Today, 115 years ago, on 14 July 1909, Dame Nellie Melba performed at Charters Towers during her 1909 Back Blocks Tour (New South Wales and Queensland).

Australia has produced many singers of world renown, but none are more famous than the incomparable Dame Nellie Melba. She was unquestionably Australia’s most famous woman in her lifetime.

Melba dubbed her 1909 Australian tour her ‘sentimental tour’. It helped establish her reputation as an international star who also performed for her home crowd. Melba travelled by train across Australia, covering some 16,000 kilometres, performing in remote towns as well as cities.

The further she toured, the deeper seemed the adulation: there were banquets, speeches, even small crowds at wayside stations as Melba progressed with an entourage consisting of her manager, a maid and a valet, together with two baby grand pianos.

Dame Nellie Melba was regularly met by crowds at the railway stations and many of the towns she visited held banquets to show their support for Australia’s ‘Queen of Song’.

The public loved Melba and she equally loved their adoration.

The 1909 Back Blocks Tour began in Forbes on 8 June 1909 and travelled through Orange, Bathurst, Dubbo, Sydney, Maitland, Tamworth, Armidale, Glen Innes, Brisbane, Rockhampton, Mount Morgan, Rockhampton, and on 12 July 1909 performed in Townsville. The next stop for her tour was Charters Towers.

She would always arrive a full twenty-four hours before a performance, and to sustain the excitement give her concert without an interval.

On her arrival in Charters Towers on 13 July 1909, Melba was presented with a Blue Silk Scroll by the Charters Towers branch of the Australian Natives’ Association (ANA). The silk scroll was hung on an ornate wooden rod and made by the Martin Smith Printers, Charters Towers.

Dame Nellie Melba performed in the Theatre Royal at the corner of Church and Hodgkinson Streets. The Theatre Royal was the largest place of entertainment in Charters Towers and held upwards of 2000 people.

The main entrance to the theatre was via Hodgkinson Street frontage but there were two or three wide doorways opening onto Church Street as well. The dressing rooms were located at the northern end of the building under the stage area.

The 1909 Melba performance established a record for the theatre.

After the Charters Towers performance, the 1909 Back Blocks Tour went back to Townsville for a second performance, and then on to Bundaberg, Maryborough, Murwillumbah, Lismore, Casino, Brisbane, Toowoomba, Sydney, Cootamundra, Narandera, Wagga Wagga, and finishing in Albury, NSW on 6 September 1909.

This was a major event 115 years ago.