The roller-skating era saw leisure time simply glide by in Brisbane

While the earliest forms of roller skates appeared in the 1760s (with wheels in a straight line to mirror ice skates), the earliest design that would be familiar to us (two parallel pairs of wheels) was made by American James Plimpton 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.”

With Melbourne’s Apollo Hall hosting many successful roller-skating events, members of 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 May 12, 1876, “a meeting of gentlemen favourable to the formation of a skating rink” was held at Brisbane Town Hall. By May 1877, a rink was advertised on Elizabeth Street.

Curious locals were asked to pay in advance as subscribers for the chance to skate with 49 others at a time.

By the next month, it was reportedly so popular that the organisers (Messrs JH Rylands and A Loewe) quickly 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”.

In April 1878, the rink moved to new “commodious premises” on Ann Street, 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 July 23.

A licence to sell spirits at the rink was granted the next month, but not much further information appears after.Just 10 years later, however, you could hardly move for roller-skating 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 (“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 the capital, none captured the public imagination quite like Brisbane Elite Skate Rink.

Overseen by experienced rink manager KA Skinner, the Elite was opened on April 1, 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 1500 skaters, electric lights 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 which direction patrons should travel).

The image pictured above, from  The Boomerang newspaper, captures  the action.

Brisbane in 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 balls and – in one  memorable mention – a “wild boar hunt on roller skates”.

Roller skating 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.

While dedicated rinks are now thin on the ground in the River City, the feeling of strapping on the skates remains a fond memory for many.