Item MM 111162 Digital Photograph - Holden Brothers Circus, One Legged Man in an Acrobat's Costume, with Pony, standing in paddock circa 1900

Description of Content

A one-legged man in an acrobat's costume, standing in a field with a 'pinto' pony. This photograph shows Adolphus Holden of Holden Brothers Circus standing next to a pony, circa 1900. He is wearing an acrobat's costume. His granddaughter Melba Ryan remembers: 'He had lost his left leg working in the railways in about the 1880s. Adolphus was taken from school when he was 14, to work and help support the family. He was helping dig the railway cutting through past the Melbourne Zoo in Parkville, when a railcar crushed his leg. The doctor put him onto gymnastics as rehabilitation, such as the horizontal bars, and that's how the circus began.' The location is unknown, but the Circus was probably 'showing' at the time.