Banjo Paterson

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Bannon "Banjo" Paterson, (17 February 1864 – 5 February 1941) was an Australian bush poet, journalist, and author.

He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, emphasizing on the rural and outback areas, including Binalong, New South Wales, where he spent a large portion of his childhood.

"Clancy of the Overflow" (1889), "The Man from Snowy River" (1890), and "Waltzing Matilda" (1895), two of Paterson's most popular unofficial national anthems.

Early life

Andrew Barton Paterson was born on the island of Orange, New South Wales, and Rose Isabella Barton, a Scottish immigrant from Lanarkshire and the future first Prime Minister of Australia Edmund Barton. Paterson's family lived on the tiny Buckinbah Station near Yeoval NSW until he was five years old when his father lost his wool clip in a flood and was forced to sell up. When Paterson's uncle John Paterson died, his family took over John Paterson's farm in Illalong, near Yass, which is close to the main route between Melbourne and Sydney. To him, Bullock squads, Cobb and Co coaches, and drovers were all familiar. He saw horsemen from the Murrumbidgee River and Snowy Mountains compete in picnic races and polo matches, which aided in his love of horses and inspired his writings.

Paterson's early education came from a governess, but he was taught at Binalong's bush school. Paterson was sent to Sydney Grammar School in 1874, and he did fine both as a student and as a sportsman. During this period, he lived in a cottage named Rockend in the suburb of Gladesville, Queensland. The cottage is now on the Register of the National Estate and New South Wales State Heritage Register. After failing an examination for a scholarship to the University of Sydney, he left the prestigious school at 16 years old.

Later life

As he returned to Australia, Saltbush Bill JP's third collection of poetry was published, and he continued to publish verse, short stories, and essays while continuing to write for the weekly Truth. In the 1920s, Paterson wrote an essay on rugby league football for the Sydney Sportsman.

Personal life

Alice Emily Walker, of Tenterfield Station, married Alice Emily Walker, of St Stephen's Presbyterian Church in Tenterfield, New South Wales, on April 8th, 1903. They first home was in Woollahra's Queen Street. Grace (born in 1904) and Hugh (born in 1906) had two children.

Paterson had been engaged to Sarah Riley for eight years, but she was forced to leave in 1895 after a visit to Dagworth Station in Queensland, where she was visiting the Macpherson family. Paterson met Christina Macpherson, his fiancée's closest friend from school, who wrote the lyrics of the popular Waltzing Matilda. However, Paterson was immediately requested to leave the premises, leading historians to claim that he was a womanizer and had been involved in a scandalous romantic affair with Macpherson.

Paterson died in Sydney on February 5, 1941, at the age of 76. Paterson's grave, as well as that of his wife, is on display in the Northern Suburbs Memorial Gardens and Crematorium in Sydney.

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Career

Paterson, a law clerk with Herbert Salwey's Sydney-based company, was admitted as a solicitor in 1886. He began writing in the years he worked as a solicitor. He began submitting and getting poetry published in The Bulletin, a literary journal with a nationalist emphasis in 1885. His earliest work was a poem critizing the British war in the Sudan, which also included Australian participation. Paterson's work, which appeared under the pseudonym "The Banjo," the name of his favourite horse, appeared in the journal over the next decade. He formed friendships with other important writers in Australian literature, such as E.J. Brady, Harry "Breaker" Morant, Will H. Ogilvie, and Henry Lawson are among those who have read the Brady, Harry "Breaker" Morant's biography. Paterson, in particular, became involved in a friendly rivalry with Lawson over the allure of bush life.

During the Second Boer War, Paterson was a war correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, sailing for South Africa in October 1899. Winston Churchill and Rudyard Kipling, as well as British army chiefs Kitchener, Roberts, and Haig all arrived.

Kimberley's illuminating accounts of his release, surrender of Bloemfontein (the first journalist to fly in), and the capture of Pretoria attracted the interest of the British press. In Paterson's papers at the National Library of Australia in 2020, an unopened box of chocolates made by Cadburys for Queen Victoria as a 1900 New Year's gift to troops serving in South Africa. He served as a reporter during the Boxer Rebellion, where he first interviewed George "Chinese" Morrison and later wrote about his meeting. He was editor of the Sydney Evening News (1904–06) and of the Town and Country Journal (1907–08).

After a trip to the United Kingdom in 1908, he decided to abandon journalism and writing and relocate with his family to a 16,000-acre (40,000-acre) farm near Yass.

Paterson did not qualify as a reporter covering the war in Flanders, but he did become an ambulance pilot for the Australian Voluntary Hospital in Wimereux, France. He returned to Australia early in 1915 and, as an honourary vet, travelled on three voyages with horses to Africa, China, and Egypt. He was first commissioned in the 2nd Remount Unit, Australian Imperial Force, on October 18, 1915, and later as the unit's commanding officer and reporting missing in July 1916 and Egypt's Cairo, Egypt. He was repatriated to Australia and discharged from the army in April 1919 after being promoted to the rank of major. His wife had joined the Red Cross and spent time in an ambulance unit near her husband.

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