A mini-series in which historian Tracey Gregory talks with Naomi Clifford about the inhabitants of Loughborough Road in Brixton, South London.

Tracey’s blog, Loughborough Road Stories, explores the people and buildings of Loughborough Road and surrounding streets over the past 180 years.

This is a collaborative project between Morley Radio and The Door history podcast.

Heroine of the High Wire

The astonishing acrobat and high wire performer known as Ella Zuila was born Catherine Isabella Webber in Sydney, Australia in 1854, to English parents. She first performed on the ‘high-rope’ and trapeze after she met her future husband, George Loyal, in 1871.

Ella’s tricks included wheeling a large cannon across the wire, sitting at a table drinking a glass of wine, carrying George across the wire on her back, walking across the wire with baskets on her feet.

Poster for Ella Zuila, the Heroine of the High Wire. Metropolitan Litho Studio, 29 Warren St., N.Y., 1879

No 32 Loughborough Road, once the home of high-wire artist Ella Zuila, her human cannonball husband George Loyal and their daughter Lulu.

They travelled the world with their act – in which their daughter Lulu also participated. When very tiny she was taken across the high wire in a small wheelbarrow, and when older joined her mother on the back of an adapted bicycle or stood on her mother’s shoulders.

On a tour of the US in the late 1870s George was fired from a canon – Ella’s job was to catch him, so he vies for the position of first person fired from a canon with another amazing female performer, Zazel.

But despite this stunning and dangerous display it was Ella who started to eclipse George as the star of the show. She was the headline act on many of the bills of Forepaughs Circus and she started to be referred to as the female Blondin, the wire walker famous for his feats high above Niagara Falls in 1859.

Ella and her family settled in Lambeth, living at No. 32 Loughborough on and off from the 1880s into the 20th century.

Listen to the episode for more details of this astonishing woman, who once enjoyed widespread fame and is now scarcely remembered.