“The Female Blondin” Wows the Crowds in Battersea
By Sally Sellers
High-Wire Sensation
On the 19th August 1861 a young woman crossed the River Thames on a 600 metre tightrope from Battersea Bridge to Cremorne Gardens, dressed in Albanian costume. The spectacle was watched by thousands of people as this was a time when daring high-wire feats could create international celebrities, such as the famous Charles Blondin. He gained worldwide acclaim as the first person to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope in 1858. It’s not surprising then that the woman who managed this high-wire Thames crossing came to be known as “The Female Blondin.”
Selina Young becomes Pauline Violante
In fact, she was born Selina Young in 1840 or 41. She learned how to balance on a tightrope and by 1853 took the performance name of Pauline Violante. It was claimed that she was the first person to dance on a tight rope and in1858 she was the first person to walk on a high- wire across the Crystal Palace. Violante appeared too at E.T. Wild’s famous Alhambra Theatre of Variety in Leicester Square.
From 1858 the Victorian showman, Edward Tyrrel Smith, was staging a circus at the Alhambra where he would have seen what Violante could do. In 1861 he took over the management of the Cremorne Gardens, across the river from Battersea. Between 1845 and 1877 these pleasure gardens were a popular place of entertainment on a large site between the Thames and the King’s Road. They offered a wide range of attractions, including concerts, dancing, fireworks, promenading, and restaurants. Tyrrel wanted to begin his tenure by offering a “startling novelty” – a female Blondin to cross the river on a high-wire. He duly paid Violante to attempt the crossing from Battersea to Cremorne Gardens on the 12th August 1861.
Deceptively Dangerous
On this first attempt she got about two-thirds of the way across when the rope began to sway. It was reported that the weights that should have been keeping it tight had been cut away and stolen by someone who wanted to sell the lead! Somehow Violante descended by another rope safely into a boat.
A week later she tried again and this time was successful, crossing from Battersea in just seven minutes and apparently performing the feat five times. Some 20,000 people are said to have watched and the Illustrated London News carried an engraving showing the large number of boats that came to observe the spectacle. A newspaper report claimed, "Her performance is apparently fraught with little danger, for she crosses the rope with an ease, freedom and self-possession that is truly astounding.”
Illustrated London News 28 August 1861
Not everyone was impressed, with gossip columnists ready to diminish her achievement. "Really we are very inconsistent people," said one anonymous hack. "We crowded in thousands to watch the male Blondin risk the certainty of breaking his neck in case of any accident, and we throng in tens of thousands to witness a feat the failure of which would merely entail a ducking. I wonder the "sensation" seekers did not stigmatize the whole affair as 'very paltry, quite insipid, in fact!'.”
It is to be hoped that the brave Violante did not take this to heart or let it persuade her to try more risky stunts. For sadly it was just one year later that she had a serious accident which brought her career to an end. While attempting to cross a high-wire over ground at Highbury Barn, she suffered a terrible fall. Having already traversed the line in a suit of armour and pushing a wheelbarrow, it is said Pauline Violante next attempted the crossing while clutching a balancing pole loaded with lit fireworks. The pyrotechnics exploded asymmetrically, throwing her off balance. She fell 20 metres to the ground, survived the fall but sustained terrible injuries and she never performed again.