Talk:Henry Lawson

Untitled
Henry Lawson was the son of Peter Lawson {who's real name is Neils Larson. He had his name changed when he first entered Australia.}{Niels was a Norwegian seaman} and Louisa Lawson, pioneer feminist, highly responsible for women getting the vote in Australia, one of the first countries in the world where women's suffrage was granted. Maybe someone with some knowledge could do a page on her. Louisa was an activist for womans rights. For many Years she printed a paper called 'The Dawn' this only occured after the seperation of Mr. and Mrs. Lawson.

Lawson's Politics
There is no mention of Lawson's politics in this article, and I think there needs to be. His writing is important for the development of an Australian national cultural identity. This has had a broad social impact. His writings, with some justification, have also been claimed as important by partisan interests from the Communist Party of Australia to far right wing Nationalist Republicans and the Australia First Party. So we may need to walk a careful line of a NPOV here.

Generally speaking, Lawson associated with radicals, anarchists, and socialists in the mid 1880s to mid 1890s. Lawson evidently joined the Australian Socialist League: "New members soon to become well-known included William Holman, Billy Hughes, Creo Stanley, Ernie Lane, Henry Lawson and J.D.Fitzgerald.". It appears he was also a member of the Knights of Labor: "membership of the Freedom Assembly, Sydney, from 1891-93, included many well-known labour-movement figures - William Lane, Ernie Lane, Arthur Rae, George Black, Frank Cotton, JC Fitzpatrick, WG Spence, WH McNamara, Henry Lawson and Donald Cameron." After 1893 he appears to have concentrated on writings cultural verse and stories at the expense of politics. Maybe this is related to a conversation he had with Mary Gilmore in 1893. By the first world war his verse was very nationalist and patriotic, and Lawson appears much more politically conservative.

If no one else has a go and makes use of the above source references, I might have a try.--Takver 09:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I think it would great if you would, Takver, and I'm sure you'd do a fine job. For years, Lawson was taught in schools as being a "bush poet" only, completely disregarding his large body of political work. His association with Mary Cameron, too, is of interest, as on the eve of her departure for New Australia he asked her to marry him, but she refused, only to send him a letter later from Paraguay hinting she had changed her mind. There is much to tell, but it will be months before I get the time, if at all as I am hard at work on a book about the guy. Thanks for your offer. The chronology in the main article's links footer is very useful, if I might be forgiven for mentioning an online reference work made by someone I've known all my life. ;) Alpheus 02:21, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Mary Cameron of course married someone else and is better known as Dame Mary Gilmore. I have read that Lawson's mother interfered with their correspondence and hence their relationship. Her honouring as a dame is also possibly linked ot her politics rather than her writing but I am not sure.--A Y  Arktos 02:51, 26 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it's generally believed that Louisa Lawson did indeed do as you say, Arktos. Mary Cameron/Gilmore, after Henry's death, claimed that Henry's sister Gertrude had told her that Louisa Lawson intercepted Henry's letters to Mary, who was living with the Lawsons at the time, and Henry was in Western Australia. Gertrude had said to Mary, "There was a letter for you. It was in Henry's writing." To this, Louisa Lawson had interjected, "There was no letter", and sent Gertrude to her room. I have no idea why Mary Gilmore got "Damed", especially given her socialist and Communist leanings, but she was, I suppose on the grounds of her literary abilities. Alpheus 12:27, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Lawson's Works
How's it going, everyone? Recently, I've being doing some work on the Henry Lawson page. I haven't touched the biography (because I don't know anything about it!) but I've been adding poems and sketches to his list of works and linking them to Wikisource articles that I've also been adding.  So far, I'm working on writing a wikipedia description of each story (i.e. background, synopsis, characters, themes, quotes) but I've only done a few at present, and it'll take a while to get around to all of them. Of course, feel free to make improvements or try your hand at writing a new description for your favourite poems or sketches. Ackatsis 08:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * You've done a great job, Ackastsis. Alpheus 07:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

wikisource/wikipedia
It seems to me that the titles should not be hypertexted if they refer to the texts themselves on Wikisource. Possibly add [the link to wikisource] next to each title instead - although a general link to Wikisource should be enough. When the title is hypertexted on Wikipedia, it should refer to another page on Wikipedia, with a summary and critical reception of the text for instance. Zigzig20s 22:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The Songs of Henry Lawson
Are 'The Songs of Henry Lawson' - songs inspired by him - notable enough to be included in this article? I seems more like self promotion for one guy running a website and promoting his music. Have removed it - if you disagree then revert and say why here. Wongm (talk) 12:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree. On a second reading it really is just another collection of his work - adapted, yes, but another collection nonetheless.  I notice the Songs section is back in.  Perry Middlemiss (talk) 23:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It is still there because I ended up not removing it. Wongm (talk) 01:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * You'll see that I have removed it. If the editor who added it in previously wants to create a new page for that collection they can.  We can discuss its merits there. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 01:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

