Rinkists and Dandy Mashers: the birth of rollerskating in Brisbane
By Chris Currie | 15 December 2025
The Columbia Skate Rink, 1888. The rink was built on the site of what today is Brisbane City Hall.
When did rollerskating start in Brisbane?
The earliest forms of rollerskates appeared in the 1760s, with wheels in a straight line to mirror ice skates. American James Plimpton produced the "classic" rollerskate design – with two parallel pairs of wheels – in 1863.
'The roller skate,' declared an 1866 edition of The Brisbane Courier, 'simple and unimportant as it may appear ... has furnished mankind ... with a new sensation.'
Needs more exclamation marks ...
Let’s roll: Brisbane’s first skating rink
With Melbourne’s Apollo Hall hosting many successful rollerskating events, the Brisbane public were soon calling for the establishment of their own skating rink. Alongside the benefits of exercise and recreation, another feature of 'artificial skating' was the 'opportunities it affords of a little quiet flirtation'.
On 12 May 1876, 'a meeting of Gentlemen favourable to the formation of a skating rink' was held at Brisbane Town Hall, and by May 1877, a rink was advertised on Elizabeth Street.
Curious locals were asked to pay in advance as subscriber for the chance to skate with 49 others, ‘a band in attendance’ and a tutor. By the next month, it was reportedly so popular the organisers (Messrs. J.H. Rylands and A. Loewe) extended the opening hours, and an official club of ‘Rinkists’ was soon formed. Gas lights were installed, and two evenings were set aside for 'grand fashionable nights' for 'the elite of Brisbane’.
Quite possibly the first mention of rollerskating in action in Brisbane, on 13 June 1877.
In April 1878, the Elizabeth Street rink moved to new 'commodious premises' on Ann St, boasting the 'best floor in the Australian colonies', a brass band, and a tutor who claimed to be the 'Second Best Skater in San Francisco'.
The rink was listed for sale in July the same year, and apparently taken over by a committee of subscribers, who held the first meeting of the Brisbane Private Skating Club on 23 July. A licence to sell spirits at the rink was granted the next month, but not much further information appears after.
A sink handbill promoting a Fancy Dress Ball at the Elite Skating Rink on 12 June 1888.
Wheely popular
An 1888 illustration summing up the many states of confidence or skaters at the Brisbane Elite Skate Rink.
Just 10 years later, you could hardly move for rollerskating rinks. A page of advertising from August 1888 shows packed schedules for New Farm Skating Rink (‘THE MOST SELECT RINK IN BRISBANE’), Columbia Skate Rink at the corner of Albert and Adelaide Streets (‘THE ONLY ELITE RINK IN BRISBANE’) and South Brisbane Skating Rink (‘The Elite, Largest, and most Popular Skating Resort in Queensland’).
Among the half-dozen venues that had opened in and around Brisbane, none captured the public imagination like Brisbane Elite Skate Rink. Overseen by experienced rink manager K A Skinner, the Elite was opened on 1 April 1888 inside the enormous timber Exhibition Building on Gregory Terrace, which had housed the Queensland Intercolonial Exhibition (now known as the Ekka) since 1876.
The whole floor of the building was overlaid with level hard pine to accommodate up to 1,500 skaters. Electric lights were installed and a brass and string band employed to accompany the skaters in their various states of uprightness (the opening night did not evidently feature any rules around in which direction patrons should travel).
A wonderful video from the National Sound and Film Archive shows rare vision of Glideway Skating Rink in Melbourne Street, South Brisbane (opened in 1909), with skaters moving around the rink in full formal wear, playing hockey and engaging in a very vigorous game of musical chairs.
Wild boars, spreadeagles and a dude on skates
Brisbane of the late 19th century had embraced this ‘fashionable, favourite and frolicsome pastime’ with open (and occasionally broken) arms, and skate rinks were the scenes of thrilling races, extravagant fancy dress balls and – in one memorable mention – a ‘wild boar hunt on roller skates’.
An interesting character from this golden age was one Professor A.F. Smith, an American also known as the ‘Skatorial King’, 'The Dude on Skates’ and ‘The Dandy Masher on the Little Wheels’. The South Brisbane Skating Rink held Grand Skating Carnivals, where Smith would give exhibitions of ‘comic skating’, including ‘picking up, with his teeth, a handkerchief placed upon the floor.’ Smith was also an expert in ‘scientific skating’, exhibiting such moves as ‘polka steps, grape vines [and] flying threes.’
Smith literally wrote the book on skating; his Manual of Roller Skating includes 211 separate moves, including The Spread Eagle Serpentine, the Philadelphia Twist and the Picket Fence.
Modern rollerskating in Brisbane
Rollerskating remained a popular activity in Brisbane well into the 20th century, carried by trends as diverse as wartime diversion, disco fever, a COVID-safe escape and now retro cool. At the height of its popularity, there were an estimated 30 rinks across South East Queensland.
Skaters enjoying the Stafford Skate Centre, August 2011.
Locations such as The Blue Moon, Fiveways Woolloongabba, Stafford Sports Centre, Red Hill Skate Arena and Inala Sports Centre were once hives of skating activity but for various reasons now no longer exist.
While dedicated rollerskating rinks are now few and far between in the River City, the feeling of strapping on the skates is a fond memory for many of us in Brisbane, and it continues to be enjoyed.
'Joan Salkeld and Joan Grey essay a figure eight together at the rink beside the river' at The Blue Moon Skating Rink.
Resources
- Brisbane’s Early Roller Skating Rinks, Brisbane History West website, accessed 15 December 2025
- Brisbane’s Lost Skating Rinks, Brisbane Times website, accessed 15 December 2025
- Las Vegas Free Press, Tuesday 1 November 1892, University of New Mexico Digital Repository.
- New Farm & Districts Historical Society Inc Newsletter, February 2018:
- Red Hill Skate Arena, Brisbane Heritage Register website, accessed 15 December 2025
- Roller-skating, Encyclopedia Brittanica website, accessed 15 December 2025
- Spalding’s Manual of Roller Skating, A.F. Smith, 1884, A.G. Spalding & Bros
- Trove website (various pages), accessed 15 December 2025.
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