It may seem that we have diverted attention away from the Silvesters and towards the performer William Fay and, in the short term, this is quite true. The reason is that Fay’s history, so far as it relates to Australia, has been very sparsely documented and deserves to be fleshed out. Most histories which mention Fay state that, upon William Davenport’s death, he retired and moved to the town of Hay, where he set up a store (or, in other texts, “went into farming / sheep raising” and “accumulated a fortune”). It is recorded that in 1894 he returned to the United States to make an attempted revival tour with Ira Davenport, but it was aborted just days into the tour, and Fay gave away performing. There are some well-known photographs of Harry Houdini visiting Fay at his home, in late March 1910.

The fuller story of Fay is rather more detailed – in particular this tour with Alfred Silvester, though lasting less than a year, does not seem to have been documented previously; so we will take the time to add a little historical detail to his life story.

William Marion Fay (c.1839 – 1921) was born of German parents, and there is some contention (1) as to whether he was born in the United States, or came to the U.S. as Wilhelm Marius Fay, from the Darmstadt area in Germany around the age of eleven, and later anglicised his name. He was listed as a blacksmith in the 1858 directory for Berlin, Wisconsin, where he married Elizabeth Lydia Meakes on February 5, 1862 and continued as a buggy manufacturer in the same town until at least 1869. However in 1915, when he applied for Australian naturalisation, he recorded his birthdate as September 16, 1839 and his place of birth as Buffalo, New York.  Berlin, and nearby Omro (which was the name given to his Melbourne home in Australia) were early centres of spiritualist activity.

The Davenports, embarking on their British tour when the U.S. Civil War started to impact their earnings, employed Fay in 1864 as both a company manager and a stand-by performer in the event that the sickly William Davenport was unable to perform. In this capacity he was able to perform the “cabinet” feats of the Brothers, but also gave his own “Dark Séance” in which Professor Fay was bound to a chair and the lights extinguished. Upon the lights being restored, Fay’s coat was found to have been removed, but he was still securely bound. Borrowing an audience member’s coat, the reverse procedure occurred, the coat appearing on the bound body of Mr. Fay.

In well-documented travels, (2) Fay and the brothers Davenport toured in Britain, then to Paris and across the major cities of Europe, and finally back to the United States in August 1868. During Fay’s leadership, the Davenports, (who later said that they never claimed Spiritual assistance as the force behind their act), nevertheless made a crucial error by claiming in the ‘Times’ that: (3)
“we beg to say that we do not assert that our experiments are attributable to “spiritual agency;” nor can we tell how they are produced. We are as anxious as the spectators can be to discover the cause of the phenomena. We profess to exercise a power of the nature and extent of which we know nothing beyond the fact that we have it….”  – a clear lie, since the Brothers were active in their feats and knew precisely how they achieved them. The resulting challenges and riots in Liverpool, in which the spirit cabinet was smashed to a thousand pieces, undoubtedly made the troupe far more cautious in future public statements.

It was in 1869 that, as mentioned previously, young up-and-coming magician Harry Keller was taken on as Advance Agent and Business Manager, Fay continuing as the second performer in the show. They travelled throughout the Southern states until 1873, when Keller broke away following a perceived insult from William Davenport.

Keller and Fay left together, and between 1873-1875 toured Canada, Cuba, Mexico and down the west coast of South America to Panama, then to Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil. The feature of the show was the ‘Davenport’ feats, though Keller also performed magic. Struggling with the problems of transportation, the pair found that it was often cheaper to have an entire new “spirit cabinet” constructed in each town, than to battle it across country. Fay would later tell Ira Davenport that they had cleared over $40,000 in eight months. (3)

In 1875 Keller and Fay struck disaster when shipwreck stole all their props and money in the Bay of Biscay. Although Keller would later manage to borrow some money and return to performing, William Fay cut his losses and re-joined the Davenport Brothers, bringing him to the Australian tour documented in Chapter Four.

Alfred may have been planning a new tour for some time, and he was well experienced, but having a world-traveller such as William Fay by his side would have been of significant benefit. Pursuing the route of Silvester and Fay through Asian newspapers is a difficult task; however a reasonable trail has been found. Alfred took with him his wife Sarah, daughter Daisy, and son Charles (Alfred2 continued to perform in Australia). Shipping lists for the company also mention that a Mr. Meakes was with them; this was Alfred Moore Meakes, William Fay’s brother-in-law, who comes into Fay’s later Australian story.

