See also: The literary works of Henry Lawson (external site)
HENRY LAWSON’S EARLY DAYS.
Father built a two-roomed slab-and-bark hut over the flat on the other side of the gully—and on the other side of the world, as it was then; and grandfather came with a load of stringy-bark slabs and stringy-bark poles, for a kitchen. And granny and the rest were going to Mudgee (about five miles away) or to some other place away out in the world. The dining-room had a good pine floor, and there were two dogs, and a church with a double tower, and a sentry on the mantel-shelf, and the sofa tick had a holland cover—l remember this because we weren’t allowed to get on it. About this time I was put into knickerbockers, and “’come a man.”
But we didn’t seem to live in the new house any time before a tremendous thing happened. We were in a cart with bedding and a goat, and a cat in a basket, and fowls in a box, and there were great trees all along, and teams with loads of bark and rafters, and tables upside down with bedding and things between the legs, and baskets and pots hanging round, and gold-cradles, gold-dishes, windlass, bales and picks and shovels; and there were more drays and carts, and children and women, and goats—some tied behind the carts —and men on horses and men walking. All the world was shifting as fast as ever it could.
Gulgong, the last of the great alluvial or “poor man’s rushes,” had broken out. And it seemed no time, but it must have been months, and may have been a year or so, before a still greater thing than ever happened. Father’s party had bottomed on payable gold, and we went with mother and some aunts to Sydney. I remember little of the coach journey down, except that I felt smothered and squeezed once or twice, and it was jolly. We went to sleep on chairs in the waiting-room at the railway-station, and when I woke up somebody said it was Sydney, and there was a lot of smoke, and it was raining. I remembered little of Sydney, except that we stayed at a place in Castlereagh Street. We must have picnicked at Manly Beach or somewhere, for we had a picture at home of a Newfoundland dog with the sea behind him, and that picture meant Sydney to me for a long time afterwards.
Louisa Lawson, (mother of Henry Lawson), her son Charles William (born 25 June 1869)
and her sister Phoebe Albury, (dressmaker), outside Miss. Albury's dressmaking shop, Gulgong area
and her sister Phoebe Albury, (dressmaker), outside Miss. Albury's dressmaking shop, Gulgong area
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Louisa Lawson and Phoebe Albury
I remember even less of the journey home than I did of the journey down. There was an inn where we stayed for a night, so we must have taken the coach journey by van, and not by Cobb and Co’s.
Then the hut on Gulgong. Father was always working, or going somewhere with an axe or a pick and shovel on his shoulders, and coming home late. I remember watching for the glint of his white moles in the dusk, and sometimes following him out again after tea, when it was moonlight, and he went a little way with the axe on his shoulder to split firewood from a log. He worked in a claim in the Happy Valley, and again on the Canadian Lead.
Louisa Lawson and her son Charles William in front of their bark hut, Gulgong area, 1870
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One day mother and father packed up all the things, and next morning we were called early; there was a dray at the door and we heard a great scraping overhead. Suddenly we saw the sky, and next moment we were nearly blinded by a shower of pungent stringy-bark dust. Father was taking off the roof of the hut — for we carried the house with us in those days.
We were back at Pipeclay again. There was someone living in the new house on the flat, so we camped for a night or so with the Spencers. We’d brought the lining of the Gulgong hut with us — “scrim,” or bagging, with the newspapers still pasted on it, and our table stood outside, where the dray had dumped it with the rest of the load; so we children pulled a big piece of the lining over the table and let it hang down all round, to make a cubby house, and we all got under — Spencer had a big family and it was a tight squeeze. And we compared notes and got chummy, and told stories. They were the first playmates we had, and we theirs, and we were chums until we were scattered.
Father and a few others petitioned for a provisional school at Pipeclay. It was Eurunderee now; the aboriginal name had been restored. Father built the school; it was of bark. It was furnished with odds and ends thrown out of the public school in Mudgee, when the public school got new desks, stools, and other things. Father made blackboards and easels, and mended the rickety furniture.
A selector, an Irishman, named John Tierney, was appointed schoolmaster. He was six feet and more, and very gaunt.
One day in the first week at the bark school was a great day in my life, for I was given a copy-book and pen and ink for the first time.
Mother got a copy of “Robinson Crusoe,” and used to read to us in the evenings, and when she’d get tired and leave off at a thrilling place, we’d get the book, and try to spell our way ahead. By the time “Robinson Crusoe” was finished, we could go back and read the book through from beginning to end.
The master explained that the world was round. I thought it must have something to rest on, but I was willing to let that stand over for a while, and wanted the hill question cleared up. The master got an india-rubber ball, and stuck a pin in it up to the head, and told us that the highest mountain in the world would not have the ten thousandth effect on the roundness of the earth that the head of that pin would on the roundness of the ball. That seemed satisfactory. He it was, I think, who tied a string to the neck of a stone ink-bottle, and swung it round, to illustrate the power of gravitation and the course of the earth round the sun. And the string broke, and the bottle went through a window-pane.
A favourite fad of the master’s was that the school, being built of old material, and standing on an exposed sidling, might be blown down at any moment, and he trained the children to dive under the desks at a given signal, so that they might have a chance of escaping the falling beams and rafters when the crash came. Most of us, I believe, were privately resolved to dive for the door at the first crack.
Amongst the scholars was a black goanna. He lived in a dead hollow tree near the school, and was under the master’s immediate protection. On summer days he’d stretch along a beam over the girls’ seats, and improve his mind a little, and doze a lot. The drone of the school seemed good for his nerves. Sometimes, when the master’s back was turned for a minute or so, one of the boys would cry suddenly, “Girls, the goanna’s failin’!” And then you’d hear the girls squawk.
