The White Australia Policy: Authors and cultural figures supporting the White Australia Policy

[Editor: This chapter is part of The White Australia Policy: The Rise and Fall of Australia’s Racial Ideology (2025).]

Authors and cultural figures supporting the White Australia Policy

The concept of a White Australia was supported by a wide variety of authors, poets, and other cultural figures in early Australia. The views of some of these people are given here.

Andrew Barton Paterson (1864-1941), widely known as “Banjo”, and regarded as one of Australia’s most famous poets, was a supporter of a White Australia. In an article Paterson wrote, regarding his travels in northern Queensland, published in The Sydney Morning Herald in 1901, he discussed the “danger” of Australia being demographically dominated by Asians:

“The kanakas are curious people. They are as a rule deeply religious but they vary their religion with tribal fights. … Many of them have wives and children, and have settled down as coloured fellow-Australians. But whatever danger there may be from the kanaka is as nothing compared to the danger of the Oriental invasion.

… As one goes northward the size of the “Eastern quarter” of the town increases, till at Thursday Island and Port Darwin it becomes the “Eastern three-quarters” of the town. … The fact that a few thousands of these people have settled on our coasts does not trouble us much. They can do little harm in our time. But the same was said of the first few pairs of rabbits let loose in Australia.

… A picturesque locality is Thursday Island … it is the existence of this and similar depots of Asiatics along our coasts to which the attention of all thinking people is invited. We know what troubles the Americans are having over the black question, and these Asiatics will assuredly be all over Northern Australia within the next few years.”[1]

Banjo Paterson expressed his opposition towards the employment of Chinese in the shearing industry, in “A Bushman’s Song” (1896):

“I asked a cove for shearin’ once along the Marthaguy:
‘We shear non-union here,’ says he. ‘I call it scab,’ says I.
I looked along the shearin’ floor before I turned to go —
There were eight or ten dashed Chinamen a-shearin’ in a row.

It was shift, boys, shift, for there wasn’t the slightest doubt
It was time to make a shift with the leprosy about.
So I saddled up my horses, and I whistled to my dog,
And I left his scabby station at the old jig-jog.”[2]

With regards to Paterson’s verses given above, it should be noted that, in the context of racial stereotypes, the term “leprosy” refers to Chinese (who were widely regarded as having brought leprosy to Australia). The term “scabby” was also a reference to leprosy, as that disease can render the skin of lepers as scabby in appearance (although the term itself originated without any known Chinese reference). In Australia, Chinese workers were often used as non-union labour (often in an effort by employers to keep wages low), and as strike-breakers. Therefore, it is believed that the term “scab” was particularly associated with Chinese workers by early Australian trade unionists, and was used to refer to strike-breakers in general.[3]

Henry Lawson (1867-1922), Australia’s most famous author and poet (possibly only equalled by Banjo Paterson), was — like Paterson — a supporter of a White Australia. In his poem, “Australia’s Peril [The Warning]”, Lawson demanded that Australia should:

“Clear out the Calico Jimmy, the nigger, the Chow, and his pals”[4]

In another poem, “To Be Amused” (1906), published in The Worker, Henry Lawson envisioned a future where Australia would face a takeover from Asia, either demographically or militarily. He warned of a scenario where Australia faced “The yellow millions” of Asia, “With land and life and race at stake”.

Lawson apparently had concerns over miscegenation (race-mixing), when he wrote about “The pure girl to the leper’s kiss” and “our brown masters of the dawn might, aye, have fair girls for their lusts” (in the context of racial stereotypes, the term “leper” is a reference to Chinese people, who were regarded as having brought leprosy to Australia).

Lawson’s suggested solution was to build up Australia’s industrial and military strength, and to increase white immigration (proposing that the nation should “Call white men in from all the world!”):

To Be Amused.

[For The Worker.]

You ask me to be gay and glad
While lurid clouds of danger loom,
And, vain and bad and gambling mad,
Australia races to her doom.
You bid me sing the light and fair,
The dance, the glance on pleasure’s wings —
While you have wives who will not bear,
And beer to drown the fear of things.

A war with reason, you would wage
To be amused for your short span,
Until your children’s heritage
Is claimed for China by Japan.
The football match, the cricket score,
The “scraps,” the tote, the mad’ning Cup—
You drunken fools that evermore
“To-morrow morning” sober up!

