AustLit

Australian composer, musician, pedagogue.

The daughter of solicitor Ernest Peterson, Varney Monk was born in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, and grew up in Tasmania. Her musical education was undertaken courtesy of an inheritance left by her mother, who died when Varney was eleven years of age. She had one of her early songs, 'When Roses Fall,' published by Palings when she was still a teenager and continued to write prolifically up until at least the 1940s. By her late teens, she had become a talented musician and respected singing teacher, which led to her meeting and marrying well-known violinist Cyril Monk. The couple soon afterwards settled in Mosman on Sydney's North Shore, residing there for the rest of their lives. Among their near neighbours were T. Stuart Gurr and Alfred Hill.

Varney Monk's output of music was considerable, comprising 33 published compositions and at least 127 unpublished works. She is chiefly remembered, however, for her hit Australian musical, Collits' Inn, which ran for sixteen weeks when staged in Melbourne by F. W. Thring in 1933. (It received a respectable eight-week season in Sydney in 1934). Her follow-up musical, The Cedar Tree (1934), was also produced by Thring, albeit with less success than her earlier work.

Among her vocal and instrumental compositions are a number of musical settings to poetry by Henry Lawson and Henry Kendall.