Survey of Songs and Poetry from Australian Newspapers 1890–1893

Authors

  • Mark Gregory University of Wollongong

Keywords:

Australian Folk Songs, TROVE, newspapers, workers, Lawson, Patterson,

Abstract

Sixty years ago the Canberra Times reported a Literary Fund lecture, delivered by then PhD student Russel Ward, surveying bush songs:–
Australia's founding fathers were an integral part of an old and very stable Society, and they tended to take for granted the basic assumptions on which that society rested. Mr. Ward said this spirit quickly changed in Australia. Respect for the squire, based on traditional obligations, which were at least to some extent mutual, was not transformed into respect for a commercial slave-master whose wealth was often ill-gotten and always recently acquired.
The first folk-songs composed in Australia reflected quite different feeling… Honest men, it was felt, should defy authority, rather than submit to it … Long before the gold rushes, folk-lore came to regard the bush-worker, ex-convict or free as the 'typical Australian', truculently independent towards his employer; in proportion as he was dependent upon the collective strength of 'mateship'. The folk-hero was the 'wild colonial boy' who robbed squatters and judges, fought policemen; and forever galloped over the plains with his fellow bushmen, he said.

Author Biography

Mark Gregory, University of Wollongong

University of Wollongong Post Graduate Research Associate Mark Gregory has been collecting and commenting on Australian folk song for half a century. He has curated several online collections of his research material. His MA (Research) in Music ‘Sixty Years of Australian Union Songs’ focused on the long relationship between the Australian Labour Movement and the Australian Folk Song Revival. For his doctoral thesis in History ‘Australian Working Songs and Poems – A Rebel Heritage’, he collected and analysed 150 poems/songs drawn from 74 Australian newspapers and journals dating from the convict era to the end of the Great Depression. He is particularly interested in lyrical material as historical expression and evidence of class perspectives.
Brain Dunnett on Mandolin – BushMusic Club Rehearsal at National Folk Festival.

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Published

2016-12-03

Issue

Vol. 31 (2016): Marking the passing of Brian Dunnett, and dealing with matters of Pitcairn Island

Section

Studies in Australian Folklore

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