01/09/2025
Vale, Henry Lawson. We would love to see you at our Centre today to commemorate our favourite Australian writer and bush poet. ✍🏼
2 September 1922, poet and writer Henry Lawson passed away in Abbotsford, Sydney aged 55. He was the first person in NSW to be granted a State funeral as a 'distinguished citizen' rather than a politician. Although much of his writing was acclaimed, Lawson suffered from a lack of funds, depression and alcoholism. He spent time in Darlinghurst Gaol between 1905 and 1909 for drunkenness and non-payment of alimony. Henry Lawson, lived at Como West in the years before his death in 1922 and it is believed he was a frequent visitor to Como Hotel, often reciting poetry in the bar.
A VISIT TO HIS OLD SCHOOL
In April 1914, Henry Lawson paid a return visit to Eurunderee public school, almost 40 years after he had attended as a young pupil. In addition to checking his entry in the Admission register, Lawson wrote some comments in the Visitors’ book, along with a poem which laments the absence of his name among students recorded in the Punishment book.
📸 More pics & facts in comments below 👇
HENRY LAWSONS TIMELINE
🔹1868 Parents move to New Pipeclay (later Eurunderee), near Mudgee
🔹1871 Family moves to goldfields at Gulgong
🔹1873 Lawsons return to Pipeclay, take up selection
🔹1875-79 Attends school at Eurunderee, Pipeclay Creek and Mudgee
🔹1880-83 Goes to work with father, now a carpenter
🔹1883 Moves to Sydney to be with his mother – parents separated
🔹1884-87 Apprenticed as a coach painter
🔹1887-88 Lawson's mother publishes political paper The Republican, Lawson contributes to it and to The Bulletin; visits Melbourne and Ballarat
🔹1888-90 Lawson contributes to Town and Country Journal, Freeman's Journal and Truth; travels to Albany, WA for five months
🔹1891 On staff at The Boomerang, a Brisbane weekly
🔹1892-93 Travels to Bourke; writes for The Western Herald and sends work to The Bulletin; works as a house painter in Bourke and a rouseabout at Toorale station; walks to Hungerford, on Queensland border, and back
🔹1893 Travels to New Zealand
🔹1894 Returns to Sydney; works for papers Daily Worker and Worker; first book - Short Stories in Prose and Verse - published by his mother
🔹1895 Meets his future wife, Bertha Bredt
🔹1896 In the Days When the World Was Wide published; marries Bertha Bredt, 18; travels to Perth; While the Billy Boils published
🔹1897 Moves to New Zealand
🔹1898 Son Joseph Henry born; returns to Sydney
🔹1899-1900 On the Track and Over the Sliprails and Verses Popular and Humorous published; daughter Bertha Marie Louise born; moves to England
🔹1901 The Country I Come From and Joe Wilson and His Mates published
🔹1902 Children of the Bush published; returns to Australia
🔹1903 Separates from Bertha; lives a vagrant's life in Sydney
🔹1904 Taken in by Isabel Byers, who will care for him for many of his remaining years
🔹1905 Jailed for not paying maintenance; When I Was King and Other Verses published
🔹1906 Sells copyright of Children of the Bush to Angus & Robertson
🔹1908-09 First of a series of confinements in Darlinghurst Mental Hospital; jailed for defaulting on maintenance
🔹1910 The Rising of the Court and The Skyline Riders and Other Verses published
🔹1911 Again admitted to mental hospital; A Coronation Ode and Retrospect published
🔹1912-13 Living as an alcoholic vagabond in Sydney
🔹1914 Twice visits childhood area of Mudgee/Eurunderee
🔹1915 My Army, O My Army published; moves to Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, NSW
🔹1918-19 Partly sustained by an allowance from his publishers but often seen with his hat out at Circular Quay
🔹1920 Lawson's mother dies in Gladesville Mental Hospital 1921 Three months in hospital after a cerebral haemorrhage
🔹1922 Dies on 2 September at Abbotsford, Sydney, aged 55; given a state funeral and buried at Waverley Cemetery.
REST IN PEACE 🌹