This article needs expanding
There is no mention of his racist opinions and writings, or the long running debates on his racism. There is no mention of his time as a school teacher in New Zealand. Moriori (talk) 02:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Feel free to be WP:BOLD and add the required information. Claims of racism will require secondary sources stating such. -- Mattinbgn\talk 08:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

There is no mention of his period spent in England under sponsorship by the Governor of NSW (et al). He lived for a time in Harpenden.

Merge?
The article it is suggested it merges with says what is copied below. No refs and little content so just moved here Victuallers (talk) 15:53, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Henry Lawson is an iconic Australian writer and poet, and one of the best-known writers of the Australian colonial period.

Many of Lawson's popular works explore similar themes regarding Bush life, and present Lawson's personal views as a City writer, an opinion than often conflicted with the views of other Australian writers, particularly his well-known contemporary Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson.

Significant Themes
Throughout the course of Henry Lawson's works, it becomes apparent that Lawson seems to believe that prolonged bush-living will inevitably result in its inhabitants becoming "weird" or unbalanced, at least by City standards.
 *  The Emotional Impact of Bush Life

Lawson explores these effects to varying extremes, from the outright eccentricity of The Bush Undertaker to the somewhat peculiar attempts of The Drover's Wife to remain civilised. Mrs. Spicer (of 'Water Them Geraniums') is often described as being "past carin'" about anything, though her unbalance does not stretch as far as that of Emma, the frustrated poet (of 'A Child in the Dark, and a Foreign Father').

Echuca
Was Henry Lawson in Echuca in October 1899? Just stumbled across this news item. http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/115018531 Doug butler (talk) 01:11, 1 October 2013 (UTC)


 * It's possible it was this Henry Lawson but it may have been some other person with the same name. I'm not familiar enough with Lawson's outback traveling history to be sure. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 23:23, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Publication timeline for 1900
I've been a bit confused as to the true publication order of the four volumes of verse/prose that Lawson published in 1900, namely Verses, Popular and Humorous (VPH), On the Track (OTT), Over the Sliprails (OTS) and On the Track, and Over the Sliprails (OTTOTS).

A check of the bibliographic entries in Austlit informs me only that they were all published in the same year, but gives no indication of actual dates. A check of the reproduced text on Project Gutenberg Australia reveals that Lawson included a brief author's note in the first three of these collections which provided some brief background on pre-publications of each volume's contents. These notes were dated as follows: VPH - 17 March 1900; OTT - 17 March 1900; and OTS - 9 June 1900. Unfortunately no such note is included in OTTOTS, which is a volume combining the contents of the OTT and OTS collections. This last fact would lead one to assume it was published after the others, and this is borne out by checking Trove which shows the first appearance of the combined volume is in an advertisement in The Sydney Morning Herald on 23 June 1900.

So I propose to follow the dates as outlined above and amend the publication order of the 1900 volumes from that currently shown to the following: Verses, Popular and Humorous; On the Track; Over the Sliprails and On the Track, and Over the Sliprails. Happy to discuss if you believe this is incorrect. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 06:12, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

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His prison number
'... the haunting poem "One Hundred and Three" - his prison number ...' This letter shows his prison number as 136: Letter written from Darlinghurst gaol It seems he may have been in prison a few times; potentially with a different number each time. Perhaps the Wiki page statement could be modified to reflect that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.161.73.124 (talk) 03:09, 2 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Ah, interesting. Well done for finding that link. From the little I know, it looks like the poem is One Hundred and Three, but his actual prisoner number was 136. I'll add a bit of that to the article.
 * peterl (talk)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090318082052/http://www.jbrowley.com/The%20Drover%27s%20Wife.pdf to http://www.jbrowley.com/The%20Drover%27s%20Wife.pdf

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External links modified
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Entirely lost his hearing ?
In that case, how could Lawson have been such an accurate transcriber of vernacular speech ? Where and how did he gather all those stories about the lives of ordinary Australians ? Lawson was not 'stone' deaf, he was 'hard of hearing'. He could hear you if you shouted at him. The opening paragraph of Lawson's 'Send Round the Hat' is his wry comment on the situation. 2001:44B8:3102:BB00:F527:A928:B7CA:2353 (talk) 21:15, 16 March 2018 (UTC)