History of Henry Lawson
History of Henry Lawson
Henry Lawson was born on the Grenfell goldfields in 1867. His parents were Peter Larsen, a Norwegian carpenter and Louisa a strong supporter of women's rights. Lawson had four siblings - Charles, Peter, Getrude and Henrietta (who died from an illness, in 1879).
The place of Henry's birth was marked in 1924 by an obelisk which now stands under a large gum tree planted by his daughter Berth Jago in Grenfell NSW.
Henry went to school at Eurunderee and Mudgee and after an ear infection at age nine, he was to become totally deaf by fourteen. He had a very difficult childhood as the family were very poor. After leaving school early, Lawson helped his father on building projects. His first job was as an apprentice railway coach painter in 1887. His parents separated in 1883 and Lawson moved to Sydney with his mother.
In 1887, Louisa bought a newspaper called the Republican and it was here that Lawson's first writing was published. That same year, the Bulletin published Lawson's first poem and in 1888, published his first short story, "His Father's Mate". On New Year's Eve, 1888, Lawson's father died.
In early 1890, Lawson travelled to Albany, WA where he wrote for the Albany Observer but returned east in September, and then travelled to Brisbane where he accepted a position on the Brisbane newspaper, the Boomerang, in 1891. Between 1888 and 1892, Lawson published many of his most famous poems like "Andy's Gone with Cattle", "The Roaring Days" and 'The Drover's Wife". In 1892, Lawson walked from Bourke to Hungerford and back. During this time he became very conscious of the hardships of bush life. Lawson also worked as a shearer in both Australia and New Zealand until he was offered a writers position with ?The Worker', in Sydney.
In 1894 his first collection was published and Lawson met Bertha Bredt who became his wife in 1896. Bertha Bredt was the step daughter of Sydney bookseller and radical, W.H. McNamara as well as the sister-in-law of the politician Jack Lang. Lawson and Bertha had two children, Jim, born 10 February, 1898 and Bertha in 1899. Lawson and Bertha worked as school teachers at a Maori school at Mangamaunu near Kaikoura, in the South Island of New Zealand after their marriage. Lawson, always a heavy drinker, had struggled with alcoholism since 1888 but was not troubled by it during his stay in New Zealand despite the solitude. After his return from New Zealand in 1898 however, his alcoholism recurred. Lawson published two more prose collections but was becoming more disenchanted with Australia and in 1900, the family travelled to England, helped financially by Earl Beauchamp, the Governor of NSW, David Scott Mitchell and the publisher, George Robertson.
They rented a house at Harpeden, 40 km north of London. Lawson continued to write some of his best work in England but by 1902 decided to return to Australia because of financial problems and illness. After his return from England on 21 May, 1902, Lawson and his wife separated and Lawson became increasingly unstable. Bertha and the two children moved into her mother's place. His mother Louisa suffered mental illness after her publication "Dawn", a woman's magazine with a strong suffragette bias, finally closed in 1905. She died in the Gladesville Hospital for the Insane on 12 August, 1920.
Between 1905 and 1910, Lawson was regularly in prison for non-payment of maintenance and inebriation. He was also in mental and rehabilitation sanatoriums and gradually progressed into a pathetic, dissolute alcoholic, wandering the Sydney streets, begging for money for alcohol. He even tried to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff but survived despite serious injuries. His friends, J. Le Gay Brereton, E.J. Brady and George Robertson, came to his rescue and helped him financially. Mrs Isabel Byers, who was twenty years older than Lawson, befriended him and provided shelter and food for him from 1904 onwards.
In 1916, his friends found him a position at Leeton, providing data for the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. Lawson continued to produce his works during the First World War and was well received. On 14 July, 1921, Lawson had a stroke but continued to write about his travels to London. Between 1920 and 1922, the government provided a pension for him.
On September 2, 1922, at age 55, Lawson finally died peacefully in his sleep and was given a state funeral on 4 September, the first writer to be given one.
Henry Lawson remains one of Australia's most famous writers. During his life, Lawson lived and wrote in widely different environments and had known life as a bush worker, house painter, telegraph linesman, journalist and rouseabout. Much of what he saw and experienced went into his short stories but his deepest feelings are revealed in his verse. Even in his earliest life, he was haunted by the impermanence of life and his poetry was often criticised as being too melancholy. Lawson did not shrink from reminding people that they must face and endure their lives, although Lawson himself never lost hope.
Some of Lawson's works : The Wreck of the 'Derry Castle' (Bulletin. 24 Dec, 1887) Golden Gully (Bulletin. 24 Dec, 1887) The Watch on the Kerb (Bulletin, 19 April, 1888) Andy's Gone with Cattle (Town & Country Journal, 13 Oct, 1888) Andy's Return (Town and Country Journal, 24 Nov, 1888) The Roaring Days (Bulletin, 21 Dec, 1889) The Great Grey Plain (Brisbane Worker, 7 Oct, 1893 The Lights of Cobb and Co (Bulletin, 11 Dec, 1897) Verses Popular and Humorous (1900) Joe Wilson and His Mates (1901) The Country I Come From (1901) The Men who made Australia (1901) Children of the Bush (1902) When I was King(1905) The Elder Son (1905) Send Round the Hat (1907) The Romance of the Swag (1907) Popular Verses (1908) The Rising of the Court(1910) The Skyline Riders And Other Verses (1910) A Coronation Ode and Retrospect (1911) Mateship (1911) The Strangers' Friend (1911) For Australia: And Other Poems (1913) Triangles of Life: And Other Stories (1913) My Army, O, My Army (1915) Song of the Dardanelles: And Other Verses (1916) Violet Verses (1917) The ballad of the drover and other verses (1918) Selected poems of Henry Lawson (1918) The World of the Living Dead (1919) The Low Lighthouse (Bulletin, 17 Nov, 1921)
The most prominent poem about Grenfell is ?Said Grenfell to My Spirit' written in 1911
Said Grenfell to my spirit,
"You've been writing very free
Of the charms of other places, and you don't remember me.
You have claimed another native place and think it's Nature's law,
Since you never paid a visit to a town you never saw:
So you sing of Mudgee Mountains, willowed stream and grassy flat:
But I put a charm upon you and you won't get over that."O said Grenfell to my spirit, "Though you write of breezy peaks,
Golden Gullies, wattle sidings, and the pools in she-oak creeks,
Of the place your kin were born in and the childhood that you knew,
And your father's distant Norway (though it has some claim on you),
Though you sing of dear old Mudgee and the home on Pipeclay Flat,
You were born on Grenfell goldfield ? and you can't get over that."
This information has been sourced from the website, www.powerup.com.au/~rdale/lawson.htm
Contact details
Weddin Shire Council
02 6343 1403 (ph)
02 6343 1421 (fax)
Grenfelltourism@tpg.com.au
