Bulletin Place

Bulletin Place runs between Pitt Street, and Macquarie Plce, just back from Circular Quay. This is where J. F. Archibald first published "The Bulletin" back in 1880, so one assumes this little alley was frequented by the likes of Henry Lawson, and Banjo Patterson. The land on which these 1880 warehouses stand, was part of a grant to Andrew Thompson on 1 January 1810. The survival of these three warehouses, all on shallow sites in a narrow street, retains a tiny part of an historic streetscape. Bulletin Place is situated on land reclaimed from the mouth of the Tank Stream, which runs in a stormwater drain beneath Pitt Street.

Queen Mary of The Claremont

Gilmore walked through this door for 30 years.

She must have been an infuriating woman to have known: imperious, always right, judgemental. Yet she infused those around her with an adoration, bordering on idolatry, most certainly obsequiousness, known in the parlance as 'brown-nosing'. Perhaps that comes with the territory: a life well-lived, well-wrung, that continues for well-nigh a century. And yet, I suspect, history will not judge her output with the esteem she, not craved so much, as expected, perhaps. I have read it critiqued as trivial doggerel.

Nationality

I have grown past hate and bitterness,
I see the world as one;
But though I can no longer hate,
My son is still my son.

All men at God's round table sit,
and all men must be fed;
But this loaf in my hand,
This loaf is my son's bread.

Gilmore in 1938, and in 1957

Mary lived a peripatetic life with her parents in the backblocks of what would become the Riverina of New South Wales, and prepared herself for a professional life as a teacher. However, moving to Sydney in 1890, she got in with the wrong crowd; Not really; She acreted a crowd around her; The writers and thinkers that made Archibald's 'Bulletin' a progressive rag. She claimed to have a relationship with Henry Lawson which, apparently, is difficult to verify. She was heavily involved with the Australian Workers' Union (AWU), and described herself, and was described by others, as a 'socialist'. She charged off to Paraguay on the fairy-tale-wonderment of William Lane's Cosme settlement, where she met Will Gilmore and gave birth to her only child, Billy (who died in 1945 leaving descendents). In 1912, Mary and Billy moved to Sydney, whilst Will moved to Cloncurry. They never cohabited again, although her ashes were taken to Cloncurry and included in Will's plot. Maybe, this following verse sheds a little light:

Eve- Song

I span and Eve span
A thread to bind the heart of man;
But the heart of man was a wandering thing
That came and went with little to bring:
Nothing he minded what we made,
As here he loitered, and there he stayed.
I span and Eve span
A thread to bind the heart of man;
But the more we span the more we found
It wasn't his heart but ours we bound.
For children gathered about our knees:
The thread was a chain that stole our ease.
And one of us learned in our children's eyes
That more than man was love and prize.
But deep in the heart of one of us lay
A root of loss and hidden dismay.

He said he was strong. He had no strength
But that which comes of breadth and length.
He said he was fond. But his fondness proved
The flame of an hour when he was moved.
He said he was true. His truth was but
A door that winds could open and shut.

And yet, and yet, as he came back,
Wandering in from the outward track,
We held our arms, and gave him our breast,
As a pillowing place for his head to rest.
I span and Eve span,
A thread to bind the heart of man.

Gilmore's Darlinghurst Road in 1950. She lived on the left in the middle-distance, whereas Dobell was on the right and further along.

The Kings Cross years were spent as a 'cultural icon', a much-loved grand dame, much like Margaret Olley whom Dobell painted who passed from amongst us in 2011. The 2BL studios of ABC-Radio were just down the road in William Street in those days, and she was a 'go-to opinion'. Here is just one verse, the final one, of a piece of interesting jingoism, which is scrawled across the $10 note which I showed you two days ago:

No Foe Shall Gather our Harvest

We are the sons of Australia,
of the men who fashioned the land;
We are the sons of the women
Who walked with them hand in hand;
And we swear by the dead who bore us,
By the heroes who blazed the trail,
No foe shall gather our harvest,
Or sit on our stockyard rail.

And here be the apartment block that Dame Mary Gilmore called home for all those years: The Claremont at 99 Darllinghurst Road which was built in 1927, and is now adjacent to the entry to the railway station. She was in apartment #2, which was at the rear, overlooking Earl Place. Not a nice outlook, nor conducive to creativity, necessarily. But she was in the thick of the bohemia for which 'The Cross' was celebrated. Indeed, she could almost be regarded as the honeypot.

The Tenancy

I shall go as my father went,
A thousand plans in his mind,
With something still held unspent,
When death let fall the blind.

I shall go as my mother went,
The ink still wet on the line;
I shall pay no rust as rent,
For the house that is mine.

