Ella Zulia.
Landed in Dublin on this day, 1904.
Sibling of Daedalus writes:
The wire-walker Ella Zuila the most famous Australian public entertainer of her time, though now almost forgotten:
Ella didn’t just walk the wire; she cycled it; wheeled a child over it in a barrow; walked it in stilts and with a full-body blindfold, and, on one memorable occasion, hung from it by her knees to catch her fired-out-of-a-cannon husband.
Sadly, Ella’s career came to a tragic end in Dublin, on this date in 1904, when she and her tricycle fell off the high wire in the Round Room of the Rotunda. There was no safety net, and she was too badly injured ever to perform again. She died in 1926. A little plaque to her in the Rotunda wouldn’t go astray, surely?
Pic via US Library of Congress
