AustLit

Entertainer, musician (banjo), troupe manager, theatrical showman, businessman, alternative medicine manufacturer/spruiker.

The son of a New Orleans doctor, Frank Weston moved to California during the goldrush era and in 1865 toured Weston and Pendergasts Minstrels around the west. The following year he travelled to Australia with Cooke, Zoyara and Wilson's Circus and later toured the country spruiking his own Wizard Oil and other panaceas via free entertainments. He co-founded several minstrel troupes - notably with Frank Hussey and Nicholas La Feuillade - and for several years leased Melbourne's St Georges Hall (renaming it Weston's Opera House). Weston spent some five years in South Africa (ca. late-1880s) before returning to Australia via England, and eventually retired from entertaining in 1898. After settling in Adelaide he continued selling his Wizard Oil until at least 1917.