AustLit

Henry Lawson was born at Grenfell, New South Wales, in 1867 to Niels Hertzberg (Peter) Larsen and his wife Louisa Lawson. His name was registered as 'Henry (Lawson) Larsen' and both his father and mother later used the anglicised version of their name. Lawson was educated briefly at several schools, but was sometimes kept home by his father to help with his carpentry. At the age of nine Lawson experienced problems with his ears and suffered partial deafness for the rest of his life. Lawson worked for his father until 1883 when he joined his mother, Louisa, in Sydney. Here he worked as a coach painter and became interested in the republican movement. He also assisted his mother with her periodical, the Republican, in which Lawson published his first prose piece. His first poem, 'A Song of the Republic', was published by the Bulletin in 1887.

During the 1890s Lawson wrote his most admired work. His first collection of verse was published by Louisa Lawson's Dawn press in 1894, but his reputation was sealed in 1896 when a collection of his short stories, While the Billy Boils, and an anthology of his poetry, In the Days When the World was Wide, were published by Angus and Robertson. Lawson's enduring reputation is built on his prose works, making While the Billy Boils a landmark in Australian literature. In 1901 Lawson published Joe Wilson and His Mates, adding another classic collection of Australian stories to his name. Lawson became, for many twentieth century critics, the personification of Australian literature. The images of the bush and bush people in Lawson's best stories have remained influential. Some characters, such as the "drover's wife", have become icons that continue to be interpreted from various critical perspectives. But Lawson's subsequent work did not achieve the same quality. The vivid descriptions of Australia and the symbolic resonances in Lawson's earlier work were never matched.

Lawson's artistic decline accompanied his decline into alcoholism and mental illness. He married Berthe Bredt in 1896 and they travelled to New Zealand and England while Lawson attempted to attract more financial reward for his writing. But, following their return to Sydney in 1902, Lawson lived apart from his family. He spent time in gaol for failing to pay maintenance and became a well known figure in Sydney as a drunk and beggar. His friends and supporters found work for him and sometimes removed him from the city. Lawson continued to write prose and poetry, but this work remained far beneath his earlier levels of excellence. In 1920 a pension from the Commonwealth Literary Fund provided some financial security. Henry Lawson died of a cerebral haemorrhage at Abbotsford in 1922.

Carmichael left Ballarat for Orbost with her parents at the age of nine. In the 1880s she was schooled in Melbourne then became a certified nurse at the Children's Hospital there. After finishing her training she married Francis Mullis. They moved to Adelaide then London, where hardship impacted Carmichael's health, eventually leading to her death. Her sons, brought back to Melbourne by friends, adopted their mother's maiden name.

Carmichael was the first Victorian-born woman poet. Her poem 'Sweet Summer's Dead' was set to music by J. A. Steele and published by Allan's in 1934.

Randolph Bedford was the father of Eric Bedford (q.v.), and grandfather of Liz Collins (q.v.). Born in Sydney, he attended Newtown Public School. At 16, and after a range of jobs, he started travelling the western plains of NSW. In Albury, he discovered The Bulletin for the first time and 'thereby entered a new world'. His first newspaper job was in Bourke, but his fascination with the mining industry saw him move to the Broken Hill Argus in 1888. He briefly worked on the Adelaide Advertiser, then for two years on the Melbourne Age, becoming the latter’s crime reporter.

Bedford worked through the depression as a freelance journalist. In 1892, he was owner of the Gippsland newspaper Toora and Welshpool Pioneer. In 1896, he launched the Clarion which was illustrated and partly edited by his friend Lionel Lindsay. His later journalism included articles on mining and other topics for Lone Hand and The Bulletin. Bedford wrote a small work of literary journalism, “The Retail Brand of Gentleman” (1893) for The Bulletin, and later a series of articles about London (1902/1903).

Bedford travelled overseas as well, leaving a reprint of his Bulletin contributions on the Mediterranean in Explorations in Civilization (1916). He produced a play, White Australia or the Empty North (staged in Melbourne in 1909), as well as short stories, poetry and two novels, True Eyes and the Whirlwind (1903) and The Snare of Strength (1905). Part of his unfinished autobiography was published posthumously as Naught to Thirty-Three (1944).

