Wirth’s Circus and Menagerie of Performing Wild Animals – an Education and an Object Lesson c. 1950

Summary

Wirth's Circus, also known as Wirth Brothers' Circus, was Australia's largest and most prestigious circus company for eight decades, beginning in 1882. Billed as Australia's own 'Greatest show on Earth' (a reference to the slogan of the American P. T. Barnum Circus), the travelling circus held an international reputation. In 1906 the family took over the lease on the Arts Centre site on St Kilda Road in Melbourne, establishing a permanent home called Wirth Park. A fire destroyed their facilities in 1953. Wirths continued in business until 1963 but faced rising costs for transport and could not compete with new forms of entertainment. Today, a mural on the wall outside Hamer Hall commemorates the former site of the Circus.

Under the big top of Wirth's Circus and Menagerie of Performing Wild Animals, the circus animals – the “menagerie” – were of great popular appeal. These included performing lions, wheeling and dancing elephants and horses, and tiny Shetland ponies with monkey jockeys, which were presented as ‘An education and an object lesson’.

This poster, possibly from the 1920s, advertises Wirth's birds and animals from five climatic zones. It includes two spheres showing the three general orders of herbivores, carnivores and quadrumana, with an explanation of abbreviations, characteristics and habitation.