International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

A teacher, writer, and poet, Mary Jean Gilmore was a radical who joined William Lane in his establishment of New Australia in Paraguay in 1893. She later worked in Patagonia, then returned to Australia where she wrote for radical newspapers and composed poetry until she was well into her nineties. Mary Jean Cameron was born on August 16, 1865, at Mary Vale, Woodhouselee, near Goulbourn, New South Wales, the eldest child of Donald Cameron, a farmer, originally from Scotland, and Mary Ann (née Beattie), his Australian-born wife. Her father had migrated to Australia from Fort William in 1838, and her mother's family had come from County Armagh, Ireland, four years later. The two families took over adjoining properties. While Mary's father worked around Australia as a carpenter, mail contractor, and in various other occupations, her mother wrote for the Australian Town and Country Journal and the Daily Telegraph . Mary was raised in Sydney and then at Brucedale, near Wagga Wagga, where she first went to school. After attending Wagga Wagga Public School, she became a pupil-teacher and taught in a number of schools in remote settlements around New South Wales. She never remained at any school for long, but that was the nature of the positions she held. In 1890 she found work in Sydney at Neutral Bay Public School, during which time a romance between her and poet Henry Lawson probably ... log in or subscribe to read full text