I see again, with haggard eyes,
The thirsty land, the wasted flood;
Unpeopled plains beyond the skies,
And precious streams that run to mud;
The ruined health, the wasted wealth,
In our mad cities by the seas,
The black race-suicide by stealth,
The starved and murdered industries!

You bid me make a farce of day,
And make a mockery of death,
While not five thousand miles away
The yellow millions pant for breath!
But heed me now, nor ask me this —
Lest you too late should wake to find
That hopeless patriotism is
The strongest passion in mankind!

You’d think the seer sees, perhaps,
While staring on from days like these,
Politeness in the conquering Japs,
Or mercy in the banned Chinese!
I mind the days when parents stood,
And spake no word, while children ran
From Christian lanes and deemed it good
To stone a helpless Chinaman.

I see the stricken city fall,
The fathers murdered at their doors,
The sack, the massacre of all
Save healthy slaves and paramours —
The wounded hero at the stake,
The pure girl to the leper’s kiss —
God, give us faith, for Christ’s own sake,
To kill our womankind ere this.

I see the Bushman from Out Back,
From mountain range and rolling downs,
And carts race on each rough bush track
With food and rifles from the towns;
I see my Bushmen fight and die
Amongst the torn blood-spattered trees,
And hear all night the wounded cry
For men! More men and batteries!

I see the brown and yellow rule
The southern lands and southern waves,
White children in the heathen school,
And black and white together slaves;
I see the color-line so drawn
(I see it plain and speak I must),
That our brown masters of the dawn
Might, aye, have fair girls for their lusts!

With land and life and race at stake —
No matter which race wronged, or how —
Let all and one Australia make
A superhuman effort now.
Clear out the blasting parasites,
The paid-for-one-thing manifold,
And curb the goggled “social-lights”
That “scorch” to nowhere with our gold.

Store guns and ammunition first,
Build forts and warlike factories,
Sink bores and tanks where drought is worst,
Give over time to industries.
The outpost of the white man’s race,
Where next his flag shall be unfurled.
Make clean the place! Make strong the place!
Call white men in from all the world![5]

However, Lawson was not a race-hater; he held his political views in support of a White Australia separately from his personal views on non-white individuals. In his short story “Ah Soon” (1912), Henry Lawson declared:

“I am anti-Chinese as far as Australia is concerned; in fact, I am all for a White Australia. But one may dislike, or even hate, a nation without hating or disliking an individual of that nation. One may be on friendly terms; even pals in a way.”[6]

Mary Gilmore (poet, author, and racial-communist) was an advocate for a White Australia, and her racial mindset was revealed in the pages of the trade union newspaper, The Worker, in which she had a regular column.

Gilmore wrote an article for The Worker, published 9 April 1908, in which she supported a White Australia, and railed against those who advocated non-white immigration:

“Yet the amazing thing is, that in spite of their claim to be called intelligent … they … advocate the introduction of colored aliens into Australia. I cannot understand it. As a mother, I cannot even come near to understanding it.

… the whole world over, purity of race is its own greatest bulwark, and the greater the purity the greater the intolerance of admixture with color — even with white, but different, nationalities. The history of all national growth shows this; the history of all national decay is its proof.

… there is a screw loose somewhere, when women are willing, either directly or indirectly, to mix with color. Either they have no sense of their work as conservers of race and nationhood, and are degenerate; or, as I said before, they cry for where they belong. There is no man and no woman true to blood who can be faithful to both black and white; one or the other must be set first.

… in the southern States of America as in the West Indies, it is found in the fact that while the white man does not allow the colored to walk on the same footpath as he, sit in the same car, eat at the same table, or attend the same school, and that in some States, at least, it is a penal offence for any clergyman to marry, either white to black or black to white. And here, too, the condition of moral life is only kept (even moderately) decent by reason of the numerical superiority of the white. Once let that break down, and the white man’s civilisation will pass from the black as the white light of day passes from the sky — to be followed by blackness and night.”[7]

In the following week’s issue of The Worker (16 April 1908), Mary Gilmore continued her line of thought, condemning “race mixing” and calling for a rise in “racial pride”. However, her words were not expressing a hatred of other races, but were based upon a racial “desire for existence” and a seeking of “race continuance”.

“Last week I sent in a quoted article from the “Australasian” on this subject.

… As it stood it was the most terrible indictment of race mixing that could be imagined. Coming from the paper it did, it was that paper’s own condemnation, and should be everywhere used as a scourge to rouse to a sense of and the necessity for a feeling of racial pride those who advocate the peopling of any part of our territory, or our kitchens with the unassimilable black, brown, or yellow races.

