheles, a Bluestocking and a Chinaman, in the centre on roller skates’ —Vendor description.
- Biography/History:
-
The spectacular Exhibition Building on North Terrace was built to accommodate the Adelaide Jubilee Exhibition in celebration of the colony of South Australia's fiftieth birthday in 1887. The exhibition ran from June 1887 to June 1888. The grandeur of the building was a symbol of the colony's progress and was in a formal classical style, with an imposing dome. The building had various uses before its demolition in 1962 to make way for the Napier building and adjacent car park and plaza at the University of Adelaide.
The Columbia Elite Roller-Skating Rink Company opened their Adelaide rink at the Exhibition Building on North Terrace on 26 April 1888. It was their 16th rink across Australia and New Zealand, beginning with one located at St Kilda in Melbourne, which opened on 1 November 1886. The others were located in Geelong, Ballarat, Launceston, Sandhurst (Bendigo), Sydney (their largest, in the mammoth Sydney Exhibition building), North Melbourne, Auckland, Napier, Wellington, Christchurch, Timaru, Oamaru, Dunedin, and Invercargill.
Charles Penstone (1852-1896), the artist, was one of the sons of John Jewell Penstone (1817-1902), a portrait and genre artist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement, known mainly for his engravings. Charles Penstone arrived in Adelaide sometime before September 1880, when he exhibited original pen-and-ink sketches at the Industrial and Juvenile Exhibition. He illustrated Adam Lindsay Gordon's poems 'Bushman's Soliloquy' and 'A Voice from the Bush' and in 1883 published a pair of prints, The Squatter's Retrospect and The Swagman's Retrospect, described as 'Spirited Pictorial Representations of the Up-and-Down Phases of Colonial Life.' He was associated with the Adelaide Punch (1868-1884), Frearson's Weekly (1878-1884) and The Lantern (1874-1890). He left Australia for South Africa in 1894, where he founded The Owl (1895-1908) with the former Sydney artist Constance Roth. He died in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1896.
- Notes:
-
- Text continues: ‘I represented the Character of …’ and lists some forty characters from literature, stereotypes and animals (‘Tall Men’, ‘Dudes’, ‘Polcemen’, ‘Bushmen’, ‘Sailors’, ‘Jockeys’, ‘Flower Girls’, ‘Mother Goose’, ‘Little Nell’, ‘Kangaroos’, ‘Emus’, ‘Crocodiles’, ‘Englishmen’, ‘Irishmen’, ‘Scotchmen’, ‘Americans’, ‘Esquimax’, ‘Apes’, etc.) and concludes ‘Any Person presenting this Souvenir at any of our rinks throughout the world will receive a cordial welcome, and be admitted for one week’ (printed signatures of A. N. Ridgely and C. M. Raymond).
- National Library of Australia's copy has a couple of small holes in the body of the sheet but with no loss of any significance; there are numerous fine creases or wrinkles from the soft, tissue-like nature of the paper, and a little chipping to the edges, and a small amount of foxing.
- The State Library of South Australia owns an alternative version of the souvenir with a different border, illustrated with birds, insects and flowers, see https://digital.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/nodes/view/570, viewed March 2019.
- Also available online https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2343386028 Broadside 1316 copy
- Subject:
-
- Exhibition Building (Adelaide, S.A.) -- Posters
- Columbia Elite Roller-Skating Rink Company -- Posters
- Roller skating -- South Australia -- Adelaide -- Posters
- Costume -- South Australia -- Adelaide -- Posters
- Parties -- South Australia -- Adelaide -- Posters
- Japanese paper -- Specimens
- Broadsides -- South Australia -- Specimens
- Australian
- Other authors/contributors:
- Copyright:
-
Out of Copyright
You may copy or order a copy through Copies Direct or use the online copy for research or study; for other uses Contact us for further information about copying.
- Reason for copyright status:
- Creator Date of Death is Before 1955
Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary, dramatic or musical work
- Presumed date of death of creator (latest date):
- 1896
- Published status:
- Published
- Publication date:
- 1888
Copyright status may not be correct if data in the record is incomplete or inaccurate. Other access conditions may also apply. For more information please see: Copyright in library collections.
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