Silvester had left some baggage behind him at Brisbane in late 1877, and on April 8, 1878 this was auctioned off to recoup storage costs (5), the items listed being ‘Sundry Conjuring Apparatus used by Dr. Silvester, comprising large conjuring table, large canvas drop scenes and wings, boxes for lime light, packing cases and sundry other articles’.

The company is first sighted outside Australia on April 23, when they appeared at the Komedie-Gebouw in Semarang, the largest city of the Central Java province in what was then the Dutch East Indies, but soon to become Indonesia. Curiously, Alfred had chosen to troupe his Fairy Fountain which must have presented him with some challenges. The show featured the Entranced Lady, Charles in his roller-skating and cornet acts, the Flying Cage, the Educated Lion and Professor Fay’s ‘Wonderkabinet’.

They were still in Java towards the end of May, after which they moved through to Batavia (now Jakarta) before crossing to arrive in Singapore on June 13. As was the usual practice of travelling magicians from Australia, the company appeared before the largely European contingent of these places.

The duo were well-received in Singapore’s Town Hall, the ‘Daily Times’ complimenting the showmen for metamorphosing the stage into a refreshing area and spiriting forth a gushing fountain into its centre, considering they had only had a few days’ preparation. The description of Fay’s spirit manifestations shows that he was performing the Davenport’s cabinet routine in addition to his Dark Séance, being tied in a cabinet yet playing a tambourine and thrusting his hands through the apertures in the door. On June 21 the performance received Vice-Regal patronage from the Governor Sir W.C.F. Robinson, and although they had been announced to perform ‘positively three nights only’, the show was still running on June 28.

At a third entertainment on the 24^th, the Overland China Mail spent some time regretting the length and “brilliant witticisms” of the Doctor’s panorama lecture.

The company remained at Hong Kong until around August 10, then travelled via the steamer ‘China’ for Shanghai, where they arrived on the 24^th to perform at the Lyceum Theatre. Their attendance and reception was good, Silvester’s dancing cardboard Jack Tar, “Tom Bowline”, seemingly causing a reaction beyond the simplicity of its operation, but the panoramic lecture was again thought to be an unnecessary addition to a full programme, which caused Professor Fay’s séance to start very late. However, said the North China Herald, “the programme was lengthy and varied, and contained much that was pleasing and much more that was wonder-striking and sensational.” Fay was put to some more severe tests, a dollar being placed on each of his feet, and a pencilled outline drawn around the position of his feet, none of which prevented the musical instruments flying around or bells ringing.

After at least seven performances in Shanghai, and probably more, the Silvester company departed on September 21, headed for Singapore via Amoy (Xiamen). Among the passengers was listed an assistant E. Nicholson and William Ball - a pharmaceutical Chemist born at Mentmore in England, with a supply outlet at Praya West in Hong Kong. He took on the business management of the troupe, and would soon become part of the Silvester family.

Notably absent, however, was William Fay and his brother-in-law, Alfred Meakes. For whatever reason, Fay had decided to return to Australia, and the pair arrived back at Brisbane on October 12, headed for Melbourne. So ended William Fay’s last international tour; aside from his abortive attempt in 1894 to revive a performance with Ira Davenport, to all intents his travelling career was now ended.

It was possibly with an eye to a new business that William Fay and his brother-in-law, Alfred Moore Meakes, returned to Australia. In January 1879 they moved to the town of Hay, in the south-western Riverina district of New South Wales. Here the pair formed a partnership and bought out a long-established store founded by the Moss Brothers in 1839, which had passed through a number of different owners and was a fixture in the community, serving passing drovers, providing a post-office, drapery and general store with its goods coming from Melbourne or Adelaide. Hay was a growing area in the Riverina, and the new railway was soon to come. Immediately the new owners “Meakes and Fay” started to update the store and advertise widely, with Mr. Meakes the driving force and Fay the business mind.

Fay had scarcely settled in Hay before he offered to give a presentation of his séance for the benefit of the Hay Athenaeum, which took place on April 30 at Sabine’s Masonic Hall, featuring both the Cabinet routine and the Dark Séance (8) and the Professor was vociferously applauded, having raised upwards of £40. It was not the only occasion on which Fay performed at Hay; he was seen again in October 1889 with another successful entertainment.

