Featured Article Summary #214

The Wild Australia Show was a troupe of Indigenous Australian performers who toured Australia during 1892 and 1893. It was created by white businessman Archibald Meston and his partner Brabazon Harry Purcell, with plans to perform not only in Australia and New Zealand but also in Europe and on the way to the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition. The group included 27 performers from northern Queensland and nearby areas: 21 men, 5 women, and 1 child. How they were recruited is unclear, and some scholars think people may have been kidnapped or coerced, while others may have joined to escape violence and hardship on the Queensland frontier. Their shows included dances, corroborees, weapons-throwing demonstrations, and performances based on frontier-war stories, with Meston and Purcell acting as narrators and commentators. Financial problems and disputes led Meston to leave the troupe in Melbourne, leaving Purcell and the performers stranded, after which most returned home and disappeared from the historical record, sparking public criticism and legal conflict. Archibald Meston was born in Scotland in 1851 and moved to Australia as a child, later working as a sugar plantation manager, journalist, and newspaper editor in Queensland. He entered politics in 1878 but left after bankruptcy in 1881, then returned to journalism and sugar-related business near Cairns, before later property schemes failed and he faced fraud accusations. Although he had previously held openly racist views, he later became involved with Aboriginal protection efforts and began giving “illustrated lectures” that helped inspire the Wild Australia Show. In 1891, he worked to form an Aboriginal performance troupe for an international tour, borrowing money for the project with Brabazon Purcell, and claimed he spent over £1,000 motivated by the “benefit of the aboriginals.” Meston and Purcell recruited Indigenous performers from November 1891 to October 1892. Meston required the performers to be physically fit, while Purcell travelled through northern Australia collecting people and artefacts, starting around Cairns (where he gathered props but found no performers) and later recruiting groups in north-western Queensland, the Kimberley, Croydon, and the Torres Strait. Some recruits were later accused of being kidnapped or coerced, though it is also possible that many joined due to violence and limited options on their own lands, and the final performer, Yamurra, arrived after rehearsals began to help link the group with white audiences. The troupe rehearsed for months in St Lucia from late September to November 1892, drawing strong public and media attention, including from artist Oscar Fristrom, who painted a portrait of a performer. Newspapers advertised the show using sensational language about Indigenous initiation practices and also claimed it would reveal the “true” nature of “wild tribes,” shaped by racist ideas of inevitable Indigenous extinction. The show opened at Her Majesty’s Opera House on 5 December 1892 and was generally well received, though some critics disliked Meston’s lengthy commentary; after early audiences fell, it moved to outdoor weekly performances at Breakfast Creek Sportsground and later the Exhibition Grounds, where crowds grew. The troupe arrived in Sydney in late December 1892 and opened at the Bondi Aquarium on 26 December, drawing huge crowds, including 10,000 people reported by The Sydney Morning Herald. New South Wales officials closely watched the group, concerned about their control over the Indigenous performers, and the Aborigines Protection Board tried to have the show shut down, even placing the troupe under police surveillance. They performed daily at the Aquarium and later a smaller nightly show at the School of Arts, while reviews were mixed, and Meston faced mounting pressure from the people who had funded the tour.