I use the word unassimilable because, by reason of their great number, no white people can assimilate and make a subordinate part of themselves any one of these great peoples. The reverse is the only possibility, i.e. that the white would be but the streak in the mass.

… Once England marries India, she ceases to be England, and becomes India. She loses herself as a drop of fresh water is lost in a salt ocean, and she makes no appreciable difference to the ocean. As to Australia, with its small population, the ocean would never know it had swallowed her!

… However, the question of racial antagonism is not one of superiority on the one hand, and inferiority on the other. The root of it is the desire for existence. … It is, as was said before, the natural, normal, instinctive root idea that lies behind the wish to Live, to Be, to Exist. That is why a pure race, and an individual of pure race, fights against the idea of miscegenation, and why an impure race does not trouble about the matter. The first has not lost its claim to existence as a pure entity, and the second has, at most, only a half-claim to anywhere. The less the claim, the less the desire to fight for it.

It is folly to deride the alien just because he is alien. It is only the ignorant who heap contumely on him by vulgar epithet and coarse naming, never inquiring what manner of man he be, and what his development, on his own, national lines. Every man is an alien in another man’s country; every man an inferior in regard to another’s national ideal and formulation of that ideal; and the insularity that makes us regard our point of view as the highest, is usually insularity, and nothing else — even though equally common to the people we deride.

… I do not believe a self-respecting man of any nation looks on himself as the inferior of any other nation, and I do not see why he should. The individual man is individual man, whether he be black, white, or yellow. However, that is not the point. The point lies in race continuance, and the need for it.

… That there are inferior races no one doubts. Given equal numbers, it is the inferior which always dies off before the advance of civilisation; which suggests the thought that civilisation is a burden, a test of strength, which only the strong and strongest can effectively bear.

… any woman who gives birth to a child whose color is not her own, gives birth to a child not wholly hers. It is a graft, a cuckoo born of a foreigner. Its eyes, its hair, its skin, its ways, and implanted ideals belong to a people in whom she has neither part nor lot, and in so far it is theirs, not hers, mother it how she may.

This is Nature’s way. She paints signboards all over the innocent that the guilty may be known, and the sin against racial purity blazoned abroad. It is an instinct of Nature, whose meaning is not to be mistaken, that the child shall follow the race, shall bear the mark of race, and grow up in the ways of that to which it belongs. To mix is to destroy what Nature built, and break down her lines of continuity.”[8]

In a later column in The Worker (6 May 1909), Mary Gilmore commented on a minor article in The Times (London), which reported that “The Secretary of State for India has nominated a committee to consider … The general question of immigration from India to the Crown colonies”. Gilmore warned that immigration from India was a danger to the future survival of White Australia:

“The matter looks small enough, as it makes an unassuming paragraph at the bottom of a page, but there is a seed in it, which, if germinated, may see us mothers of a future mixed race, in which white will gradually be lost. It is not a matter for any of us to carelessly look at and as carelessly forget. And, though little is made of it to-day, it may be much in the future.”[9]

Gilmore’s views were not confined to the pages of The Worker. In an article Gilmore wrote for another socialist newspaper, The Clipper, published 16 April 1904, she considered the war between Russian and Japan, and gave her view of the situation, as tinted by her racial outlook:

“It is quite noticeable that the church-going public is in sympathy with heathen Japan and bitterly opposed to Christian Russia, while the opposite is to be remarked in regard to the non-church goer.

… the churchman … sides with the Pagan and goes against the Christian. Strange, isn’t it?

Yet it is not so strange considered apart from the question of Christianity and taken in connection with that of race, racial-purity and the ideal. Russia, with something like 86,666,000 Christians and 4,766,000 Protestants, is a mixture of many races white and yellow, and is the pariah of Europe in consequence. Japan, on the other hand, with her 50,000,000 Pagans and handful of Christians is one race and one only. In this she is the aristocrat of heathendom, and the wonder of the civilised world.

… Fortunately for history in general and the Russ in particular he has no admixture of the black. But the yellow taint is bad enough. The Japanese, on the other hand is noted for the purity of his race, his gentleness of conduct, his faculty for lying and his sexual immorality.

His purity of race, even though it be a brown one, gives patriotism. Patriotism gives ideality, and ideality the desire to excel.

