AustLit

Humanist, pacifist and socialist, Richard Long came to Australia with his family at the age of five, living in Sandringham, Melbourne. Largely self-educated, he worked as a ship's carpenter and joiner. He was a member of the Socialist Party of Victoria, the Free Religious Fellowship and the Australian Peace Alliance, and he wrote of his love of nature and his defiance of capitalism. In 1918 and 1919 he was three times imprisoned for his stand against the government. From 1911 he contributed verse to the Melbourne Socialist and later verse to the Free Religious Fellowship and Birth. In 1917 some of his friends published a collection of his poetry, Verses, and a further selection, Poems, was published posthumously in 1954 in Melbourne by the Australasian Book Society on an evening in honour of R. H. Long and Furnley Maurice (q.v.).