Bedford gained considerable wealth from goldmining in WA, and was a parliamentarian in Queensland from 1917 to 1941. His papers are held at John Oxley Library (Qld). Randolph Bedford wrote the words of "Australia My Beloved Land", with music by Arthur Chanter. According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Bedford 'reputedly published some of his verse under the pseudonym "Martin Luther"'.

Mary Gaunt was born and grew up in Chiltern, Victoria. She was one of the first two women admitted to the University of Melbourne, but did not complete her degree.

From the late 1880s on she had short stories and articles published in such journals as Argus, the Sydney Mail and the Australasian, which earned her enough money to pay the passage of her first trip to Europe in 1890. In 1894 she married a widower, Dr Hubert Miller, and settled in Warrnambool. Her husband's death in 1900 left her penniless, and to maintain her independence she decided to move to London in 1901 and seek her fortune as a writer. She never returned to Australia. She travelled widely in Europe, Africa, China and Jamaica, where several of her works are set, and finally settled in Italy.

Gaunt wrote numerous travel books and works of fiction. Many of her novels deal with feminist themes. Of over twenty published works, six novels and a book of short stories concern Australia, most notably her novels Kirkham's Find (1897) and Deadman's (1898). (Source: Oxford Companion to Australian Literature)

First Australian-born woman novelist. Also a noted naturalist and natural history artist.

Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson was born at Narrambla near Orange in 1864. Born into a family of graziers, Paterson developed a love for horses and the outdoors. In 1871 his family moved to the Yass district. Paterson received lessons from a governess and later attended a bush school before completing his education at Sydney Grammar School. After failing a University of Sydney Scholarship examination, Paterson trained as a solicitor and was admitted in 1886. He practised in partnership with John William Street for most of the 1890s.

Paterson's first poem was published in the Bulletin in 1885, beginning a publishing relationship that saw him become one of the most popular poets in Australia. In 1895 Angus and Robertson published Paterson's first collection, The Man from Snowy River, and Other Verses, to great acclaim. The first edition sold out in a week and further issues continued to sell steadily for months. This book contained many of Paterson's well-known poems in addition to the title poem: 'Clancy of the Overflow,' 'The Geebung Polo Club,' and 'The Man from Ironbark' were all included. In 1895, while holidaying in Winton, Queensland, Paterson wrote Australia's best-known folk song, "Waltzing Matilda". Paterson acknowledged the influence of the bush ballad on his verse. That same year he also wrote the 'book' for the operetta, Club Life - a collaboration with composer/organist, Ernest Truman.

In his travels through New South Wales and Queensland Peterson collected a number of ballads and published the collection as Old Bush Songs in 1905. While the simplicity of Paterson's poetry is acknowledged by critics, the power of his arcadian vision is indisputable. Unlike many of Paterson's contemporaries, his poetry continues to hold the interest of both scholars and the public.

Although best known as a bush poet, Paterson was also a journalist and war correspondent.  He began writing journalism in the 1890s, contributing prose pieces about his travels through the Northern Territory and other places to the Sydney Mail, the Pastoralists’ Review, the Australian Town and Country Journal, the Lone Hand and the Bulletin.

In 1899, he sailed to South Africa to cover the Boer War for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age as their war correspondent. While there, he was attached to General French’s column from where he reported on the capture of Pretoria, the relief of Kimberley and the surrender of Bloemfontein. Because of the quality of his reporting, he was appointed a correspondent on the war for Reuters.

Paterson returned to Sydney in 1900 and sailed to China the following year as a roving correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald. From 1903 till 1908, he was editor of the Sydney Evening News. When World War 1 broke out, he sailed to England hoping to cover the fighting from Flanders, but this was not to be. He returned to Australia in 1915 and was commissioned in the 2nd Remount Unit, Australian Imperial Force and served in the Middle East.

