Painter’s Bicycle Band

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32661, 17 July 1971, Page 12

Painter’s Bicycle Band

I can well remember the glow of pride I felt as a child when I heard the frequently repeated boast that Christchurch had more bicycles than any city in the world.

Doubtful as this claim may have been, it was certainly true that Christchurch was a “City on Wheels” and in those days it meant bicycle wheels. The bicycle has always been of great importance to Christchurch and so it was only mildly surprising to discover recently, that the city once also had its music on wheels—a bicycle band. Mr Bruce Painter, son of Mr J. W. Painter who with his brother, Fred, founded the famous band, presented the photograph illustrated here, together with information about the band. Very popular Newspaper publicity given to this, gift prompted another citizen, Mr C. Mardon, to tell us that he clearly recalls as a boy seeing the band practising in the open ground of Barracks Square, Hereford Street, on the site of the present King Edward Barracks. At that time the installations comprised the various unit orderly rooms on the north side of the site and the artillery park at the east end. The Band used to ride round and round the ' open area when Rehearsing. Popularly known as Painter’s Bicycle Band, the band

(Contributed by the Canterbury Museum)

was organised in 1895 as an offshoot of the Christchurch Professional Brass Band formed in 1892 by Mr Fred Painter and Mr T. Dalton. Mr Painter Was a well-known distance and trick cyclist and combined his talents as a musician and a cyclist in this unique project. The band proved immensely popular and members surmounted the difficulties of travelling the far from smooth roads of the day and manipulating their instruments, with great skill. Naturally, there was an occasional mishap as on the Sunday morning in Caledonian road when a woman cyclist collided with the rear wheel of a-front row bandsman: unfortunate for the woman but the band remained undeterred. The bandsman concerned continued to play his instrument while proceeding straight ahead over the fallen bicycle (presumably, not over the rider), a feat surely worthy of the centre ring in any circus.

The band made many long trips to other centres, the first of which would have discouraged less hardy souls. The trip to Amberley necessitated fording the Kowai River as there was no bridge in those days. Wading through the river the bandsmen wheeled their bicycles and carried their instruments, arriving tired and dishevelled to fulfil their engagement. The homeward journey offered no relief as a southerly gale had developed. They arrived back in Christ-

church at midnight, very much the worse for wear but with their mission accomplished.

I Stage engagement The many journeys which followed included one to Rakaia which nearly proved too much for one member who collapsed with exhaustion on the way home. A neighbouring farmer's wife cooked him a pound of steak which so completely restored him that he was able to continue the journey with the rest of the band.

Although best known for their appearances on the streets of Christchurch the band had at least one engagement on the stage of the Opera House. The audience was enthusiastic when the bandsmen appeared on stage on their bicycles and executed a brilliant “figure of eight” and was astonished when this feat was repeated while the bandsmen were playing their instruments.

The fame of the band spread and stories about it appeared in newspapers in Australia and Britain. Christchurch was justly proud of its unique asset—Painter’s Bicycle Band. Photographs and anecdotes, such as these stories of the band, form part of the enecyclopaedia of community history which the Canterbury Museum is able to provide for the man in the street through its policy of providing a central repository for such historical records. —M.J.D.