Darlinghurst Road is littered with these footpath markers; indeed, the entire city seems to be littered with markers of one sort or another, but Darlinghurst Road is awash. I don't mind so much. But do EXPECT them to be ACCURATE! Dame Mary Gilmore was born in 1865 and died in 1962. Which made her 97.

Taphophile Tragics - A face in the gutter

This weekend just past, was the anniversary of Bloom's Day, that extraordinary 16th June 1904, described by James Joyce in 'Ulysses' where Joyce follows his hero, Leopold Bloom, around Dublin. I did not see any coverage of this at all in my own city. Usually I do, but just not this year.

Nor did I see any coverage of the 145th anniversary of the birth of Australia's own, Henry Lawson. But I expected this. Whereas the United States lauds the likes of Walt Whitman and Mark Twain, Australians cringe at the achievements of the likes of Lawson, and Banjo Paterson.

Left: Henry in 1881 aged 14; Right: Lawson in 1888 aged 21

Lawson was a sad, melancholic man, an alcoholic who was in and out of Darlinghurst gaol because his wife, Bertha, needed to be constantly at him for child support. How that helped is lost on me. Lawson wrote of the NSW countryside as he visited the rivers and lands west of the divide. But, in reality, he was a man of the city, of the industrialised inner-city where, even today, drunks and other addicts people the streets and the gutters.

Left: Henry in 1893 aged 26; Right: Lawson in 1910 aged 43

Lawson died in a tawdry boarding house in Abbotsford in the inner west of Sydney one bleak September day in 1922, aged just 55. He had been sitting up in bed writing with his stubby pencil, as was his want. He complained of discomfort, but upon attendance his doctor diagnosed nowt. An hour later, Lawson lay dead in a corner.

Of course, all and sundry wanted the glory of a funeral, but no-one wanted to pay for one. Eventually, the Prime Minister, Billy Hughes (similar in character to Lawson), agreed to a State Funeral, and made sure another tier of government paid for it. And I quote from Colin Roderick's biography:

Lawson's funeral took place on Monday 4th September. Throughout the morning, his open casket lay in the mortuary chapel (Wood Coffill at Camperdown), where hundreds of his friends filed past to take a last look at his face. Shortly after noon, the casket was taken to St Andrew's Cathedral,. On it was placed a bunch of native roses, and around them a spray of gum leaves, a cluster of golden wattle, and bush ferns. Magnificent wreaths lined the choir stalls and the alter rails. A score of Lawson's relations had materialised from beyond the horizon of his life. He was buried in Waverley Cemetery. And thirty five years later - in a final act of sentimental irony - Bertha's ashes went into the same grave.

This is my contribution to the Taphophile Tragics community.

Statues - Henry Lawson

Dare I make a bold claim about Henry Lawson? He is a writer much derided in his own land, yet much loved as well. He has not translated into the modern age very well, hasn't our Henry. He was a product of this land, at that time - for much of the 19th century, the country called Australia did not exist. We were just a collection of independent states.

So the bold claim? Henry Lawson is to Australia as Mark Twain is the the United States. What about Banjo Paterson I hear the pundits splutter? Or C.J. Dennis or Adam Lindsay Gordon, or Henry Kendall I hear interjected from the bleechers!


Lawson almost single-handedly defined the mythical Australian in his landscape. He created the ideal of the sun-burnt battler humping his bluey around the outback blocks of this state, living off his wits and ever sus of them city-folk in their finery with their fancy ideas.


Lawson was prolific in the period before the demon drink got her claws into him. He was well served by George Robertson (of the booksellers, Angus & Robertson), and by J.F. Archibald (editor of The Bulletin). He also had Banjo looking out for his legal interests. Mainly two women, his mother and his wife, who always gave him curry. Every time Henry was locked in the clink or dead-drunk in the gutter, his mates would hand the hat around, and Henry would live to write another day.

Lawson's journal, exhibited in the Centenary '100' by the State Library of NSW

Try but two of his short stories: 'The Loaded Dog', and 'The Drover's Wife' to get the flavour of his definiton of life in this wide, brown land.

As for his poetry, I have already posted 'Faces in the Street', and 'One Hundred and Three'. Seek out 'The Roaring Days', and 'A Voice from the City'.

It is ironic that this statue puts Lawson on a pedestal - that is the last place he would want to be. But one calm, starry night wander through Sydney Hospital, across the Domain and down Mrs Macquarie's Road. Just as the loop divides, in the centre beneath a gum-tree, there you will find Henry, his dog, his mate and his swag ready to entertain you with ballads from a land that maybe no longer exists, if it ever did.

Portrait of Henry Lawson, painted in 1913 by Florence Rodway, held by the State Library of NSW