Paterson married Alice Emily in 1903. They spent much time in the country on several properties so that Paterson's two children could have the rural childhood he fondly remembered. But after World War I, the family settled permanently in Sydney. Here Paterson was a celebrated citizen and well-known racing identity. He continued to write poetry and journalism. He contributed articles to both the Sydney Mail and Smith’s Weekly before becoming editor of the Sydney Sportsman in 1922.  In 1934, his memoir of famous people he had met on his travels over the previous four decades was published as Happy Dispatches. In 1939, the year he was appointed C.B.E, he wrote reminiscences for the Sydney Morning Herald. He died two years later after a short illness.

Ada Cambridge was born at St Germans, Norfolk, England, in 1844. She was educated by a series of governesses and also read widely. In 1865 she published two small works: Hymns on the Litany and Two Surplices. A Tale. She married the young curate George Cross in 1870, and that same year the couple arrived in Victoria. Between 1870 and 1909, George Cross conducted pastoral work at Wangaratta, Yackandandah, Ballan, Coleraine, Bendigo, Beechworth and Williamstown. In 1873 Cambridge began writing to supplement her husband's meagre income. Many of her works (she published twenty-one novels) were serialised in periodicals like the Australasian and a number were also published in book form. Novels such as A Marked Man (1890) and The Three Miss Kings (1891) brought her wide recognition in Australia and England with their tales of the Anglo-Australian aristocracy. She also published three volumes of poetry: The Manor House and other Poems (1875), Unspoken Thoughts (1887) and The Hand in the Dark (1913). After George Cross resigned from Williamstown in 1909 they returned to England. But after her husband died in 1917, Cambridge returned to Victoria. She died at Elsternwick in 1926.

Ada Cambridge's reputation suffered after her death because critics, looking for evidence of 1890s nationalism, found nothing of interest in her works. However, feminist studies in the 1970s and 1980s demonstrated the radical explorations of Victorian society in Cambridge's poetry and fiction, particularly in her studies of marital love. In response to these findings, new editions of her poetry and fiction have appeared, making her work more accessible to general readers.

Frederick Sydney Wilson was a journalist and poet with the Illustrated Sydney News until the mid-1870s when he decided to join the Anglican ministry. He later became Archdeacon of Bourke, New South Wales.

Explorer Thomas Livingstone Mitchell was appointed surveyor-general of New South Wales in 1828. During the following three decades, his life combined 'surveying, exploration, and a running enmity with a succession of governors and administrative departments'.

Mitchell was the father of Thomas Livingstone Mitchell who has been attributed with the authorship of a satirical verse published in 1855.

[Source: Vincent O'Sullivan, ed. The Unsparing Scourge : Australian Satirical Texts 1845-1869, 1988.]

J. F. Archibald was born at Geelong, Victoria, and attended Catholic, National and private schools. At fourteen he began work as an apprentice printer. He later submitted articles to various newspapers, but he could not find stable work when, at eighteen, he moved to Melbourne. He worked for some time in the Victorian Education Department and later for a Queensland engineering firm, but, after spending some time in the Queensland goldfields, he returned to Sydney.

In 1880 he founded the Bulletin with John Haynes, but they lost their ownership because of mounting debts and imprisonment for libel. After their release from prison, they were retained by the new proprietor and Archibald quickly regained a share in the company and control over the newspaper's content. His experience in the goldfields had given him a sympathy for the "lone hand" of the bush. This led him to actively seek material from bush writers, providing readers an image of themselves in what became known as the "Bushman's Bible". He encouraged young writers, early recognizing the qualities of Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson, Louis Becke and others. He generously sub-edited many works and this intervention and his requirements for publication have been credited for influencing Lawson's style and the shape of the short story in the 1890s. His ideas also influenced the nationalistic and racist tone of the early publications.

Archibald became less involved as editor in the early 1900s and worked on his own projects, such as the periodical Lone Hand. In 1906, outlandish behaviour influenced his committal to an asylum for a short time. He sold his interest in the Bulletin in 1914 and, except for a period of assistance with Smith's Weekly during 1916, he had little more to do with journalism. Archibald died in 1919. In his will, he left a large portion of his estate to the Benevolent Fund of the Australian Journalists Association. He also left money for the construction of a fountain in Sydney and the establishment of an annual prize for portrait painting.

