Entertaining Victorian London
Adelaide ‘Zaeo’ Wieland
Adelaide ‘Zaeo’ Wieland (c.1863 – 1906) was a celebrated acrobat during the late nineteenth century. The London Archives has records of her performing at the Royal Aquarium, Tothill Street, Westminster. The venue was intended for variety entertainment and was opened in January 1876. It also included rooms for reading, an art gallery, a skating rink, a billiard room and tanks for sea creatures. The tanks were a running joke as they were always leaking so were often left empty.
As part of her act, she would dive from the roof of the building onto a net in the auditorium. Zaeo described the experience:
Finishing my performance on the wire I got on to the trapeze and commenced to swing until I seemed to grow intoxicated with the motion, for I felt as if I had wings and could really fly.
The 1891 census records Zaeo as living at 46 Hercules Road, Lambeth, with the impresario Henry W Wieland and his daughter Clara who was a comedienne and dancer. Not much is known about her early life, but it is noted in Charles Molesworth’s, ‘The Life of Zaeo’ (1891) that she had Italian heritage.
Scandal at the Aquarium
The National Vigilance Association criticized the advertising hoardings that featured Zaeo’s photograph, and also Paula the snake charmer, as “indecent and horrible” because they were showing bare skin. The London County Council Minutes of the Theatre and Music Hall Committee go into lengthy detail over the scandal, as what they saw as the sensationalising of circus acts. This appears to have been an attempt to revoke the license of the Royal Aquarium which had become disreputable in the 1890s when it was reported to have been frequented by 'prostitutes'. In 1903 the buildings were demolished and the Methodist Central Hall is now on the site.
You can find more advertisements for performers at this site on the London Picture Archive. Please note that it contains language of the period.
Search the London Picture ArchiveOutside the Royal Aquarium it proclaimed:
At no place in the world can so many lights be seen.
Burial
Adelaide Wieland was 43 when she died and was buried on April 6, 1906 at Nunhead Cemetery at plot 63/20125. Some graves have since been moved from this part of the cemetery, but it is thought that she was buried in the vicinity of Alfred Vance, a music hall singer known as, 'The Great Vance'.
