Convict Era Broadsides and Ballads and the Working Poor: Part 1

Authors

  • Mark Gregory University of Wollongong

Keywords:

Broadside Ballad, Convict Song, Vernacular Lyrical Poetry, Bushranger Balladry,

Abstract

Banjo Patterson, the poet and collector of Australian Bush Songs, famously refrained from publishing much in the way of convicts ballads. Later folklorists and collectors were more than pleased to collect this kind of material, and added the bushranger ballads as well. So today we have access to some quite remarkable examples to illuminate our understanding of their place in the history of vernacular lyrical poetry and song in Australia, a ballad tradition that stretches from invasion to the present. Today we have many such documents that tell the story of Australia from the point of view of those whose labour built the nation, and strikingly expressed their own views in the process. They stand as working songs or better still docu-songs.

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.

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Published

2018-12-08

Issue

Vol. 32 (2017): Remembering Phil Garland and exploring New Caledonia

Section

Studies in Australian Folklore

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