An accomplished author, artist, botanist and naturalist despite her lack of formal education, Louisa Anne Meredith was the first woman to write a description of life in Tasmania. Her first book of self-illustrated poetry, titled Poems, was published in London when she was in her early twenties. Her next volume, The Romance of Nature, or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated, was likewise published by Charles Tilt in London and appeared in 1839. In the same year, Meredith married her cousin Charles Meredith and moved first to New South Wales and then to Oyster Bay, Tasmania where she continued to write and paint. Notes and Sketches of New South Wales was published in 1844 and My Home in Tasmania in 1852.

Meredith was an active participant in the production of plays, concerts and poetry readings in Hobart. As an ardent conservationist Meredith lobbied to have an act of parliament passed to protect Tasmania's wildlife and also helped found the Tasmanian branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Her love of flora and fauna was clearly illustrated in her many and varied works. Meredith's remarkable collection of writing and painting provide a clear picture of the life of white Australian settlers spanning 50 years of the pioneer era of Tasmania.

In 1884, four years after the death of her husband, Meredith was awarded £100 per year by the British Government in recognition of her work in literature, art and science.

(Adapted from website Significant Tasmanian Women Sighted 17/1/2013 [Originally sighted (2006) at http://www.women.tas.gov.au/significantwomen/search/louisameredith.html]

Savery failed in business and was sentenced to transportation for forgery, arriving in Hobart in December 1825. His literary reputation is based primarily on his claim to the first collection of Australian essays, The Hermit in Van Diemen's Land (1829), and the first Australian novel, Quintus Servinton (1831). While these works exhibit little literary merit, they attract interest because of their unique status, their descriptions of the transportation system and their autobiographical nature. Savery was emancipated in 1832, but re-offended and was sent to Port Arthur. He died there in 1842. The Fellowship of Australian Writers, Tasmania, conducts two biennial short story competitions, one of which is the Henry Savery Short Story competition. In 1992 a commemorative tombstone was unveiled on the Isle of the Dead, Port Arthur, in honour of Savery.

Further biographical information on Savery can be found in E. Morris Miller Pressmen and Governors : Australian Editors and Writers in Early Tasmania (1952): 53-57.

Born in Victoria, Alice Henry was a journalist on the Argus, the Daily Herald, the Triad and the Australasian in the 1890's. In 1905 she went to England and the United States to lecture on women's suffrage and became secretary of the Chicago branch of the National Women's Trade Union League and the editor of Life and Labour, working closely with Miles Franklin. She returned to Australia in 1933 where she settled permanently.

Novelist, playwright, journalist, author.

OVERVIEW

One of the most successful writers in Australia during the last half of the nineteenth century and author of His Natural Life, arguably the most famous Australian novel of that period, Marcus Clarke produced a prodigious quantity of literary and journalistic writing in the fourteen years he spent in the country. His creative output involved more than twenty dramatic works (many of which were staged, and one of which was an opera), five published novels, over forty short stories (including children's stories), and three dozen or more works of prose and poetry. In addition to this, he contributed countless newspaper and magazine articles and columns and was employed as an editor for several newspapers and publishers. He also published under a variety of pseudonyms.

BIOGRAPHY

The only son of Chancery lawyer William Hislop Clarke (Marcus Clarke's mother died when he was four years old), Clarke was educated at Cholmeley School, Highgate (otherwise known as Sir Roger Cholmeley's School at Highgate). Expecting to enter the Foreign Service upon graduation, his life was turned upside down during the final year of his studies when his father suffered a breakdown, which either led to, or was the result of, financial ruin. In 1863, following his father's death, Clarke made the decision to immigrate to Australia. He was initially taken under the wing of an uncle, James Langton Clarke, a County Court Judge at Ararat (Vic), and spent the first few years in Australia engaged in a variety of occupations, including a clerk at the Bank of Australasia and a station hand. The reality of Australian agriculture made him appreciate the city life of ‘cigars and chat, champagne, chicken and all that’ (Hergenban,1972). He was far better suited to life as a journalist and author.  In 1867, he became a staff writer for the Argus, and wrote the 'The Peripatetic Philosopher’ column for that paper and its associated paper the Australasian.  The column saw Clarke's mischievous sense of humour first emerge in print. It often satirised Melbourne society, ranging over topics from witty recreations of royal visits to immersions in Melbourne’s ‘lower bohemia’ that exposed the seedier side of the city and its poverty. It brought him into direct conflict with his publishers and influential personalities on a number of occasions.