… Purity of race finds its strength in that the unit is the type. And the nation, being the multiplication of one by its combined millions, gathers impetus by the mere weight of its own numbers as it moves forward to the consummation of any one idea, be it bad or good.”[10]

In 1920, Mary Gilmore wrote an article for The Australian Worker, in which she said that supporting a White Australia did not entail hating others of different races:

“it seems, to-day, to be more than ever necessary to drive home the fact that never has the “White Australia” policy been so menaced FROM WITHIN as now.

No matter how it may be threatened from without, if the pro-white feeling within the Empire is strong, the Dominions are safe. But no matter how weak the menace from without, if the inter-Empire feeling is weak, then indeed we are in danger, and our hope of safety lies in nations outside any pro-Asiatic, inter- Imperial ring. That is to say, our safety lies with nations which, like Australia, are set on the defence of the white man’s flag.

… But while we stand for our own, we need not decry other races. They have their rights as well as we ours. We have no right to encroach in an unfriendly and conquering manner on them, any more than they on us.

Nations should walk neighborly side by side, each learning tolerance of the other.

… Australia is our country, and we do not wish to see her forcibly “married” to any non-Christian, whether Mohammedan of Turkey or of India.

… There are those who will say that “one race is as good as another”; and that “it doesn’t matter if the white does go down.” An individual, a nation, a Government that believes that is already down. He (or it) has lost the aspiration of the white without even taking on the aspiration of the colored.

Nations and individuals, degenerate like this, have but one god, and that is gold — the gold of cheap labor. Their cry is, “The black is cheaper than the white. Up with the black, down with the white!”

… For Australia, the great need is a public spirit which says:

We are white. Without enmity to any we are white. Without enmity we will stay white. But if that is made impossible then we will take up arms in self-defence. No flag shall restrain us from being white, no crown destroy us, no over-lordship break us from our resolve. With those who believe in our destiny we are in accord; with them we will stand to maintain it for them and for ourselves with them, as they with us.”[11]

Vance Palmer (1885-1959), a well-known Australian author, wrote in The Worker (Brisbane), in 1917, that the White Australia policy was necessary. It was his opinion that cultural, scientific, and social achievements, including industrial democracy, would make other countries more accepting of the White Australia Policy:

“In my last article I emphasised the necessity of our policy of a White Australia, and outlined some of the difficulties we would encounter in the near future through our adherence to it.

… The enemies of the policy … go to work in a more subtle way. They rarely attack the idea of a White Australia openly, but by insidious means try to throw doubt on its feasibility.

… the White Australia policy has enemies within our gates … The plain fact is that loyalty to the principle has been seriously undermined.

… How, then, can the White Australia policy be preserved? … if it is not preserved, everything we call Australian will perish in the space of a few short years.

… we are not a mere “colony,” but an individual country, with something important to add to the civilisation of the world. Any original literary, artistic, scientific, or social achievement that we can accomplish will stand us in better stead, when our policy comes to be judged by an international tribunal, than all the beef and wool we have over grown. It is the quality of our civilisation alone that constitutes our right to decide our destiny. By that we will stand or fall.

… As a pioneer in social reconstruction, we would be of some interest to the world, and could make good our claim to be considered a nation … Industrial Democracy, then, is as necessary to the preservation of a White Australia as the latter policy is to Industrial Democracy.”[12]

Edwin Greenslade Murphy (1866-1939), who wrote under the name of “Dryblower”, and who was a popular author and poet in the state of Western Australia, working for The Sunday Times in Perth for over 37 years, was opposed to non-white immigration, and wrote poetry indicative of his racial attitudes.

“Dryblower” Murphy expressed his support for a White Australia in “The Aliens” (1904), and his attitude regarding race can also be seen in “Whoffor?” (1911). He also criticised what he saw as the hypocrisy of those advocates for a White Australia who frequented non-European businesses instead of patronising white enterprises; this attitude was expressed in poems like “A White Australia” (1901), “Strikes” (1901), and “Broken Resolutions” (1902).[13]

In “The Aliens” (1904), Dryblower warned of the danger of non-white immigrants taking over Australia:

“They come not as an open foe
To loot the land with steel and fire
… But still they war and still they win;
They claim, and get, the victor’s share
Swarthy of heart as well as skin,
The Alien comes —
Beware! Beware!!

… They swarm across the Indian Sea
To swell the beetle-browed brigade,
To cheat the Briton of his crust:
To take what he and his should share;
To drag Australia to the dust,
The Alien comes —
Beware! Beware!!

