Simply Australia

The Days of Martini’s Buckjumping Show

© Chris Woodland

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Martini’s Buckjumping Show.

Leaving Skurthorpe’s show in October 1901, the little group started their new enterprise in December, starting out from Bankstown, Sydney, with one small performing tent and a small wagon or wagonette.

Though Martini was no roughrider, he was an extremely talented performer on the triple bars. (( The term barrist was sometimes used to describe such an athlete. ))    His years on the road with other shows had taught him much, but there would be much more for him to learn. Experience on the road would teach them many things: that their performing animals must always have sufficient, water, food and ample rest. To maintain their performing abilities donkeys, mules, jennets, ponies and horses, both circus performers and buckjumpers needed to maintain their strength and health to carry out their particular areas of expertise. The demands of providing comfortable accommodation for audiences during performances and the maintenance of canvas, ropes, pegs, saddles and harnesses and horse-drawn vehicles were continual. Members of the troupe were continually practising, experimenting and learning new acts. All performers and assistants were multiskilled by necessity.

Little is heard of Martini until he was mentioned in a letter to the Editor of the Sydney based Referee 19 February 1902. The famous horseman Jack Pendergast offered a challenge to another horseman saying if the roughrider, Andy Thibault, were satisfied with the challenge, he should have the money at the Referee office at noon on the Tuesday of the following week. Pendergast concludes that he is the principal roughrider for Martini’s Hippodrome (( The use of the word hippodrome was often used as a synonym for circus. )) and that they were travelling the South Coast for a few weeks. The letter had been sent from Bulli.

This is what Martini had to say, to the Bulletin readers in January 1906, of his starting out with his new show:

When I left Sydney three years ago with a small side show [sic], we just struggled along. At Parramatta the van-man thought I was going to balance him – swindle him out of his money; and when I paid up he said, ‘Look here! I didn’t expect this I’ll tell you where there’s a horse you ought to get – up at Lithgow, owned by Jones, of the Zigzag Brewery – that’s Dargin’s Grey.’ Well we went up to Lithgow, and I arranged to get the horse for one night for £5. If the chap had asked for the money in advance we were done, because I hadn’t got it; but we took £10, and after the show I gave him his £5, and he was so pleased that he said, ‘Look here, you can have the horse on Monday night for nothing.’ A few days after that I bought him for £8. Since then I’ve walked him overland right up to Port Douglas, then across to Normanton. Then by sea to Thursday Island, and down again to Sydney here – picking up buckers all the way.

On 1 April 1902 the Lithgow Mercury announced that Martini’s Band of Rough Riders had performed to good houses on the previous night (Monday) and on Saturday, the evening of the 29 March. The newspaper told its readers that several hundred men attended the exhibitions, which included ball-punching, a boxing match, and an imitation donkey which promptly unseated the hopeful lads trying to ride it. However, the main attraction was definitely Dargin’s Grey (( Sometimes spelt Dargin’s. ))  the buckjumper whose name became a household word in his time and still remains so in the annals of Australian buckjumpers. The paper also states:

Then came Martini in his remarkably clever treble act on the horizontal bar. We venture to say that that no circus in the state has a more able performer than Mr Martini in this particular class and the spectators showed their appreciation by unstinted applause.

The two or three locals who took up the challenge of boxing a few rounds with Joe Coster were defeated. A man by the name of Combo claimed to have ridden Dargan’s Grey, but spectators argued that he held onto the saddle pommel.

Proprietors of all roughriding shows regulated the saddles to be used. No stock saddles, that is saddles with pads, were to be used, only English hunting saddles and poley saddles. Skuthorpe used to have a light rope attached to the saddles of riders, which gave him some control over the roughrider. It is not known if Martini used this technique in his travelling shows, but it was most likely he did.

The Days of Martini’s Buckjumping Show

© Chris Woodland

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Lance Skuthorpe – Legendary Horseman.

Lance Skuthorpe was one of Australia’s greatest horseman and showman. He was also an outstanding yarn spinner and reciter of Australian bush poetry. While travelling through bush towns in his earlier days he would start up one of his performances, be it horsemanship, poetry or all combined, to attract the locals and, of course, to pass the hat around. Now days we would call him a busker. There is at least one book on this remarkable man (( Jack Pollard was the author of The Rough Rider, Lansdowne, 1962. The Second edition was titled The Horse Tamer, Pollard Publishing, 1970. )). Skuthorpe’s greatest feat was to copy poet Adam Lindsay Gordon’s famous leap close to Blue Lake near Mt Gambier. The obelisk which was placed near the site known as Gordon’s Leap reads:

This obelisk was erected as a memorial to the famous Australian poet. From near this spot in July, 1864, Gordon made his famed leap on horseback over an old post and rail guard fence onto a narrow ledge overlooking Blue Lake and jumped back again onto the roadway. The foundation stone was laid on 8th July 1887.

While Martini had been travelling with Harmston’s and subsequent travelling shows he was obviously thinking about forming his own similar enterprise. It is known that he and Skuthorpe were not of compatible natures and were less so when Martini made the break. It was following an injury sometime in 1900 that Martini decided to form his own show. Author Di Moore says that Lance Skuthorpe was not very happy when Martini, Mena Val, Jessie Hunt, a lady named Jewl and a young bloke by the name of Callaghan left his buckjumping show to begin a competitive travelling show.

Mena Val was the stage name for Wilhelma Valdares, the Valdares Girls being a group of spectacular performing cyclists. Mena Val also performed at wire walking and whip cracking. Jessie Hunt (later Hicksman) was a roughrider and Jewl had a song and dance routine.

Mrs Martini.

Typical of the times, the details of women were overshadowed by the males and little is known of them. Women were mainly referred to as a Miss or Mrs so-and-so and little more. The problem was exacerbated when female performers were using stage names. Some women who were roughriders were often not referred to by name in the press, but just by their gender. One of the most confusing mysteries of this story was determining who was the woman who became known as Mrs Martini.

In her book The Lady Bushranger (Hesperian Press, 1996) Pat Studdy-Clift claims that Elizabeth Jessie Hickman, nee Hunt, was Mrs Martini, Jenny Hicks in her history titled Australian Cowboys, Roughriders & Rodeos (CQU Press, 2003) states that Jane Kemp, or Miss Kemp, was Mrs Martini. Di Moore, the granddaughter of Jessie Hunt/Hickman says in her book, (( Out of the Mists: The Hidden History of Elizabeth Jessie Hickman  – Balboa Press, 2014 )) that a song and dance performer known as Jewl, with the stage name as Miss Devine, was Mrs Martini. This is collaborated by the press coverage of their performing attendance at the Wangaratta Benefit in January 1901.

To further confuse the issue, there has been no marriage certificate found for Martini/Breheney, so the union must have been a de facto relationship. The Jane Kemp mentioned had performed with Professor’s Kemp’s buckjumping show, but it is not thought that she was related to the colourful larrikin who called himself Professor Kemp, Paddy Kemp and other monikers, though his real name was John Patrick Daley. Growing up he was known as simply Jack Daley. Kemp was a horseman of great ability, a designer of saddles and, like Martini, Skuthorpe and others, ran a buckjumping show. A rather wild and unconventional person, Daley had troubles with the law, escaping from police and spending time in gaol when finally apprehended several years later. He had an equally eccentric brother, Richard Daley, who became an ordained priest. When in Rome he fired a revolver in the Vatican declaring that Ireland was now a free and independent nation. Apparently, brother – or Father, Richard – was a speaker of several languages and, amongst other learned subjects, taught the Irish their native language.