Chang the Chinese giant, and party

Chang Woo Gow (1840s–1893), billed as Chang the Chinese Giant, made the first of his public appearances in London in the mid- 1860s. Thousands of people lined up to see his extraordinary frame and hear his feats of linguistics (he was reportedly able to speak between six and ten languages) and he was soon touring Europe and the United States. Accompanied by his wife, Kin Foo, he arrived in Australia in 1870 and toured the country over the next several years. While in Australia, after the death of Kin Foo, Chang met and married Catherine ‘Kitty’ Santley, a Liverpudlian. They lived in Shanghai and Paris and had two sons before moving to England. In 1880, American showman and entrepreneur PT Barnum contracted Chang to join his so-called ‘Greatest Show On Earth’, a travelling circus, menagerie and museum of out-of- the-ordinary human specimens. Returning to England, Chang retired from the stage and, to help cure his suspected tuberculosis, moved with his family to Bournemouth. Here, he operated a tearoom and ‘Oriental Bazaar’ selling Chinese curios and fabrics. He died, reportedly of a broken heart, four months after the death of his wife in 1893. Chang posed for various commercial photographers during his time in Australia and the resulting images are excellent examples of the carte de visite’s role in the popularisation and promotion of public performers. Canadian-born Alexander McDonald was the brother of Archibald McDonald, who was in partnership with American photographer Townsend Duryea in Melbourne, Geelong and Hobart in the first half of the 1850s. When the partnership with Duryea dissolved in 1855, the brothers remained in Tasmania for a while before Archibald returned to Melbourne. Alexander is listed as working in Melbourne in the 1860s as well as being in business with Robert Baxter in Queanbeyan NSW. He took on his brother’s business in Melbourne following Archibald’s death in 1873, but from the mid-1870s onwards is listed as practising in Armidale, Uralla, Tamworth, Newcastle, and Windsor, NSW.