Clarke also wrote for the Herald, the [Melbourne] Daily Telegraph and the Age. He joined a literary consortium to buy the Australian Monthly Magazine, which he edited in 1868-9 renamed as The Colonial Monthly.  He published his novel 'Long Odds' in the magazine, although two instalments were contributed by his friend G A Walstab. He then began the comic weekly, Humbug, envisioned as a rival to Punch  magazine, but it too folded. It was during this period, that he became friends with a coterie of influential young writers of the time, notably playwrights Robert Percy Whitworth, Garnet Walch, and James Neild. He also met and married actress Marion Dunn in 1869.

1870-1874: Inspired by his association with the theatrical world, Clarke soon tried his hand at writing for the stage. Over a four-year period, beginning in 1868, five of his works were given a theatrical production: Foul Play (1868); the pantomime Goody Two Shoes and Little Boy Blue (1870); Peacocks Feathers (1871), adapted from Moliere; the semi-tragic drama Fernande (1871), adapted from Victorien Sardou; and the drama Plot! (1872). During the same period, Clarke continued to work as a journalist. In 1870, he was given the editorship of the Australian Journal, a position that did not last long, although he remained with the journal for some two and a half years. His stay was primarily due to the enormous success of his serialised story, and one of the great Australian novels, His Natural Life (it was given its better-known title for the 1882 reprint). The success he garnered from his first attempts at writing for the stage also gave Clarke the opportunity to write for Harry Rickards in 1872. The English variety performer/entrepreneur was then touring his first company through Australia. Clarke's contributions included the sketches 'Perfection' and 'Strolling on the Sands.' In 1875, he adapted John Strachan's pantomime Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star for George Coppin, Richard Stewart, Henry R. Harwood, and John Hennings, the lessees of the Theatre Royal, Melbourne. For the next five years, however, Clarke's theatrical output lapsed. This was to a large extent the result of his employment with the Melbourne Public Library, which had rigid rules of behaviour for its servants, including the earning of outside income. Clarke began at the Library in 1870 as Secretary to the Board of Trustees and in 1873 was appointed Sub-Librarian. He did continue to write, but was unable to contribute regular columns such as the 'Peripatetic Philosopher', and was also required to steer clear of overt political commentary, at least under his own name. It would appear, too, that his hectic lifestyle, not the least being sheer overwork, led to bouts of anxiety and other related health problems in the mid-1870s. The additional burden of debt also contributed to his poor well-being. Matters reached a head in 1874, when he was forced into insolvency.

1875-1881: A collaborative effort with Robert Percy Whitworth, an adaptation of the French comedy Reverses, was written in 1876 but not staged until 1879. Indeed, it was not until 1878 that Clarke had his next theatrical work staged, the musical burlesque extravaganza Alfred the Great. His non-music theatre works from this period onwards include The Moonstone, a romantic drama adapted from the Wilkie Collins novel, and the comedy Baby's Luck, co-written with actor John L. Hall. It has been speculated that Clarke's return to writing during the late 1870s may well have been the result of financial need. This situation did not improve for him, as he was again forced into bankruptcy in 1881. The motivation to write was still there, however. In the two years before his death in 1881 from erysipelas, Clarke produced some of his best work, particularly in respect of his dramatic writing.

Perhaps the most significant of his later productions was the libretto for a satirical operetta called The Happy Land (1880). Banned from performance in Victoria due to its controversial subject matter (much of it being aimed at the government of the day), the work stirred up much debate and returned Clarke once again to the position of public agitator. Following The Happy Land, Clarke had better box-office success with the comedies A Daughter of Eve and Forbidden Fruit, both of which were staged in Melbourne in 1880. These last two works also starred his wife Marion, who had returned to the stage for the first time since 1868. On his death, Clarke also left an unfinished comic opera libretto titled Queen Venus. A completed version, with music composed by visiting French composer Henri Kowalski (q.v.), was given its Australian debut as Moustique in 1889. (Kowalski had presented it in Brussels six years earlier).