Source: HENRY LAWSON, From “A Selection from the Prose Works of Henry Lawson,” edited by George Mackaness. Abridged. In The school magazine of literature for our boys and girls Vol. 27 No. 5 Part 3 Class 5 (June 3, 1942)
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Louisa Lawson Memorial, Rookwood Cemetery
Source: Julie Rusten
Source: Julie Rusten
Louisa Lawson Memorial, Rookwood Cemetery
Source: Julie Rusten
Read more about Louisa Lawson:Source: Julie Rusten
THE LATE HENRY LAWSON. IMPRESSIVE FUNERAL IN SYDNEY.
SYDNEY, September 4.
The funeral of the late Mr. Henry Lawson this afternoon was a wonderful tribute to the memory of the poet. A continuous procession of persons of all ranks viewed the body at the mortuary in the morning, and later at the Cathedral, where every seat was occupied long before the service commenced. The Lieutenant-Governor (Sir William Irvine) sat in one of the front pews, and near him were the Prime Minister (Mr. Hughes ) and Ministers of both the Federal and State Governments. The chief mourners and relatives present included Mrs. Henry Lawson (widow), Miss Bertha Lawson and Mr. James Lawson (children), Mrs. G. O'Connor (sister), and Mr. Peter Lawson and Mr. Charles Lawson (brothers). There was a large attendance of the late poet's friends and literary colleagues, and representatives of the newspapers, at the Cathedral and at the graveside. After the playing of Chopin's "Funeral March," "Rock of Ages" was sung by the choir.
The cortege was headed by mounted police and a band. Crowds of persons lined the route almost all the way to Waverley Cemetery, and hundreds had assembled at the grave awaiting the cortege. At the cemetery Archdeacon Darcy Irvine read the burial service.
Miss Bertha Lawson, daughter of the late poet, said to-night: "On behalf of us all I desire to express our sincerest thanks and deepest gratitude to the Federal and State Governments and to all the people of Australia for their magnificent tribute to my father's memory. There could be no higher reward for his life's work than that the love of the Nation should follow him to rest."
As a mark of respect to the late Mr. Henry Lawson, the flag at the Toowoomba Town Hall was flown at half-mast yesterday.
The death of Mr. Walter Hegarty, who had long resided at Manly (Sydney), occurred yesterday in Sydney. The death of his old friend Mr. Henry Lawson affected him so deeply that he was seized with a paralytic stroke. Mr. Hegarty was a graceful writer, and some of his earlier verses published in the "Bulletin" are still popular as recitations. He was 55 years of age.
MISS BERTHA LAWSON, daughter of Henry Lawson, Australia's national poet, reads the inscriptions on wreaths commemorating the anniversary of his death.
Miss Bertha Lawson and Mrs Lawson, daughter and widow, were among the gathering that visited the poet's grave yesterday.
The statue that was made in England, and cost over £10,000 and recently unveiled to the memory of the Australian poet, Henry Lawson, was presented to New South Wales by the late J. F. Archibald, for many years connected with the Sydney ''Bulletin" and a friend and admirer for years of Australia's premier verse writer. Here is what Mr. O. J. Doyle, a Sydney journalist, says in the last issue of 'The Printer': —
"The unveiling of the Henry Lawson statue in the outer Domain took place in a scene of sylvan grandeur so beloved by the poet himself. It is the hope of all Australians that this most enduring memorial will rest in the hearts and minds of its people, in a knowledge and love of his work in prose and verse. Lawson was truly the people's poet, and especially the poet of the working class. Their friends were his friends, and their God was his God. Hence he became the stager of their battle hymns."
The writer, who was connected with newspapers in the early days of Mudgee. remembers Lawson as a boy. His mother, Mrs. Louisa Lawson, who lived at Eurunderee, was a contributor to the local newspaper, and on many occasions brought into the Editor (the late Mr. T. F. De Courcey Browne was then Editor of the Mudgee 'Independent') verses of poetry on different subjects, and stated that they were composed by her son Henry, who was then a small boy going to school.
They were so brilliantly written that Mr. Browne was sceptical as to the authorship, and was under the impression that they were extracts from other journals and altered. Of course, they were published from time to time, and were eagerly sought after by many enthusiastic readers. As Henry Lawson grew into manhood he was a regular contributor to that journal. His mother was also a good journalist, and successfully conducted a woman's paper in Sydney for many years. Lawson was a native of Grenfell, his parents going there in the days of the Weddin Mountains gold rush (near Grenfell) in the late sixties, and when Gulgong broke out, attracting thousands from all parts, a rush set in from the southern gold fields, and the Lawson family came over among the many. Thus, by a great number, Henry Lawson is claimed as a Mudgee native. He was very young when he came here, and lived all his life at Eurunderee, the locality of which he loved, and two of his writings in verse are entitled 'Eurunderee' and 'Mount Buccaroo,' a few miles from Eurunderee.
Mrs. Lawson's husband was a contractor, and among the buildings he erected in Mudgee was an office which printed a paper called the 'Mudgee Times,' in Church Street, on the land where Loneragan's warehouse now stands.
Mrs. Lawson's parents were old residents of Pipeclay, and afterwards resided in Mortimer street, near Loneragan's wool store, and named Albury.
They had a large family, among them being many daughters. The late Mr. Richard Stear, who married one daughter, owned the Times Bakery (now Mr. J. Spears) in Gulgong for years. Mr. Stear was Mayor of Gulgong, and took a leading part in all public movements.