They man the mines while workers born
Beneath the scintillating Cross
Are ordered off in sneering scorn,
… For paltry pence they snarl and stab;
They undercut the worker’s wage,
For each at heart’s a loathsome scab;
To rob the babe which, famished, drains
Its mother’s bosom gaunt and bare;
To hoard his blood-begotten gains,
The Alien comes —
Beware! Beware!!

From black Bombay to brown Japan,
The dusky Pagan swells the flood
That, spite the interdicting ban,
Contaminates Australia’s blood.
… Degeneration’s spell he weaves
To tempt our maidens and our wives
With many a tawdry, tinselled snare,
To undersap their loyal lives,
The Alien comes —
Beware! Beware!!

… But still they war and still they win;
They claim and get the victor’s share;
Swarthy of heart as well as skin,
The Alien comes —
Beware! Beware!!”[14]

In “Strikes” (1901), Dryblower railed against those who acted as patriots, whilst simultaneously paying money to Asians in an economic context:

“Time and oft we yelled a warning from the housetops far and near
Against the Chow, who waxes fat on rice;
While we sent our sturdy Bushmen, with a patriotic cheer,
To fight for sordid Jingoes under price.
We demand a White Australia and a fair and living wage,
But our principles are rather tinged with bosh;
For while at Asiatics we incontinently rage,
The Chinese laundry gathers in our wash.”[15]

James Jerome Kenneally (1871-1949) was an author, journalist, and trade union organiser, who is best known for his book about the bushranger Ned Kelly and his gang, The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and Their Pursuers (1929). He was an early member of the Victorian Labor Party, was instrumental in the opening of branches of the party in farming communities, served on the party’s central executive (becoming junior vice-president), and stood as an unsuccessful Labor candidate in the federal elections of 1906 and 1910. The Bulletin (Sydney) described him as “a pioneer of the A.L.P.”[16]

The views of J. J. Kenneally regarding a White Australia were outlined at an election meeting in Yea (Vic.), in 1906, as reported in The Yea Chronicle:

“In keeping out foreign or alien people we were preserving our own race, and not running the risk of reducing our own standard of purity … We should keep Australia for the Australians.”[17]

Kenneally also gave his views on a White Australia at an election meeting in Broadford (Vic.), in 1906, reported in The Broadford Courier and Reedy Creek Times:

“They lived in a British community and it was their desire to maintain it so. They should refuse citizenship to those of a lower standing than themselves. Let us build up a pure and self-reliant community. Let them look at the present existing state of things in America. There, there were all colors, from the half-cast to the skew-bald. Let them then take a lesson from the American state and enact laws that would prevent aliens from landing on our shores.”[18]

William Baylebridge (1883-1942), who was an author, poet, and philosopher, was regarded by some literary commentators as being one of the leading Australian writers of his time. He was also a supporter of a White Australia.[19]

In National Notes, Baylebridge advocated a form of eugenics as a path to national revival, along with racialism, socialism, and democracy, as can be seen from the following quotations:

“The fit, encouraged to marry early and have large families, should breed down the less fit in a few generations.

… A false sympathy has cried ‘Halt!’ to almost every form of racial purification … by suspending fit selection, by subverting or decreasing the effect of those factors that automatically purge the State of degenerates, mental and physical.

… With us, race-preservation, and race-betterment, would become efficient ideas.

… To-morrow, if we will, we set about breeding man as a political animal.

It may be right, on grounds other than sentiment, to preserve a White Australia. No strong and permanent civilisation, perhaps, can be built up now on the labour of slaves — and to us nationally any other status for coloured races here would mean death.

… Our democracy would be an aristocracy of the efficient. Our socialism would be a socialism among equals.”[20]

The examples given above should provide an idea of the wide support given to the idea of a White Australia in the early days of the nation’s history.

