Inside a 19th century roller rink in Wagga Wagga. Photo: Charles Sturt University Regional Archives.
In the late 19th century, on any given night, anywhere across Australia, purpose-built arenas and halls were filled to the brim with revellers.
They weren’t waltzing, they weren’t barn dancing, there wasn’t even a folk dance in sight. They were roller skating.
It’s a pastime that had gripped the country in 1866, 106 years after the first roller skate was invented in the Netherlands, and there wasn’t a city or town in Australia that didn’t go mad for skating.
The first roller skating craze kicked off in Melbourne when the Apollo Hall was converted into a skating rink, and from there it spread all through our cities and regional towns in a wave that this humorous writer from the Sydney Evening News likened to an epidemic.
“Nearly all our horrors come to us as epidemics, such as fevers, roller skating, measles and organ grinders with or without monkeys.”
It may seem like hyperbole, but if you track the spread of the craze, it’s a reasonably accurate assessment of the hold that roller skating had on the nation.
Roller skating races were also a popular feature of the craze, seen here in 1888. Photo: State Library of South Australia.
In our region, Goulburn is a solid example of the scale of roller fever. Its first roller rink, which was opened in June 1888 by Messrs. Skinner and Co. was such a “phenomenal success” that they expedited the building of a new facility to accommodate the demand.
The new roller rink opened only three months later with the expanded facility measuring 64 metres long and 22 metres wide, with space for 2000 skaters and spectators. An elevated stand was built for the band, putting the musicians above the skaters’ heads.
Although at the time of printing the decoration was not complete, it was reported that the ceiling was to be painted with silver stars and that there was to be an electric gong for giving the signal for reversing.
To celebrate the opening of the new rink, globally celebrated trick skater Mr RJ Aginton, also known as “Aginton, the Monarch of the Wheels”, put on an exhibition of what was known as fancy skating.
One of Mr Aginton’s most popular acts that he toured the country with was a slapstick performance called “A New York Dude’s First Attempt at Roller Skating and Riding a Bicycle”. It was said to have been ludicrous and idiotic.
Aginton was a regular feature in skating rinks around the country, having previously performed across the US and Europe, but the rinks really shone in their public sessions, which often ran until midnight.
A lengthy report in the Goulburn Herald in September 1888 described the open skating sessions as “a lively and picturesque scene with hundreds of lady and gentleman skaters gliding gracefully around to the music of the band”.
Robert J Aginton built a career around roller skating, touring Australia for many years. Image: Chalk Lithograph by Richard Wendel, State Library of Victoria.
Not too far from Goulburn, the township of Gundaroo got in on the skating action with the construction of the Elite Skating Rink in 1890, quite early for a small village, many of which were late to the skating party.
Despite women being widely reported as participating in skating, Gundaroo seemed to struggle to get the ladies off the sidelines with this report from 1892.
“The attendance of late has been really good, and it seems a pity the fair sex do not avail themselves of the pleasure offered by purchasing skates, as the proprietor offers a free floor to ladies.”
A little further down the road, Yass got a skating rink in May 1889 on Meehan Street; a report from the Yass Courier stated that it was erected regardless of cost and fitted with every convenience. In Yass the ladies came out in full force with a report stating that opening night was crowded to excess and women were very prominent.
Braidwood also embraced the trend in 1889, with the Braidwood Dispatch reporting large crowds at the opening of the new roller rink to see the fancy and burlesque skater Professor Towhey who had been engaged for the season at considerable expense by the management.
By the early 1900s the craze was wearing off in many of the early-adopting towns. In 1905 a story on skating appeared in the Goulburn Herald under the headline “Memories”.
“Now it may be said that roller skating in Goulburn has passed into the oblivion of a lost art,” stated a writer going by the name J.W.
Yet by 1910, skating was set to come full circle again, and towns such as Gundaroo and Braidwood reopened previously closed skating rinks.
“For years past roller skating has been a dead letter here, but an effort is being made to resuscitate this winter pastime, and a rink will probably be opened at an early date,” stated a Gundaroo report that appeared in the Queanbeyan Observer.
This next wave was caught by many of our smallest regional towns who had missed the first craze, and towns as small as Araluen and Candelo, with less than 500 residents each, went mad for skating, erecting purpose-built facilities.
“The pleasure of rolling in a very ungraceful and unpleasant fashion has gradually taken a very firm hold of a big percentage of our residents, until at the present time and nothing else but skating! Skating! Skating!” stated the Braidwood Dispatch of the nearby town of Araluen.
Like all good things, skating endured, and each generation had their own version; think roller rock n roll, roller disco, 80s fluro lycra paired with a shiny new pair of skates and even into the 2000s, roller derby.
No matter what iteration my mind can conjure, it’s hard to truly appreciate the thought of tens of thousands of Victorian-era Australians across the country, circling the floor on roller skates to a live band, under the hand-painted silver-starred sky.
