Cremorne Gardens, Melbourne
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Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
at Richmond
Richmond, Victoria
Richmond is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Yarra...
in Melbourne, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. The gardens were established by James Ellis who had earlier managed and leased similar gardens
Cremorne Gardens, London
Cremorne Gardens were popular pleasure gardens by the side of the River Thames in Chelsea, London. They lay between Chelsea Harbour and the end of the King's Road and flourished between 1845 to 1877; today only a vestige survives, on the river at the southern end of Cheyne Walk.-History:Originally...
of the same name on the banks of the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
at Chelsea
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. He had been declared bankrupt and emigrated to Australia to take advantage of the business opportunities made possible by the Victorian gold rush
Victorian gold rush
The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. In 10 years the Australian population nearly tripled.- Overview :During this era Victoria dominated the world's gold output...
and its accompanying population explosion. His first venture in the entertainment world in Melbourne was Astley's Amphitheatre, but his experiences in catering in London inclined him to a profit making business with a wider basis. Because of previous experience he had established contacts in the theatrical world of London. he took advantage of them to create a venue with viable entertainments to divert the population of the rapidly expanding capital of the new Australian state where entertainment was demanded by a predominantly male society.
The wowser
Wowser
Wowser was originally a slang expression, most commonly heard in Australian and New Zealand English. It originated in Australia, at first carrying a similar meaning to 'lout', i.e. an annoying or disruptive person, or even a prostitute. In around 1900 it shifted to its present meaning: one whose...
element in Melbourne did not approve of the pleasure gardens. Ellis had invested a lot of money in them and they were very popular, but criticism of the availability of liquor and the use of the venue by prostitutes went against him. Ellis had tried to gain social favour by donating percentages of profits to charity but that did not help him. The disapproval was an attitude which had frequently been taken against the large pleasure gardens in London on which Ellis had based his colonial duplicate. It would not, however, have been beneath Ellis to take advantage of the needs of diggers holidaying in Melbourne and on the hunt for a bit of fun. His detractors forced his sale of Cremorne Gardens and fortunately they survived in the hands of someone who had the skill and experience to administer and develop them. Ellis went on to own a hotel in Fitzroy.
The gardens were acquired by the popular theatrical entrepreneur and local identity George Coppin who expanded them significantly using even better contacts in the world of English theatre than Ellis enjoyed. Cremorne was Coppin's indulgence and hobby and he poured money into them without applying business acumen. For a time he lived on site. The residence had been built by the Colonial Architect, Henry Ginn, who had originally established the gardens as part of his up-river retreat in the mid 1840's. Entertainment provided included a Cyclorama
Cyclorama
For the classical album Cyclorama, see Jonathan Goldstein; For the rock album Cyclorama by Styx, see Cyclorama ; for the theatrical backdrop, see Cyclorama...
, bowling alley, menagerie
Menagerie
A menagerie is/was a form of keeping common and exotic animals in captivity that preceded the modern zoological garden. The term was first used in seventeenth century France in reference to the management of household or domestic stock. Later, it came to be used primarily in reference to...
, dancers and nightly fireworks
Fireworks
Fireworks are a class of explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. The most common use of a firework is as part of a fireworks display. A fireworks event is a display of the effects produced by firework devices...
. Coppin continued the presentation of the annual panoramas introduced by Ellis. Patrons arrived by riverboat or by train at the purpose built railway station
Cremorne railway station, Melbourne
Cremorne railway station was an early inner suburban station in Melbourne, Australia. It was located in the suburb of Richmond, on the then Windsor line , between Richmond and South Yarra stations, on the Melbourne side of the Yarra River bridge and just north of Balmain Street.The station was used...
. The gardens were notable as being the location of the first balloon
Balloon
A balloon is an inflatable flexible bag filled with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. Modern balloons can be made from materials such as rubber, latex, polychloroprene, or a nylon fabric, while some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig...
flight in Australia when in 1858 Englishman
Englishman
Englishman may refer to:*English people*Grey Partridge*Jason Englishman, Canadian rock music singer and guitarist*Jenny-Bea Englishman, real name of the Canadien singer Esthero*Erald Briscoe, reggae musician who records under the name Englishman...
William Dean floated seven miles (11 km) north to Brunswick
Brunswick, Victoria
Brunswick is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 km north from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Moreland...
. In 1859 Coppin imported six camel
Camel
A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...
s from Aden
Aden
Aden is a seaport city in Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea , some 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000. Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a...
as exhibits for the Cremorne Gardens menagerie and in 1860 he sold them to the Exploration Committee of the Royal Society of Victoria
Royal Society of Victoria
The Royal Society of Victoria is the oldest learned society in the state of Victoria in Australia.The Royal Society of Victoria was formed in 1859 from a merger between The Philosophical Society of Victoria and The Victorian Institute for the Advancement of Science , both founded...
who used them on the Burke and Wills expedition
Burke and Wills expedition
In 1860–61, Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills led an expedition of 19 men with the intention of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres...
.
George Coppin went bankrupt in 1863 and the gardens were closed. The land was sold and became an asylum which itself closed in the 1880s. The land was then subdivided for housing by Thomas Bent
Thomas Bent
Sir Thomas Bent KCMG , Australian politician, was the 22nd Premier of Victoria. He was one of the most colourful and corrupt politicians in Victorian history....
. With the turn of the century much of the housing gave way to small and large industrial establishments but a lot of the small working class housing remains today and has been progressively gentrified. A small park is at the southern end of the area previously occupied by the gardens and a plaque marks their location and the place from which the hot air balloons were launched. The site of the gardens no longer fronts the river because of the construction of the South Eastern Freeway
Monash Freeway
Monash Freeway is an urban freeway in Victoria, Australia linking Melbourne's CBD to its southeastern suburbs and the Gippsland region. The entire stretch of the Monash Freeway bears the designation...
in 1961. The area of Richmond in which the gardens were located was formally renamed Cremorne
Cremorne, Victoria
Cremorne is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 2 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Yarra...
in 1999 and is used by locals as much out of historical respect as to avoid the old working class implications of the name Richmond. A view of Cremorne from South Yarra can be found in the works of S. T. Gill
S. T. Gill
S. T. Gill , also known by his signature S.T.G., was and English-born Australian artist.sheet 20.2 x 25.7 cm...
and the site is described in Louisa Ann Meredith's description of her stay in Melbourne with her husband and son in Over the straits: a visit to Victoria.