[Editor: This article, by George Gunn, regarding Gertrude Lawson and Henry Lawson, was published in the Forbes Advocate (Forbes, NSW), 8 June 1945.]
Last of Lawson family
(By Geo. Gunn)
On Wednesday, 23rd June, Mrs. Gertrude Cooper was buried at Kingswood, near Penrith. The deceased was a sister of the late author and poet, Henry Lawson, and the last member of the family of Louisa Lawson, a woman who enjoyed in her native land the distinction of being the first editress of a magazine, “The Dawn.” His talented and devoted mother cherished the belief that one day her illustrious son would edit and carry on her enterprise, but such an ardent wish was never realised.
It was his brilliant mother who in early life imparted to Henry a love for literature. Lawson had a most retentive memory and stories from early childhood told by miners were often a basis for his short stories. Many folk, in error, claim Mudgee as his birthplace. He gained his early schooling there, as he was taken from Grenfell, where he was born on 17th June, 1867, and his birth registered in Forbes by Louisa Lawson, his mother. He was about three years of age when taken to Mudgee. John Tierney, an Irishman, was his schoolmaster.
Here is an anecdote of Lawson’s house-painting days spent in Bourke, retold by a teamster over 80 years of age living there to-day, who knew Lawson: A woodcarter of those days was coming into Bourke crossing the Darling River bridge with a heavy load of firewood on an old cart, drawn by a worn-out old horse, when on the bridge the horse fell dead. The wood fell all over the animal and scattered everywhere. The woodman was known as a hard-working man with a small wife and large family of nine children. People gathered round and expressed verbally their sympathy, and now and again could be heard this, “What a pity!” The crowd numbered 40 people or more, and still the sorrowful expressions, “What a pity!” could be heard. Henry Lawson, who happened along, saw the position at a glance. “Isn’t it a pity?” said a bystander to Henry Lawson. “Yes,” pulling out an old A.J.S. “quid” from his pocket, “I pity him a quid!” “And,” said the teamster, “in less than 15 minutes £40 was in the hat.” Hence—
“This is the creed of the book of the bush,
’Tis plain to the veriest dunce,
If a man’s in a hole you must send round the hat,
Be he jail-bird or gentleman once.”
Posthumous honors were lavishly conferred on Lawson, from a Commonwealth funeral to the dedication of reserves, parks and public highways. Thanks to the State Government the Eurunderee (Mudgee) home has been preserved as a literary shrine to the nation, and a pleasing gesture is the fact that the caretaker is Henry Samuel Buckholtz, aged 83, who was a schoolmate at “The Old Bark School” with Henry Lawson.
Looking backwards, one might say in truth that Australians have been almost callous in their treatment of its outstanding sons and daughters in life. I recall the tragedy of Frank Mahony, animal painter, a real artist, going to England. He was a man of fine physique, yet was found frozen to death in a London doorway. Yes, fellow Australians, this is not an isolated case to reproach ourselves for.
Source:
Forbes Advocate (Forbes, NSW), 8 June 1945, p. 4
Editor’s notes:
“The Old Bark School” is a poem by Henry Lawson.
In the original article, the last paragraph referred to “Will Mahoney, animal painter”, who was “found frozen to death in a London doorway”; however, this is actually a reference to Frank Mahony, an artist known for his paintings of animals, who died in poverty-stricken circumstances in a London hospital in 1916. Therefore, the text in this article has been corrected, changing “Will Mahoney” to “Frank Mahony”.
A.J.S. = Australian Joint Stock Bank
Commonwealth = the government of the Commonwealth of Australia, i.e. the federal government of Australia [in this instance, a Commonwealth funeral is a funeral paid for by the Commonwealth government]
dunce = someone who is stupid, a fool, an idiot, unintelligent; someone who is a slow learner
editress = a female editor
Frank Mahony = Francis (Frank) Mahony (1862-1916), an Australian artist; he was born in Melbourne (Vic.) in 1862, and died in Kensington (London, England) in 1916
See: 1) B. G. Andrews, “Mahony, Francis (Frank) (1862–1916)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Frank P. Mahony”, Wikipedia
Geo. = an abbreviation of the name “George”
jail-bird = someone who has spent a significant amount of time in jail; someone who is a convict or an ex-convict (someone who is a current or former inmate of a jail), especially someone who is an habitual criminal, who has been repeatedly imprisoned (it is often considered to be a derogatory term, but it is not always so)
quid = a pound or a dollar; originally “quid” referred to a pound, a unit of British-style currency used in Australia (until it was replaced by the dollar in 1966, when decimal currency was introduced); after the decimalisation of Australia’s currency, it referred to a dollar
teamster = the driver of a team of animals (such as horses, mules, or oxen), for the purpose of hauling goods (especially as an occupation)
’tis = (archaic) a contraction of “it is”
veriest = (archaic) the highest amount of, the highest degree of, the most complete, uttermost; used as an intensifier of “very”, to amplify or emphasise an attribute or description (e.g. the veriest humbug, the veriest nonsense, the veriest rogue)
woodcarter = someone who carts wood (someone who transports wood from one location to another) for commercial purposes (also spelt: wood carter, wood-carter)
[Editor: Changed “Posthumus” to “Posthumous”, “Will Mahoney, animal painter” to “Frank Mahony, animal painter”.]
Leave a Reply