AustLit

Landscape painter and poet John Baxter Mather came to Australia with his parents at the age of seven. He became an office boy for the Mount Gambier Border Watch, and during this time he got to know Adam Lindsay Gordon (q.v.) who was training horses there. He became a compositor for the Warrnambool Standard, working with J. F. Archibald (q.v.), and then returned for a while to the Border Watch. With George Ash he began the newspaper the Naracoorte Herald.

Moving to Adelaide, Mather worked for the Advertiser as assistant sub-editor for four years, staff artist for six years and art critic for fifteen years. He later started up his own business as a process-engraver.