Here is the text of an article about Isaac and Joseph Roff I prepared a couple of years ago in case anyone's interested. It mentions Joseph's Roff's connection to Black (sorry Clare, I should have submitted him to you for the Encyclopedia: A scrapbook which has recently come to light and which is to be donated to Her Majesty's Theatre's Archive Collection, has links to Ballarat's very earliest theatres. It also contains a copy of what is likely to be the first theatrical prologue. The scrapbook was kept by Joseph Roff, junior, whose father, Isaac Roff (1819 - 1892), and uncle, Joseph Roff (1827 - 1894), established the first tailor's shop on the Ballarat goldfields in 1854. Although the Roffs came originally from Bedford, a town more noted for its Nonconformist tradition, as the home of John Bunyan, than for its theatrical activity, both had spent some time in London before emigrating, and were obviously keen theatre supporters. Isaac Roff wrote Ballarat's first locally written drama: a piece called "Stuck Up, or life in the bush," which was presented at Mrs Hanmer's Adelphi Theatre. The Adelphi was a tent and canvas theatre in the Red Hill area of the Main Road through the diggings. The Roffs also set up shop on the Red Hill, where a slight elevation protected buildings from the dangers of flooding and subsidence. "Stuck Up" was presented in 1855 by Mrs Hanmer's company, which at that time featured visiting comedian Harry Jackson. The Ballarat tailoring business was developed by Joseph Roff into a very successful and profitable enterprise, while brother Isaac, although he remained a partner in the tailor's shop, went to Melbourne and Sydney, to seek further opportunities. Seeing the potential for erecting advertising billboards, he established Roff's Advertising, a company which had a monopoly on commercial and theatrical billboard advertising for 35 years, and remained prominent in the business until as least the late 1950's. In Ballarat Joseph was involving himself further in theatrical activities, and undertook to supply costumes to the early theatres on the Main Road. Costuming the company would have been a profitable activity: Mr Pole, costumier to Coleman's Theatre in 1854 is reputed to have made £60 or £70 from the business. It is however, his involvement with what is probably Ballarat's first benefit performance which gives Joseph Roff a place in Ballarat's theatre history. The previous year, in 1854, a group of local amateurs got together to form the Ballarat Garrick Club and present Boucicault's comedy "London Assurance," in the Golden Fleece Hotel in Lydiard Street in the new township. It is likely that Ballarat was lacking a theatre at the time. Coleman's Theatre, which had been set up early in 1854 in the middle of the gold diggings, was not in business very long before miners moved into the pit to dig for gold, and the theatre had to be dismantled. Hetherington's Theatre Royal was yet to take its place, which it did by December 1854: according to one account, Eureka Stockaders raided the store of theatrical props and used theatre swords to defend themselves against the guns of the troopers. Until recently, the earliest pieces of Ballarat theatrical writing which we were aware of, were a prologue and epilogue for the Garrick Club's of Bulwer Lytton's "Money," presented at the Montezuma Theatre in 1857 as a benefit for the Ballarat Fire Brigade. The writer of that prologue, journalist Frank Hasleham, was acknowledged as a fine Shakespearean critic. His prologue graphically describes the danger of fire on the goldfields: But hark! What cry is that? What scream of fright Stabs, poniard deep, th'insensate ear of night? Born of unmastered, unrespective fear It shrieks - whole-throated - of some horror near. Yes, yes! gale wafted - louder still - still higher - The clangour swells amain of FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! Quicker than thought, scared echo hugs the sound, And FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! reverberates around. Hasleham covered the Eureka Stockade for the Geelong Advertiser and received a wound which eventually caused his death. He returned to England some years after. Coincidentally, he was another Bedford man. Joseph Roff had some leanings as writer having, acting as Ballarat correspondent for the short-lived Gold Digger's Advocate. He was at the time living with Alfred Black, Peter Lalor's "secretary for war" in the events leading up to the Eureka Stockade. Roff's "London Assurance" prologue is addressed to Ballarat's multicultural community of miners: Friends, brothers, and Australians, at your leisure - Well met from many climes, in part for pleasure, To witness, for an hour or two at most, What skill we can with our assurance boast, And mark, altho' it is a sad confession, Your players are new chums in this profession. He goes on to plead for tolerance, using the language of the goldfields: Pray don't "jam any of our tails," no crows, No cooeys, "get insides," lie downs," nor "Joes." Spare a poor devil from your fiery wit, My nobblerising brother of the pit. Roff then appeals to the women in the audience, citing Florence Nightingale as an example of a "ministering angel." He appeals to the homesick diggers to support a Ballarat Hospital: Aided by you this night we hope to raise A Hospital, so that if sickness preys Upon us in the future we may not, Like cattle, in the parched plains fall and rot; Or in some cheerless tent or lonely bush, Amid the hurry of the latest rush, Sigh for the soothing draught, the skilful hand, And die a stranger in a distant land. Finally he calls for the diggers to produce their money, or their gold: Now to our play, the moral's plain and fair, We can't build solid hospitals in the air; We may build castles, but these bubbles burst, So tumble out the money or the dust. The owner of the scrapbook, Joseph Roff junior, grew up in Melbourne, but moved to Ballarat in to join his uncle in the tailor's shop. The cuttings show a broad interest in theatre, with cuttings from Melbourne and London papers, as well as some original photographs. While he gave up clipping for the book in the late 1870's, he includes material for an amateur performance of his own, with a newly revived Garrick Club, in a performance in 1877 of Taylor's The Ticket of Leave Man in the newly opened Academy of Music, now Her Majesty's Theatre. Peter Freund Her Majesty's Theatre P O Box 249 BALLARAT 3353 AUSTRALIA Ph: 613 5333 5800 Fax: 613 5333 5757 Web: www.hermaj.com -----Original Message----- From: Clare Gervasoni [mailto:c.gervasoni@ballarat.edu.au] Sent: Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:09 AM To: AUS-VIC-GOLDFIELDS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: Mayors of Ballarat[Scanned] Hello, From memory the City of Ballarat was established in 1856. It was certainly after the Eureka Stockade in 1854, so there would be no mayor. There is no Batterbury of Roff in 'The Eureka Encyclopaedia', but there is a Joseph Rolfe who signed teh Hassell petition. Hope this helps Clare Clare Gervasoni Curator: Art & Historical Collection Monday, Tuesday & the morning of Wednesday. Ph 5327 9168 http://www.ballarat.edu.au/fdp/history >>> "Kathy Creer" <kcreer@esc.net.au> 27/10/2005 8:14 am >>> Hi All I am making some enquiries for a friend in the UK about an ancestor who was supposedly Mayor of Ballarat during the Eureka Stockade. Can anyone help me with that? The gentleman may have carried the surname BATTERBURY or ROFF. Cheers, Kathy Creer Adelaide, South Australia ==== AUS-VIC-GOLDFIELDS Mailing List ==== Threaded archives at http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/aus-vic-goldfields ###################################################################### Attention: This message is intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above and may contain information that is confidential and privileged. 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