Four years after his death, Clarke's most famous novel was transferred to the stage for the first time. More than a dozen different versions are known to have been staged between 1885 and 1913, including productions by Alfred Dampier, Thomas Somers, George Leitch, Dan Barry, and Edmund Duggan.

British popular novelist and war correspondent David Murray came to Australia in 1889 to give a series of lectures in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. After a time in New Zealand he returned to Australia with Harry St Maur's theatrical company. He was involved in the Australian production of Jim the Penman (a popular drama of the time) and a comedy of his own, Chums.

As far as is known, only the works listed in AustLit have Australian settings, although Joseph's Coat (1881) and A Rogue's Conscience (1897) have several Australian references. Several of Murray's novels without Australian themes or settings were serialised in Australian newspapers and periodicals.

Murray's three articles on 'The Antipodes', The Contemporary Review (1891), were criticised for statistical innaccuracies and their concern with anti-British sentiment in Australian culture.

(Source: Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, 2nd ed., 1994)

Alexander Sutherland's family emigrated to Sydney because of his father's health, then moved to Melbourne in 1870 when Sutherland was already showing academic promise. He attained his Master of Arts in 1874 and taught at various schools, rising to headmaster before retiring in 1892. Forced to return to work during the 1890s depression, he worked as a journalist for the Australasian and the Argus.

With his brother George Sutherland (q.v.), Sutherland wrote The History of Australia from 1606 to 1876 (1877). This was followed by A New Geography for Australian Pupils (1884). Other school texts demonstrated his wide subject knowledge: Elementary Geography of the British Colonies with George Dawson (1892); Geography of Victoria (1893); A Manual of Commercial Instruction (1893); and Class Book of Geography (1894). He edited The Praise of Poetry in English Literature (1901), the matriculation English pass-work required for University of Melbourne entry. His University of Melbourne Extension Lectures on Australian History were published after his death in 1902.

Sutherland addressed the Royal Society of Melbourne on topics as diverse as gravity and molecular energy (1877), consonants and the use of phonographs (1878), calculation of land values (1879), and he also wrote Sanitary Tracts for the Australian Health Society. Sutherland ventured into political topics with To the Electors of Williamstown [1897], and courted critics and controversy with historical pamphlets [ca.1898], positing the discovery of Australia by the Portuguese/Spanish explorer De Quiros.

Sutherland's travel writings - A Summer in Prairie-Land (published in Toronto in 1881), and Trip to the Black Spur (near Healesville, Victoria) [188-], presaged the multi-volume Victoria and Its Metropolis: Past and Present (1888), reprinted in 1977, and electronically archived in 2006. Sutherland also wrote The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct (1898), a two-volume work in which he acknowledged the contrast between original dreams and the tame reality of the completed production.

Sutherland's poetry, though typical of the time, was still being used in the 1940s when one poem was put to music by Louis Lavater (q.v.). Sutherland edited poetry collections and wrote short stories and critical works in journals such as Once a Month and Melbourne Review (a journal he also edited).

Sutherland had an eventful life, during which he: served as honorary secretary to the Royal Society of Melbourne; gave public lectures at the Mechanics Institute; stood unsuccessfully for the Victorian Legislative Assembly; and was the registrar of the University of Melbourne whilst lecturing in English. Brother of authors George and William Sutherland, and noted landscape artist Jane Sutherland (qq.v.).

While very little is known about John Stanley James (known throughout his career by the pseudonym 'The Vagabond'), Eric Irvin describes him as 'one of the most prolific and historically interesting of our early writers,' and a man 'completely involved with the social and political history of Australia and the Pacific, and with the major literary and political figures of his day' ('"The Vagabond" as Playwright,' p.120). Indeed, such was his reputation that Garnet Walch wrote his 1876 pantomime, Hey Diddle-diddle the Cat and the Fiddle, around the mysterious journalist, creating a main character called Vagabond, and about whose identity the gods and fairies were eager to know.