Business at the store continued until January 1884, when Fay seems to have suffered a case of itchy feet. Although some histories mention him as being involved in farming, one of his descendants still living in Victoria confirms that, in fact, “… He ‘grubstaked’; or financed early settlers by providing credit to purchase goods thru his store so they could establish farms.” Having accumulated a good bank account through his Davenport years, the store, and his financing activities, William Fay was in a good position to do as he pleased. He amicably dissolved the partnership with Alfred Meakes (who continued to operate the store in conjunction with an employee, Mr. Henry Maclure); and with his wife, departed for San Francisco on board the ‘City of Sydney.’ It is likely that his son, Franklin Ethelbert Fay (b.1864) remained in Melbourne. He would later live at the home called “The Hawthorns” at Brougham-Place (now Daniell Place), Kew which Fay purchased in 1890. This would be the home of the extended family for some years to come - at least as late as 1925.

Little is known of Fay’s activities back in the United States during 1884, but according to the Riverina Grazier, “Mr. Fay went for a tour to foreign parts, and Mr. Meakes, left to carry the burden of the business alone, found it no light one. In less than a year, Mr. Meakes felt that he would like a rest from business cares, and was prepared to sell out. In the meanwhile, Mr. Fay, who had intended to retire permanently from business, got tired of a life of inactivity, and wrote from America to Mr Maclure, suggesting that he should join him in business somewhere in Australia. The result of this combination of circumstances was that Messrs. Fay and Maclure bought out Mr. Meakes on the 18h April, 1885. The business was continued by Mr. Fay and Mr. Maclure until the 1^st March, 1892, when Mr. Fay retired from the business and Mr. Maclure became sole proprietor.”
The old store, said the ‘Grazier’, was “a place that has never been known to fail, that has never caused any of its owners to lose their money.” It continued to operate until being demolished in February 1899.

“Mr. Fay retired and went to Sheep raising and accumulated a fortune. He returned in the fall of 1894 and hunted up Ira Davenport, and in conjunction with an English magician [he was a comic singer, not a magician], Snazelle, started on a tour of the world which lasted just three days. The public being a little skeptical as to spirit phenomena as compared to their ready acceptance in the days gone by, and the name of Davenport Brothers failed to excite the enthusiasm and bring the vast audience it did some twenty years ago.”

The revival, with British-born singer and raconteur, George H. Snazelle (who was rather a favourite of Australian audiences), was advertised to start with a week at the Metzerott Music Hall, Washington D.C., from October 1, 1894. By the tenth, Snazelle seems to have broken away and was advertising as a solo, while Fay and Davenport promoted one more night on October 9 - and then, nothing. Any prospect of a continued tour collapsed, and William Fay returned to Australia, where he settled back to live a quieter life. In later years he was sought out by visiting magicians Harry Kellar, and (1910) touring escapologist, the famed Harry Houdini, whose interest in the Davenport Brothers connected strongly to their being early “escape artists” themselves.

Said the Riverine Grazier (10), “He was of a very retiring disposition, and took no part in public affairs, but he was of a very genial nature, and when he could be got to speak of his experiences in other lands – and he could be drawn out, especially by Americans – he was most entertaining. He had a very complete collection of the coins of the different countries he had been in, well cared for, in suitable boxes, and it was an education in geography to examine them. The old store … has housed many personalities, but none so striking as Mr. W.M. Fay. He was a very straight man, a very just man, and he only respected those who played the game. Like all just men, he made no real enemies, but gained the respect of everyone with whom he did business.”

(2) “A Magician’s Tour”, Harry Kellar 1886.
“Kellar’s Wonders” by Mike Caveney and Bill Miesel, Mike Caveney’s Magic Words 2003.
https://www.magicwords.shop/books
Essay, “Fay and Keller in Mexico, 1874” by Enrique Jiminez-Martinez, published in James Hagy’s "The Perennial Mystics" #21 Part 2, May 1 2009.

(3) Transcription from the London Times, dated St. James’s Hall, Sept 30, 1864

(4) “Houdini – A Magician Among the Spirits” by Harry Houdini, 1924

(5) Brisbane Courier, April 8, 1878 p.4

(6) Ira Davenport referring to Fay in a 1909 letter to Harry Houdini. Ref. ‘A Magician Among the Spirits’ by Houdini, 1924

(7) The information about Fay’s return to the United States comes from the Conjurer’s Magazine, April 1905, and a lengthy history of the old “Moss’s Store” published in the Riverine Grazier (Hay NSW) February 24, 1899,page 2.

(8) Riverine Grazier, May 3, 1879 and October 4, 1889

(9) A comprehensive history of “Omro” was published in ‘City of Boroondara Municipal-wide Heritage Gap Study (Vol. 4 – Kew) report 21 January 2019’ by Context Pty Ltd., Brunswick VIC

(10) Riverine Grazier obituary of William Fay, August 12, 1921