Clowns and kids raise funds for war effort
Clowns boxing and performing ‘pratfalls’, children singing, dancing and marching in formation – this was the crowd-pleasing entertainment at a Red Cross fundraiser at Bondi Junction, Sydney in 1915. The Australian Red Cross had been formed just a year earlier, at the outbreak of the war. It concentrated on raising funds to support the war effort by organising public events such as the ‘fete’, or festival, seen here. This newsreel clip was originally silent and a popular brass band tune of the period, The Gippsland March, has been added to the soundtrack.
Clowns and kids raise funds for war effort
Clowns boxing and performing ‘pratfalls’, children singing, dancing and marching in formation – this was the crowd-pleasing entertainment at a Red Cross fundraiser at Bondi Junction, Sydney in 1915. The Australian Red Cross had been formed just a year earlier, at the outbreak of the war. It concentrated on raising funds to support the war effort by organising public events such as the ‘fete’, or festival, seen here. This newsreel clip was originally silent and a popular brass band tune of the period, The Gippsland March, has been added to the soundtrack.
Year: 1915
Length: 01:33
Production Company: Australasian Gazette / Pathe
Credits: Composer: Alex Lithgow
Source: National Film and Sound Archive of Australia
Catalogue Reference: Moving image NFSA title: 260172; Sound NFSA title: 623805
Location: Waverley Oval, Sydney, Australia
Tags: Australia, Red Cross, Fundraising, Australasian Gazette, Pathe, Alex Lithgow
Subject: Red Cross, Fundraising
The formation in 1914 of the Australian Red Cross was sparked by the outbreak of war and the arrival from Scotland of Lady Helen Munro Ferguson, the wife of Australia’s sixth Governor-General, Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson. The Red Cross movement was therefore comparatively slow to get underway in Australia, but grew at a rapid rate. By November 1914, New South Wales had 88 city or suburban branches and 249 country branches, all established within the previous four months.
The Gippsland March - lyrics
Where the mighty mountains
Lift their crags to the sky,
Where the stream goes laughing by-y-y
Where the woodman plies
His axe with true might, his swing
Through the forest echoes ring.
Where the kookaburra laughs
And greets you with glee
There, I long to be.
My heart enthralled
With those sweet days recalled.
In dear old Gippsland
Home of mine!
Each memory fills
My soul with sweet pain,
And calls to me
Seems to beckon again.
For upon this wide, wide earth
There is no other spot can take the pride
I hold for my land of birth.
Always haunting, calling me.
Oh, how I love that dear old Gippsland, home of mine.
Oh - Gippsland mine
You are a place to me divine.
With treasures rare
Of Nature's gifts beyond compare.
Oh - Gippsland mine
My heart cannot resist your call.
Soon I'll be heading to you
My Gippsland, sweet home of mine.
Clowns and kids raise funds for war effort
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Waverley Oval, Sydney, Australia
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0:00
Intertitle: SYDNEY, N.S.W. RED CROSS FETE. School children Display and Humorous Events are held at Waverley Oval to add Funds to the Red Cross Society, Australasian Gazette 362
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0:05
Clowns perform pratfalls on an oval
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0:11
Children march in formation holding flower displays
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0:27
Clowns boxing
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0:46
Children sing and perform a dance
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1:01
Crowd shot
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1:08
Intertitle: SYDNEY,“THE SUN”. H.M.S “COMMONWEATLH SHIELD PRESENTED BY AUSTRALIA
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1:14
Footage of the shield
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1:24
Footage of a silver table-centre trophy representing Captain James Cook's ship, the Endeavour