What is known about James is that he wrote for many different newspapers and periodicals during his career, including the Argus and Sydney Morning Herald. Among his most important publications were a series of articles and a book (Occident and Orient, 1882) which he wrote as a result of travelling to Japan. Other works of repute included 'The Waif's and Strays of Sydney' (1878), 'The Chinese Question in Queensland,' (1877) and 'Impressions of Cooktown,' (1877). James (again as Vagabond) also wrote at least two dramas - The Nihilists in Melbourne (1882) and No Mercy (1881), both of which were produced by Alfred Dampier.

For works not individually indexed on AustLit, see Notes below.

Richard Rowe, journalist and children's writer, visited Australia (1853-1858). His father, a Wesleyan minister, died when he was young, and the family moved to Colchester, England where Rowe attended school and received a classical education. Rowe remained an usher at the school which had moved to Bath, until, at the age of twenty-five, he emigrated to New South Wales. By 1856 Rowe was working as a journalist on the Sydney Morning Herald, and he became associated with the circle of the literary patron N. D. Stenhouse. He was also involved with The Month, the colony's first dedicated literary journal, in which his serial novel, Arthur Owen : an autobiography (1858-59) appeared.

One of Rowe's articles for the Sydney Morning Herald, entitled 'Confessions of a Drunkard', was an autobiographical account of the alcoholic excesses which blighted his health and soured his experiences in the colony. It was written at Stenhouse's home in September 1856 after Rowe had been released from prison on bail. Once recovered from his drinking bout, Rowe went to Muswellbrook as a language tutor in the home of John H. Keys. This is where he met Frank Fowler (q.v.), a young English journalist who attempted to stimulate the colony's literary life with a series of public lectures, establishment of the Literary Association of New South Wales and the launching of The Monthly. Unfortunately Rowe was caught in the cross fire of a public attack on Fowler by Charles Harpur (q.v.) which ended with a cruel and anonymous poem by Harpur being published by Henry Parkes (q.v.) in the Empire. It referred to Rowe in this vein:

Yet not to him the noble task assign,- Not he stern Satire's dignity should ape,- Who, having tasted, "lost his upright shape, And downward fell into a grovelling swine".' (64).

Dispirited, Rowe was desirous of returning to England, writing 'I daily get sicker of this loathsome land... Exposure to rough weather hardens the softest skin, and I have had my share of squalls in New South Wales.' (64). With the help of his friend and patron Stenhouse, Rowe collected the best of his writing and managed to get it published by J. R. Clarke (publisher of The Month) as Peter 'Possum's Portfolio (1858). This publication helped Rowe pay for his passage back to England. Rowe left Sydney for London on the 16 June 1858 with letters of introduction to Stenhouse's literary friends in Edinburgh. He ultimately returned to London where he died in straitened circumstances at his home in Upper Holloway from the effects of an operation related to a cancer of the tongue in 1879.

Rowe was a frequent contributor to the English magazines, Leisure Hour, The Sunday at Home, Cassell's Family Magazine and Chamber's Journal. He also wrote Episodes in an Obscure Life (1871); Friends and Acquaintances (1871), Backward Glances (1874), Picked Up in the Streets, or Struggles for Life Amongst the London Poor (1880), Passages from the Diary of an Early Methodist (1880) and How Our Working People Live (1882). Other works of fiction included Jack Afloat and Ashore (1875) and A Haven of Rest, and Dr. Pertwee's Poor Patients (1878).

E. Morris Miller and Frederick T. Macartney's Australian Literature: A Bibliography to 1938: Extended to 1950 (1956): 413 comments: 'His fiction consists chiefly of stories of adventure and school life, written for boys and girls, included in the above list as a matter of historical interest.'

(Source: Ann-Mari Jordens The Stenhouse Circle: Literary Life in Mid-Nineteenth Century Sydney (1979): 51-69. 'Obituary', The Times, (15 December 1879): 11)).

Joseph Dalgarno Melvin was born in Banff, Scotland. He began his journalistic career working on the Forfar Advertiser and later on the Perth Advertiser. He migrated to Australia in 1875 and worked initially at the Age.

