While early New Westminster may seem to have been very isolated and far from the social amenities of larger cities, we frequently come across examples that show that not to be the case. The following story comes from early September 1862.
The local paper ran an advertisement for a performance by Professor Bushell and his "mysteriously grand scientific entertainments in electrobiology and electricity." Bushell had recently been in the Cariboo and by special request would be at a New Westminster theatre for "positively for one night only."
The show started at 8 p.m., with front row seats costing $1 and back rows 50 cents each.
This performance was noted as a farewell and the professor was quoted as saying, "Thursday evening will be the last and only opportunity he will have for many years of displaying his mysterious powers."
The show went well and was duly reported upon. "The Columbia Theatre (late El Dorado) was well attended on Thursday evening, and the Professor's experiments in electricity were watched with interest, eliciting occasional applause. The feature of the evening was electro-biology. We need only endorse our former opinion that Professor Bushell is a master at his profession. His power over those who go forward is as remarkable as comical and affords a pleasant evening's amusement."
Some additional research into this man has allowed us to see where he had been previously, where he was going and why this performance was to be the only opportunity for many years to see his work.
A couple of years prior to this tour in the Colony of B.C., he was in the South Seas in Tasmania, and the year after that he was reported upon in the Sacramento Daily Union. There is also a report from the summer of 1861 that has him performing in Hawaii, witnessed by Lady Jane Franklin and her travelling associate, Sophia Cracroft. Lady Jane and Sophia also toured B.C. to solicit support for a continued search for her husband, Sir John Franklin, lost in the Arctic, but that is another story.
By following the professor a bit more, we find that he was in New Zealand in 1863, as commented on in the Daily Southern Cross newspaper. The next year, an article in The Argus, a paper in Melbourne, Australia, reported that Bushell was in court following a problem that occurred when a "participant" in one of his acts, probably a member of the audience on stage with him, was affected badly by something that happened.
He obviously was able to work things out as we later find the good professor in 1868, listed as a hypnotist in Inverness, reported upon in the local Inverness Advertiser.
We will follow him further as we are quite sure that he was in B.C. once more at a later date - a world traveller entertainer from the 1860s.
