AustLit

Henry Angel Birkbeck was born in Mexico and received a brief schooling in England. He arrived in Australia when he was twelve years old and settled in Queensland. His father was an English traveller of scholarly bent and his mother was Mexican.

Birkbeck was a member of a group of poets described by Henry Arthur Kellow as 'The Rockhampton School'. Contrary to the prevailing bush ethos and democratic preoccupations of the time, the Rockhampton School drew their inspiration from classical themes and literature. Other members of the group included Heber Hedley Booth, George Herbert Rogers and Lance Fallaw.

Described by Denis Cryle as the most ambitious of the group, Birkbeck was only twenty two when he wrote Cupid and Psyche, his 2,500-word epic poem in blank verse, possibly the most significant work of this type to be produced in Queensland.

Birkbeck did not marry and died only ten years after writing his epic poem, at the age of thirty two.