Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson Festival, Grenfell

Monument to Henry Lawson, Grenfell

Mudgee

Henry Lawson Centre, Gulgong

Darlinghurst Gaol, Sydney

Abbotsford House, Abbotsford, Sydney

Henry Lawson's grave, Waverley Cemetery, Sydney

Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, writer and poet Henry Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period, and is often called Australia's "greatest writer". Lawson was born on the Grenfell goldfields of New South Wales. Lawson's mother was a strong influence in him becoming a writer, her reminiscences of the early days and his own experiences as a boy living in the Central West provided raw material for many of his stories and verses.
Lawson’s personal history was enough to make any man morose – he was a child of an unhappy marriage who rushed into an unhappy marriage of his own; he was deaf due to a childhood ear infection, a disability which prevented him from completing the education he craved and which consigned him to menial work until his writing became popular.
He remained perennially poor, and he became an alcoholic. Yet it was the outback trek that he undertook in 1892 which shaped his fiction - he saw at first hand the impact of drought in New South Wales and he saw for himself - as his intrigued British readers never could - that the vagaries of the Australian climate and the paucity of its ancient soils meant that dreams of wealth and success in verdant farmland were a chimera for most people. He wanted to puncture these romantic ideas by depicting the poverty, isolation, and loneliness of bush life as he saw it, and in doing so became the ‘voice of the bush.’

Location: New South Wales, Central & Far West

The journey:

This drive commences in Grenfell, Lawson's home town, and works its way back towards Sydney, visiting towns where Lawson lived or visited that had an influence on his writing on the way. Other places outside of the NSW Central West are mentioned bu t of course i is not possible to include them in this drive. These are marked thus: *

Grenfell: Grenfell, an old goldmining town in the New South Wales Central West, Grenfell is 377 km west of Sydney on the Mid-Western Highway. Henry Hertzberg Lawson was born on the goldfields at Grenfell on 17 June, 1867. His father was originally a Norwegian sailor whose name was Neils Larsen. He changed his name to Peter Lawson and became a gold miner. His mother, Louisa (nee Albury) was to have a great influence on Henry's life.
A monument to Henry, shaded by a sugar gum planted by his daughter Bertha, is located two minutes drive from the town centre and a bust of Lawson is located in the Main Street. To commemorate Lawson's Birth and his contribution to the arts, Grenfell hosts the annual Henry Lawson Festival on the June long weekend. The festival promotes and recognises aspiring Australians in their artistic endeavours.

Gulgong: Henry, his parents and siblings lived at Gulgong in 1871 and 1872, and he spent his childhood and early teens in locations between Gulgong and Mudgee. The Henry Lawson Centre at Gulgong is a museum dedicated to Lawson's life and literary works, and to the family, friends, literary characters and places that filled his years. The Henry Lawson Literary Awards are held at Gulgong every year with entries from all over Australia in poetry and short stories for adults and school students.
Several of Lawson's stories are set at Gulgong, although the references are not flattering. In 'Water Them Geraniums' post-goldrush Gulgong is described as 'a wretched remnant of a town on an abandoned goldfield'. In 'Brighten's Sister-in-Law' it is 'dreary and dismal'. Another short story, 'Joe Wilson and His Mates', was also set in Gulgong.

Eurunderee: Henry first attended school at Eurunderee, (then called Pipeclay) 8 km north of Mudgee, in October 1876. The chimney of the family home still survives. At the age of nine, while attending Eurunderee school, he developed an ear infection and became partially deaf. By the time he was fourteen, he was totally deaf. He would later write about the school in his poem 'The Old Bark School'. 'Above Erunderee' is about the town and surrounding area. In April 1914, Henry Lawson paid a return visit to Eurunderee public school, almost 40 years after he had attended as a young pupil.

Mudgee: Henry attended St. Matthews Central School, Mudgee, after a few years at Eurunderee. The school master, Mr. Kevan, taught Lawson about poetry and he became a keen reader of Dickens and Marryat and novels such as Robbery under Arms and Thomas Alexander Browne's For the Term of his Natural Life. Gulgong is believed to be one of the primary locations in Robbery Under Arms. Henry's progressively worsening deafness leading to him leaving school at the age of 14.

The Blue Mountains: In 1883, after working on building jobs with his father in the Blue Mountains, his parents separated and Lawson moved to Sydney with his mother at her request.

Sydney: In 1887, Lawson's mother bought a newspaper called the Republican and it was here that Lawson's first writing was published. That same year, the Bulletin published Lawson's first poem and in 1888, it published his first short story, 'His Father's Mate'. On New Year's Eve, 1888, Lawson's father died. In 1890, Lawson travelled to Albany, WA where he wrote for the Albany Observer but returned in September, 1890 and travelled to Brisbane where he accepted a position on the Brisbane newspaper, the Boomerang, in 1891.
Between 1905 and 1910, after a failed marriage and and an unsuccessful battle with alcohol, Lawson was regularly in Darlinghurst Gaol for non-payment of maintenance and inebriation. He was also in mental and rehabilitation sanatoriums and gradually progressed into a pathetic, dissolute, alcoholic wandering the Sydney streets, begging for money for alchohol. He even tried to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff but survived despite serious injuries. His friends came to his rescue and helped him financially.

Sydney addresses: Abbotsford House is where poet Henry Lawson died, 9th September 1922, age 55. During his lifetime, Lawson lived in numerous homes around Sydney. They include a number of houses in Market Street, Naremburn (near a cave now in Bicentennial Reserve where he used to write his verse) - Numbers 21, 26 and 30 Euroka Street, North Sydney, and 62 Church Street, Balmain, where he resided between 1896 and 1901.

Bourke*: Between 1888 and 1892, Lawson published many of his most famous poems like 'Andy's Gone with Cattle', 'The Roaring Days' and 'The Drover's Sweetheart'. In 1892, Lawson walked from Bourke to Hungerford and back and it was during this time that he came to be very conscious of the hardships of bush life. Also in 1892, Lawson met up with Banjo Paterson, another famous Australian writer, to debate their views of life in the bush.

Leeton*: Mrs Isabel Byers, who was twenty years older than Lawson, and also an excellent poet, also befriended him and constantly provided shelter and food for him from 1904. In 1903 he had bought a room at her Coffee Palace in North Sydney. In 1916, his friends found him a position at Leeton, providing data for the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area.

On September 2, 1922, at age 55, Lawson died peacefully in his sleep at Mrs Isabel Byers' home in Abbotsford, Sydney, while still a writer. Lawson was the first person to be granted a New South Wales state funeral (traditionally reserved for Governors, Chief Justices, etc.) on the grounds of having been a 'distinguished citizen'. He was buried at Waverley Cemetery. His grave is one of many famous people who are buried there.