Melvin was one of those present at the siege of Glenrowan and was the first journalist to file a report on the capture of Ned Kelly. The report was published in the Argus. In 1885, Melvin accompanied the Australian contingent to the Sudan. Although he was not an official war correspondent, he managed to board a ship, conceal his presence, and reach Egypt. He then took up his duties as a correspondent for the Melbourne Daily Telegraph.

Sources: Argus, (28 June 1909): 8; Free-Lance, 1. 17 (15 August 1896): 3

John Morgan was appointed store-keeper for the Swan River colony in Western Australia in 1828 and arrived on the Parmelia in 1829. While living in the colony he corresponded with the under-secretary at the British Colonial Office, Robert William Hay (1786-1861), describing the colony's progress. Hay's influence lead to Morgan being appointed police magistrate at Richmond, Van Diemen's Land, and he left the Swan River colony arriving in Richmond in 1834. Debts from his time at Swan River lead Morgan to abandon hope of obtaining official posts in the colonies and he turned to farming and then journalism.

John Morgan's career in the Australian colonial press is described by Michael Roe in Roe's entry for Morgan in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. 'He was foundation editor of the Hobart Town Advertiser (1839), worked briefly on the Tasmanian, [and] then began the Tasmanian Weekly Dispatch (1839-41). Meanwhile he had become secretary of the Hobart Mechanics' Institute, and of the Licensed Victuallers' Society, in whose interest he edited the Morning Advertiser [and Colonial Maritime Journal] (1841) and issued two directories (1840, 1847). ... In 1846-51 he edited the Britannia and Trades' Advocate and for the next two years was secretary of the Hobart School of Arts.'

Source: Michael Roe, 'Morgan, John (1792-1866)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/morgan-john-2479/text3331, accessed 21 January 2013.

Francis Thomas Dean Carrington (1843-1918) was born in London, where he undertook medical studies before spending a brief time in Paris and then moving to Melbourne in the 1860s to pursue a career. He began his life in Australia as a digger on Woods' Point and at Miners' Rest before switching to painting and writing. He was a cartoonist for Melbourne Punch, and a cartoonist and writer for the Australasian Sketcher. His political cartoons were published across several newspapers and magazines, such as the Australian Journal, the Melbourne Punch, the Touchstone, and the Australasian. He also illustrated several books including Long Odds by Marcus Clarke and Punchialities from Punch. His final cartoon, ‘The Last of the Session’, appeared in Punch on 15 December 1887.

With the rise in the use of photography, Carrington turned to writing and was a regular contributor to the Argus under the pseudonym 'Leonardo' and to the Australasian as 'Ixion.' He is also credited with being mainly responsible for the Cup gossip 'Under the Elms', which was started by the late E. S. Chapman.

In June 1880, alongside journalists George Allen (Melbourne Daily Telegraph), John McWhirter (Age), and JD Melvin (Argus), Carrington joined the special train accompanying the police to Glenrowan, to cover the last siege of Ned Kelly. His article ‘Catching the Kellys: a personal narrative of one who went in the special train’ was published in The Australasian on Saturday 3 July, 1880. Written in the first person, it evocatively describes the siege and capture of Kelly at Glenrowan. It was republished across several newspapers, including the Argus and the West Australian.

Carrington’s illustrations of the siege and its aftermath for the Australasian Sketcher are among his most famous drawings. Together, his words and images underpin the way Ned Kelly is remembered in Australian history and cultural mythology. In 2003, Ian Jones edited the mini-book, Ned Kelly The Last Stand, Written and Illustrated by an Eye Witness, which republished the Glenrowan account by Carrington within a personal and historical context.

Carrington was a member of the Melbourne Bohemian circle that included such men as Adam Lindsay Gordon, Marcus Clarke, Henry Kendall, William Jardine Smith and others. A writer in the journal Free-Lance commented that 'of all the men in Melbourne, Tom Carrington is perhaps the only one who could write a book on the lives and times of the men who hold a big place in Australian literature to-day' (11 June 1896, p. 3).