ODDFELLOWS HALL (Charters Towers)

AUSTRALIAN VARIETY THEATRE ARCHIVE: RESEARCH NOTES

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(1875) Gill Street.

Oddfellows' Hall opened on 10 August 1875 with a grand ball. The following night the Bijou Star Troupe began a

season of variety and burlesque there. Over the next few years it hosted touring minstrel, variety and dramatic companies, balls, touring cosmoramas and panoramic displays, community meetings, concerts and lectures etc. By the 1880s, however, increasing competition had seen the hall lose favour as an entertainment venue and it was thereafter used only for local activities and meetings. The hall was also used as a school on at least two occasions from the mid-1880s. Oddfellows' Hall was still being used by the Charters Towers community in the early1900s.

NB: Not to be confused with the Oddfellows' Hall located in the Charters Towers suburb of Millchester.

• Among the other popular culture entertainments variety acts to appear at Oddfellows' Hall were Madame Silby

(mesmerist, 1875), Smith and Co's Grand Panorama of the Franco-Prussian War (1875), Wheeler Comedy Troupe (1875), St Vincent's Comic Concert Co (1876), Dr Carr ("Fun, Mirth and Philosophy," 1877).

• The two known schools to operate out of the hall were the Charters Towers Grammar School, run by Mr A. E. Binks (ca. 1884) and the Charters Towers Girls Grammar School, operated by Miss Bertram (ca. 1894). The German Lutheran community also used the hall in the early 1880s.

Menghetti, Diane. "Charters Towers." PhD thesis, James Cook University, 1984, 110.

1875

Northern Miner 31 July (1875), 2.

Northern Miner 7 Aug. (1875), 2.

Northern Miner 14 Aug. (1875), 2.

Northern Miner 18 Oct. (1875), 3.

Northern Miner 20 Nov. (1875), 3.

Northern Miner 29 Dec. (1875), 3.

1876

Northern Miner 24 June (1876), 3.

Northern Miner 16 Dec. (1876), 3.

Northern Miner 30 Dec. (1876), 3.

1877

Northern Miner 6 June (1877), 3.

Northern Miner 6 June (1877), 3.

Northern Miner 3 Oct. (1877), 3.

Northern Miner 7 Nov. (1877), 3.

1881

Queenslander 24 May (1881), 641.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/2250760

1883-1884

1883

Northern Miner 19 Sept. (1883), 3.

1884

Northern Miner 22 July (1884), 1.

1889

Northern Miner 3 Aug. (1889), 2.

1891

1901

Northern Miner 2 July (1901), 6.

Australian Variety Theatre Archive: Research Notes

Published by Clay Djubal: 10/01/2015

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