[Editor: This article, by Gertrude Lawson, was published in The Bulletin (Sydney, NSW), 11 August 1921.]
The Lawson family
There is a suggestion that Henry Lawson is of gipsy origin. He himself has given it by the number of times he has referred to the subject in his poetry. Our kin are many in N. S. Wales, all descendants of John and Ann Albury, who came to Australia when Mulgoa flourished, and were tillers of the land.
Here at Mulgoa, Henry, their son — “handsome Harry” — met and married the refined English girl, Harriet Winn, and then crossed over the ranges to Guntawang, the station of Robert Rouse. There Louisa, our mother, was born, in 1846, and baptised in Rouse’s drawing-room by Archdeacon Günther. It is said she pulled the parson’s nose during the ceremony.
She married when barely 18 “Peter the Swede,” who was really a native of Norway, son of a teacher of navigation. Peter was a student of navigation, and on a trip for practical experience. He was then a lad of 18. Unfortunately for himself he contracted gold fever, and it did not leave him for over 20 years. He and Louisa Albury met at Golden Gully.
One of Henry’s earliest poems was a description of this gully — it was published in the Christmas Number of The Bulletin, 1888. The young couple “followed the diggings” with dray and horse, and for the next few years lived in a tent. Henry has given his first impression of life; the family was living then in a single room with a tent behind and a tree in front. That tree, which impressed his mind in a way he has never forgotten, had its signficance, for Pipeclay was afterwards named Eurunderee, the native word for a single tree.
Some of my kin resent this suggestion of a gipsy stigma. I did, too, for a considerable time, but, upon reading the history of the gipsies — there are a considerable number of books upon the subject — I have somewhat reconciled myself. I certainly have to admit that many of the characteristics are identical with those of my own family — even to verse-making. But whereas the women of gipsy race are gifted, not the men, the men of our race are the stronger. Still tradition says if a gipsy man has the gift it is super-abundant. My mother, the late Louisa Lawson, had no knowledge of the history of the interesting and ancient race; yet, strange to say, stories she so often told me are identical with many which the gipsies never weary of repeating.
GERTRUDE LAWSON.
Source:
The Bulletin (Sydney, NSW), 11 August 1921, p. 29, columns 1-2
Editor’s notes:
gipsies = an alternative spelling of “gypsies” (plural of “gypsy”)
gipsy = an alternative spelling of “gypsy”
N. S. Wales = an abbreviation of New South Wales (a colony in Australia from 1788, then a state in 1901)
I embrace the stigma but it is so hard to make people not only believe but to embrace Craig Blackwell grandson of Dotis Moores my grandmother 1 of the 12 Todd girls & 1 son direct descended of the Lason aka Lawson history & proud.