Henry Lawson

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Australian writer and poet whose work focuses on the Australian bush. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period and is often called Australia's "greatest short story writer." Henry Lawson was the son of the poet, publisher and feminist Louisa Lawson. Around 1876 he suffered an ear infection which left him with partial deafness and by the age of fourteen he had lost his hearing entirely. Lawson's first published poem was 'A Song of the Republic' which appeared in The Bulletin, 1 October 1887. His most successful prose collection is While the Billy Boils, published in 1896. Also in 1896, he married Bertha Bredt Jr., daughter of Bertha Bredt, the prominent socialist. They had two children, son Jim (Joseph) and daughter Bertha. Henry Lawson died, of cerebral hemorrhage, in Abbotsford, Sydney on 2 September 1922. In 1949 Lawson was honoured as the subject of an Australian postage stamp. He was featured on the first (paper) Australian ten dollar note issued in 1966 when decimal currency was first introduced into Australia. Link to Wikipedia biography