Gus St Leon’s Great United Circus, Cairns, NQ, 1913

Every so often, eBay throws up a piece of “St Leon” history. Last night, I stumbled across this item, a Season Complimentary pass that was issued to a “Mr Lannoy & Family” during the visit of the circus to Cairns, North Queensland, in July 1913. Reference to the 1913 electoral roll for Cairns tells us that “Mr Lannoy” was Octave Lannoy, a journalist – just the person a circus would need to write good words about the show.

The “Famous Five St Leons” consisted of Gus’s sons, Cass, Syl and Reg, American comedy acrobat Mo Aarons, and a young apprentice, possible Ernie Cooper.

“Senorita Phillipina” was Gus’s son, Phillip St Leon, a bareback rider who dressed up in female costume for this act.

Alf Honey and his partner, Cherry, were American gymnasts who arrived in Australia with the Five St Leons in 1908.

The “FitzGerald Sisters” were the sisters, Mary and Maggie Sole, cousins of the Perry circus family.

“Reg, J. and A.” was, I think, a ladder act performed by Reg St Leon, Adrian St Leon and one other.

The “9 Rentfros” was a living statuary act consisting of members of the troupe with powdered faces and dressed up in white, flesh-tight costumes.The Rentfros posed in various scenes imitating the great statues of antiquity.

“Two Comiques” – not sure.

“The Olympians”, probably Daisy St Leon Honey and Phillip St Leon, performing a classic equestrian duet.

“St Leon, Cudge and Cherry” – a clown troupe headed by Gus St Leon. Not sure of the identity of “Cudge”.

“Grandorte and Chiquito”, may have been the Honey children, Golda (9) and Doris (7), in a little acrobatic act

The circus was under the direction of Gus St Leon, managed by Alfred Honey (married to Gus’s daughter Daisy) and represented in advance by E.J. “Ernie” Coyle. See my previous posts about the Honey family.

Ernie Coyle became a North Queensland cinema proprietor, operating a chain of cinemas as Birch, Carroll & Coyle. The firm was taken over by the Greater Union Organization. In 2019, Birch Carroll & Coyle was inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame in recognition of being “Australia’s leading provincial film distributor and its industry leadership throughout Queensland for 80 years”.