TheatreHeritage

Queen's Theatre, Royal Victoria Theatre and horse bazaar among lives of Gilles Arcade, Adelaide, site from 1840

Queen's Theatre, Royal Victoria Theatre and horse bazaar among lives of Gilles Arcade, Adelaide, site from 1840
The facade of the Royal Victoria Theatre in Gilles Arcade, off Currie Street, Adelaide city. It succeeded the Queen's Theatre (1840-42) and the site had other lives as court rooms and a horse and carriage bazaar.
Image courtesy Flickr

The Queen's in 1840 was Adelaide’s first serious attempt to have a theatre venue – not long after the first major theatres in Sydney and Hobart in the 1830s. The. Queen's Theatre in Gilles Arcade off Currie Street, Adelaide city, was built by the merchants Vaiben and Emanuel Solomon.

With Adelaide in a window of prosperity, the Solomons were prepared to spend £3,000 on the “new theatre and public rooms” with a prospectus raising another £7000. The Queen's Theatre opening in January 1841 had John Lazar in lead role of Othello. Lazar had starred at and managed the Theatre Royal and new Victoria Theatre in Sydney and took on the lease of the Queen’s in Adelaide. He was hit by the early 1840s economic depression and on the Queen's Theatre held its last performance in November 1842.

After 1842, the old Queen's Theatre building was briefly used as a commercial exchange and extension of the Shakespeare Tavern next door. In 1843, the South Australian government negotiated with Emanuel Solomon to adapt the theatre for use as the magistrates, supreme and police courts. Stephen’s Almanac of 1847 described the unusual court as “altogether grand and unique”.

In 1846, George Coppin arrived in South Australia recovering from the depression. He converted a large billiard hall, next to the old Queen's Theatre for his New Queen's Theatre, opened in 1846. In 1848, Lazar returned from Sydney to manage the New Queen's Theatre but it closed in April 1850. By then, the courts had been moved, allowing Coppin and Lazar to spend £20,000 remodelling and enlarging the old Queen's Theatre into the Royal Victoria Theatre, opened in December 1850.

The  Royal Victoria Theatre, described as a "tout ensemble”, never yet equalled in the Australian colonies, had a new facade to Gilles Arcade, a pit built on the principle of the Princess Theatre in London, a dress circle with a ladies' retiring room and saloon, a gallery to seat 400, and an extensive stage department “for the production of gorgeous spectacles”. Six private boxes were attached to the dress circle, the entrance being from Gilles Arcade, while the entrance to the pit and gallery from Waymouth Street.

This new venture also was cut short by the exodus to the Victorian goldfields from 1851. A testimonial for its auction in 1852, listed the Royal Victoria Theatre and Temple Tavern as a “magnificent saloon, casino, house, saloon and buildings, together with all the scenery, machinery, “splendid wardrobe” and lamp, as forming overall “one of the most elegant places of amusement existent in this or any of the neighbouring colonies'”.  

After more alternations, the theatre reopened for a final run between 1859 and 1868. From 1868 and 1872, publicans Johannes Schirmer and George Isaacs leased the property. From 1873, it was used by the City Mission until it moved to Light Square.

In 1877, Formby and Boase opened their horse and carriage bazaar in the former theatre and adjoining buildings. The structure was altered to place stalls, a ring and offices within the auditorium and stage areas. The tiered seating around the walls remained intact for buyers to see  the livestock. The auctions became famous both for the quality and size of stock auctioned and for the comfort provided.

Formby and Boase held some of Australia's largest sales with buyers attending from all over the continient. The ring was described as one of the most capacious in Australia.

In about 1901, a large part of the theatre was demolished. The timber internal structure was sawn off at support points, and much of the stage area and rear structure removed. The principal elevation of the Royal Victoria remained, facing Gilles Arcade, and behind this the central portion of the earlier Queen's Theatre facade. The side walls of the auditorium also remained along with an adjacent arch and northern wall of Formby's stables with wall retaining typical slit ventilators and rings for tying the animals in the stalls.

Other related ADELAIDE AZ articles

South Australian state-heritage-listed Karatta House from the 1860s in the 21st Century. Pastoralist Henry Jones had the has built for his young wife Frances Eliza Caton (at right), also source of the name for the southeast border town. Bottom: Governor James Fergusson, who leased Karatta for three summers, arriving with his entourage at Robe in 1869.
Class >
Karatta at Robe in South Australia's southeast inspired in 1860s by Frances, young wife of pastoralist Henry Jones
READ MORE+
Karyn and John Bradford, with Milang and District community Association chief executive Stuart Jones (centre, bottom right) were among the town volunteers who restored the Milang Lakeside Butter Factory to the days when Milang jetty had boats such as the P.S. Jupiter bringing in cream from farms around South Australia's Lake Alexandrina.
Agriculture >
Milang Lakeside Butter Factory from 1893 churned back to original condition by decade of effort by community
READ MORE+
William Cooper's 1866 house in Carrington Street, Adelaide city, became offices for some of Adelaide senior legal figures.
Adelaide City >
William Cooper's house from 1866 in Carrington Street, Adelaide city, preserved as offices for senior legal figures
READ MORE+
Cummins House started as a five-roomed brick cottage in 1842, built for John Morphett on the 134 acres he bought near the later Morphettville racecourse in Adelaide's southwest suburbs.
Settlement >
Cummins House home from 1842 to 1977 for family of Adelaide pioneer, land owner and MP John Morphett
READ MORE+
The Pichi Richi railway experiences revive steam train travel experiences through the lower Flinders Ranges of South Australia.
Heritage >
Pichi Richi society keep alive steam train travel experience of Central Australia Railway in the Flinders Ranges
READ MORE+
John Rosen as Alf and Julie Quick as Dot in Adelaide's Therry Dramatic Society 60th anniversary production of Alan Seymour's The One Day of the Year. 
Theatre >
'One Day of the Year' has world premiere in Adelaide in 1960 after festival board rejects it as too controversial
READ MORE+

 

 
©2025 Adelaide AZ | Privacy | Terms & Disclaimer | PWA 1.1.58