References:

[1] “Going North: About the East: Some reflections: The coloured invasion of Australia: The battle of Thursday Island”, The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, NSW), 31 August 1901, p. 7

[2] “A Bushman’s Song”, in: Andrew Barton Paterson, The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1896, pp. 125-128
Clement Semmler, “Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson (1864–1941)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
“Banjo Paterson”, Wikipedia

[3] “scabby adj.1”, Green’s Dictionary of Slang
“scabby adj.2”, Green’s Dictionary of Slang
Caroline Bologna, “Where Did The Term ‘Scab’ Come From? Is the labor union term related to its definition of a crusty formation over a wound? We unpack the history”, HuffPost [The Huffington Post], 25 August 2023

[4] Henry Lawson, “Australia’s Peril [The Warning]”, All Poetry
Brian Matthews, “Henry Lawson (1867–1922)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
“Henry Lawson”, Wikipedia

[5] Henry Lawson, “To Be Amused”, The Worker (Sydney, NSW), 8 March 1906, p. 7

[6] Henry Lawson, “Ah Soon: A Chinese-Australian story”, The Lone Hand (Sydney, NSW), 1 August 1912, pp. 324-328
Also published in: Leonard Cronin (editor), A Fantasy of Man: Henry Lawson: Complete Works 1901-1922, Sydney: Lansdowne, 1984, pp. 500-503

[7] “The revenges of time and a question of color”, The Worker (Sydney, NSW), 9 April 1908, p. 9

[8] “The race and the alien”, The Worker (Sydney, NSW), 16 April 1908, p. 7

[9] “How will this affect us?”, The Worker (Sydney, NSW), 6 May 1909, p. 15

[10] M. Gilmore, “Christian Russ and pagan Jap”, The Clipper (Hobart, Tas.), 16 April 1904, p. 3

[11] Mary Gilmore, “The white man’s flag”, The Australian Worker (Sydney, NSW), 22 April 1920, p. 9

[12] “ Edward ”, The Worker (Brisbane, Qld.), 16 August 1917, p. 5
Geoffrey Serle, “Edward Vivian (Vance) Palmer (1885–1959)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
“Vance Palmer”, Wikipedia

[13] “A mingled yarn”, The Sun (Kalgoorlie, WA), 31 March 1901, p. 4 [includes the poem “A White Australia” by Dryblower]
“Verse — and Worse”, The West Australian Sunday Times (Perth, WA), 7 July 1901, p. 4 [includes the poem “Strikes” by Dryblower]
“Verse — and Worse”, The West Australian Sunday Times (Perth, WA), 12 January 1902, p. 9 [includes the poem “Broken Resolutions” by Dryblower]
Dryblower, “The Aliens”, The Sunday Times (Perth, WA), 8 May 1904, p. 4
Dryblower, “Whoffor?”, The Sunday Times (Perth, WA), 17 September 1911, p. 1
Arthur L. Bennett, “Murphy, Edwin Greenslade (Dryblower) (1866–1939)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
“Edwin Greenslade Murphy”, Wikipedia

[14] Dryblower, “The Aliens”, The Sunday Times (Perth, WA), 8 May 1904, p. 4

[15] “Verse — and Worse”, The West Australian Sunday Times (Perth, WA), 7 July 1901, p. 4 [includes the poem “Strikes” by Dryblower]

[16] “Personal items”, The Bulletin (Sydney, NSW), 9 March 1949, p. 18, column 4 (in the “Into the Silence” section) [“a pioneer of the A.L.P.”]
“Obituary: Mr. J. J. Kenneally”, Benalla Ensign (Benalla, Vic.), 25 February 1949, p. 6 [“He was 78, and was born at Gaffney’s Creek”]
“J. J. Kenneally”, Wikipedia

[17] “Federal Elections: Mernda: Mr J. J. Kenneally (Labour) at Yea”, The Yea Chronicle (Yea, Vic.), 13 September 1906, pp. 2-3

[18] “Mernda electorate”, The Broadford Courier and Reedy Creek Times (Broadford, Vic.), 7 September 1906, p. 3

[19] “T.I.M., “National Notes”, The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, NSW), 17 October 1936, p. 13 (“He ranks in the first half-dozen of Australian poets”)
A.G., “Contemporary Australian Poets: William Baylebridge: Philosophy in poetry”, The Age (Melbourne, Vic.), 12 July 1941, p. 14 (“in many ways, William Baylebridge is one of the most outstanding of Australian poets”)
W. Farmer Whyte, “William Baylebridge: Poet and prophet”, The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, NSW), 22 May 1943, p. 7 (“one of the greatest poets Australia has produced”)
“William Baylebridge”, My Poetic Side (“was one of the leading writers of his age”)
“William Baylebridge: Australian writer”, Encyclopædia Britannica (“poet and short-story writer considered one of the leading writers of Australia in his day.”)
Nancy Bonnin, “Baylebridge, William (1883–1942)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
“William Baylebridge”, Wikipedia