Harry Rickards 1843-1911

Rickards imported some of the world’s finest vaudeville talent, and he also encouraged many emerging young Australians. Some of his biggest stars are now virtually forgotten, but in their day they were great international celebrities: charming singer Ada Reeve, juggler Paul Cinquevalli, strongmen Sandow and Hackenschmidt, ventriloquists Fred Russell and J.W. Winton, comedians Marie Lloyd, Lillie Langtry, G.H. Chirgwin, W.C. Fields, Harry Tate, Walter C. Kelly (Grace Kelly’s uncle), Julian Rose (a role model for Roy Rene ‘Mo’), boxers Tommy Burns and Jack Johnson, escapologist Harry Houdini, and illusionists Carter the Great, Chung Ling Soo and Carl Hertz. Rickards succeeded in making vaudeville ‘respectable’ and his shows attracted a wide patronage. 

Rickards’ stars brought with them many of the technological ‘wonders of the age’. On 22 August 1896 Carl Hertz introduced Australians to projected moving pictures as part of his magic act and, in 1906, Tivoli patrons saw an early attempt at talking pictures via a device called the Gaumont Chronophone. Harry Houdini brought a Voisin biplane with him on his 1910 visit, and claimed the honour of making the first flight in Australia.

Though Rickards frequently included short films in his programs, he could not see a future for cinema. He and Bland Holt refused an invitation from Arthur Russell to invest in his Hoyts Pictures. ‘I like ’em in the flesh,’ said Rickards.

Harry Rickards was on one of his annual talent-booking expeditions when he died in London on 13 October 1911. His remains were returned to Sydney for burial. He left a fortune of £135,000. In 1912 Rickards’ heirs sold the Tivoli business to boxing entrepreneur Hugh D. McIntosh. Under a succession of managements it continued to entertain Australians until 1966.

Rickards’ mansion, ‘Canonbury’, was demolished in 1983 to make way for a public park. Sadly his grave at Waverley Cemetery, with its striking bust by James White, has been vandalised. His family has presented a duplicate bust to the State Library of New South Wales.

Frank Van Straten, 2007