A children's ball in Adelaide, South Australia

Storyteller Tuesday Challenge: LOCAL LORE

Genealogy Matters Storyteller Tuesday Challenge: LOCAL LORE

In 1887 there was a children’s ball held in Adelaide, South Australia. The event was reported in the local newspaper in some detail and there was a full list of participants including my great grandmother Kathleen Mary (Cavenagh) Cudmore (1874-1951), four of her sisters, and her future husband, Arthur Murray Cudmore (1870-1951).

The photographers Wivell &Co. took pictures of children attending the ball and an album of these pictures is in the collection of the State Library of South Australia.

Kathleen Cavenagh, my great grandmother (1874-1951), in her costume for a children’s ball in 1887. She was dressed as “My Little Sweetheart”. “My Little Sweetheart” was a song that had been recently published.

Eve Cavenagh (1867 – 1941)

Gertrude Cavenagh (1882 – 1968) “age 5 dressed as a page”

Helen Cavenagh (1877 – 1918) “Nellie Cavenagh : age 10 dressed as ‘Patchwork'”

Alice Cavenagh (1879 – 1952) “Queenie Cavenagh : age 8 dressed as ‘Wee Wifie'”

Arthur Cudmore (1870 – 1951)

JUVENILE FANCY DRESS BALL. (1887, September 24). South Australian Register p. 6.

Several hundred delighted young people of both sexes attended the juvenile fancy dress ball given in the Adelaide Town Hall on Friday night by Mrs. E. T. Smith (the Mayoress). The affair was a pronounced success from beginning to end, both from a spectacular point of view and as a treat long to be remembered by the participants, their parents, and their friends.

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The main staircase was decorated with ferns and flowers artistically arranged, and on the first landing were placed mirrors, which heightened the effect of the scene by multiplying the objects. The main landing had been carpeted and turned into a temporary drawing-room with the aid of furniture and other accessories, the corners being filled up with elegantly arranged flowers and foliage, in which the taste of the skilled nurseryman had been exercised with effect. Flags and mirrors added brilliancy to this foretaste of the pleasurable picture within. The hall itself was brilliant, even before the little guests in their bright and varied costumes had entered to add to the dazzling effect. gallery at the west end was decorated in a suitable fashion. In the banqueting hall beyond were laid out rows of supper tables, occupying nearly the whole length of the spacious apartment, which was also brilliantly lighted and pleasingly decorated.

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I wrote about the ball with a transcription of the newspaper report at https://anneyoungau.wordpress.com/2013/12/08/trove-tuesday-kathleen-cavenagh-dressed-for-a-childrens-ball-in-1887/