Paterson, Banjo (1864-1941), was the pen name of Andrew Barton Paterson, an Australian poet, lawyer, and grazier. A grazier is a person who grazes or feeds cattle in order to sell them. In 1895, while on a visit to North Queensland, he wrote the words for what has now become Australia’s national song, “Waltzing Matilda.”
Paterson’s life.
Paterson was born on Feb. 17, 1864, at Narambla, near Orange, New South Wales. Paterson’s father, who was Scottish, introduced his son to the traditional Scottish ballads. The influence of these traditional songs can be seen in Paterson’s bush ballads, along with the influence of the earlier Australian poet Adam Lindsay Gordon. A ballad is a poem or song that tells a dramatic story. The bush ballad tells a story about life in the Australian bush (the remote countryside) during the early years of settlement. Growing up on his family’s property, Paterson developed a love of horses and bush life before moving to Sydney to attend Sydney Grammar School. At the age of 16, he became a lawyer’s clerk. He later became a partner in the law firm of Street and Paterson. His poetry gained immediate popularity when it was published in the Sydney magazine The Bulletin starting in 1885.
Paterson subsequently abandoned law for writing and journalism. He was a war correspondent in South Africa in 1899 and later visited China and England. Paterson returned to Australia in 1902 and lectured for a time on the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. In 1903, he resigned from his law practice to edit the Sydney Evening News and later the Town and Country Journal. After marrying in 1903, he left Sydney to become a grazier so his children could enjoy the pleasure of a country childhood. When Paterson was not able to become a war correspondent during World War I (1914-1918), he drove ambulances in France and also served in Egypt. Paterson died on Feb. 5, 1941.
Paterson’s work.
As a writer, Paterson was popular and prolific. Critics consider him to be Australia’s best bush balladist and he remains one of Australia’s best-known writers. Paterson’s work is cheerful and optimistic in outlook. It clearly reflects his affection for Australia and Australians.
Paterson’s ballads introduce shearers, drovers, and squatters. Each displays the individuality that Paterson sees as typical of the outback character. The outback is a term for Australia’s rural interior. Paterson was primarily a storyteller. His work shows the influence of early ballads and of the British writer Rudyard Kipling. But Paterson used Australian material to produce a new type of Australian verse. His longer narrative poems have swinging, vigorous action; a cheerful, if somewhat idealized setting; and endearing characters. He also wrote many comic verses, such as “Mulga Bill’s Bicycle” (1896), in which a bushman swaps his horse for the new technology of a bicycle, with disastrous results.
Paterson published one of his best-known ballads, “Clancy of the Overflow,” in 1889. Apparently based on a real letter sent from the bush to his law firm, the ballad expresses the nostalgia of a city worker for the freer life enjoyed by Clancy, a bush drover. Clancy, who appears elsewhere in Paterson’s work, represents the typical bush hero.
Paterson’s most famous ballad, “The Man from Snowy River,” was first published in The Bulletin in 1890. It celebrates the superior horsemanship of the young Australian-born hero who is able to go where none of the other riders dare to go. Paterson’s first collection of poems, The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, was published in 1895 and was an immediate success, making Paterson a literary celebrity.
From 1895 until the 1930’s, Paterson wrote ballads and lyric poetry, as well as two novels and a book of stories. He also made another important contribution to Australian literature. He gathered and published the first collection of Australian folk ballads, titled The Old Bush Songs (1905). Most of these songs, which had been composed and sung during pioneering days, had never been written down.
