Louisa Lawson
One of the female pioneers of early Australian Colonial poetry was Louisa Lawson, mother of Henry Lawson. Louisa was born into an educated family in Gulgong, New South Wales on February 17th 1848. She was married young to a man 35 years old nearly twice her senior. Henry was her first son and then two more boys followed by twin girls. One daughter died of cholera aged 8 months and one sone ran away from home. Her husband was a gold miner and she lived in bark huts on the goldfields and life wasn’t easy.
Louisa left her husband at the age of 35 and went to Sydney with her remaining children. Her husband died two years later leaving her a widow. She bought in independent journal, the Republican and then began the women’s rights publication the Dawn which she published 1888-1905, with the help of her son Henry and Gertrude.
In 1905 she retired and published her first book of poems The Lonely Crossing and Other Poems. Her history and complete poetry works is available in Louisa Lawson:Collected Poems 1996 Edited by Leonie Rutherford and Megan Roughly with Nigel Spence published by the University of New England Centre for Australian Language and Literature Studies.
Henry Lawson did have a mum
Louisa Lawson had a son
Votes for women was her goal
Henry drowned in alcohol
Both of them wrote poetry
Louisa Lawson and her son Henry
You can check out the Louisa Lawson Special below on Youtube if you want to hear some of her poetry and know more about her.
