Dame Mary Jean Gilmore (née Cameron; 16 August 18653 December 1962) was an Australian writer and journalist known for her prolific contributions to

Australian literature Australian literature is the written or literary work produced in the area or by the people of the Commonwealth of Australia and its preceding colonies. During its early Western history, Australia was a collection of British colonies; as such, ...

and the broader national discourse. She wrote both prose and poetry. Gilmore was born in rural

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, and spent her childhood in and around the

Riverina The Riverina is an agricultural region of south-western New South Wales, Australia. The Riverina is distinguished from other Australian regions by the combination of flat plains, warm to hot climate and an ample supply of water for irrigation ...

, living both in small bush settlements and in larger country towns like

Wagga Wagga Wagga Wagga (; informally called Wagga) is a major regional city in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. Straddling the Murrumbidgee River, with an urban population of more than 56,000 as of June 2018, Wagga Wagga is the state's ...

. Gilmore qualified as a schoolteacher at the age of 16, and after a period in the country was posted to

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

. She involved herself with the burgeoning

labour movement The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other. * The trade union movement ...

, and she also became a devotee of the

utopian socialism Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen. Utopian socialism is often ...

views of William Lane. In 1893, Gilmore and 200 others followed Lane to

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to t ...

, where they formed the New Australia Colony. She started a family there, but the colony did not live up to expectations and they returned to Australia in 1902. Drawing on her connections in Sydney, Gilmore found work with ''

The Australian Worker ''The Australian Worker'' was a newspaper produced in Sydney, New South Wales for the Australian Workers' Union. It was published from 1890 to 1950. History The newspaper had its origin in ''The Hummer'', "Official organ of the Associated Ri ...

'' as the editor of its women's section, a position she held from 1908 to 1931. She also wrote for a variety of other publications, including '' The Bulletin'' and ''

The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...

'', becoming known as a campaigner for the welfare of the disadvantaged. Gilmore's first volume of poetry was brought out in 1910; she published prolifically for the rest of her life, mainly poetry but also memoirs and collections of essays. She wrote on a variety of themes, although the public imagination was particularly captured by her evocative views of country life. Her best known work is " No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest", which served as a morale booster during World War II. Gilmore's greatest recognition came in later life. She was the doyenne of the Sydney literary world, and became something of a national icon, making frequent appearances in the new media of radio and television. Gilmore maintained her prodigious output into old age, publishing her last book of verse in 1954, aged 89. Two years earlier she had begun writing a new column for the ''

Tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on th ...

'' (the official newspaper of the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...

), which she continued for almost a decade. Gilmore died at the age of 97 and was accorded a

state funeral A state funeral is a public funeral ceremony, observing the strict rules of protocol, held to honour people of national significance. State funerals usually include much pomp and ceremony as well as religious overtones and distinctive elements of ...

, a rare honour for a writer. She has featured on the reverse of the

Australian ten-dollar note The Australian ten-dollar note was issued when the currency was changed from the Australian pound to the Australian dollar on 14 February 1966; it replaced the £5 note, which included the same blue colouration. There have been four different is ...

since 1993.

Early life

Mary Jean Cameron was born on 16 August 1865 at the small settlement of Cotta Walla (modern-day Roslyn), just outside Crookwell, New South Wales. When she was one year old her parents, Donald Cameron, a farmer from Scotland, and Mary Ann Beattie, decided to move to

to join her maternal grandparents, the Beatties, who had moved there from

Penrith, New South Wales Penrith is a city in New South Wales, Australia, located in Greater Western Sydney, 55 kilometres (31 mi) west of the Sydney central business district on the banks of the Nepean River, on the outskirts of the Cumberland Plain. Its eleva ...

in 1866.W. H. Wilde (1983)
Gilmore, Dame Mary Jean (1865–1962)
''Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9''.

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies an ...

, Canberra, Australia. Her father obtained a job as a station manager at a property at Cowabbie, 100 km north of Wagga. A year later, he left that job to become a carpenter, building homesteads on properties in Wagga, Coolamon,

Junee Junee () is a medium-sized town in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. The town's prosperity and mixed services economy is based on a combination of agriculture, rail transport, light industry and government services, and in par ...

, Temora and

West Wyalong West Wyalong is the main town of the Bland Shire in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. Located west of Sydney and above sea level, it is situated on the crossroads of the Newell Highway between Melbourne and Brisbane, and th ...

for the next 10 years. This itinerant existence allowed Mary only a spasmodic formal education; however, she did receive some on their frequent returns to Wagga, either staying with the Beatties or in rented houses. Her father purchased land and built his own house at Brucedale on the Junee Road, where they had a permanent home. She was then to attend, albeit briefly, Colin Pentland's private Academy at

North Wagga Wagga North Wagga Wagga (informally called North Wagga) is an inner northern suburb of Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia, located on the floodplain of the Murrumbidgee River, directly across from the city's Central Business District. North Wagga ...

and, when the school closed, transferred to Wagga Wagga Public School for two and a half years. At 14, in preparation to become a teacher, she worked as an assistant at her uncle's school at Yerong Creek. Another uncle, Charles White (1845–1922), was a journalist and author of books on

bushranger Bushrangers were originally escaped convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who used the bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term had evolved to refer to those who took up " robbery unde ...

s. After completing her teaching exams in 1882, she accepted a position as a teacher at Wagga Wagga Public School, where she worked until December 1885. After a short teaching spell at Illabo she took up a teaching position at Silverton near the mining town of

Broken Hill Broken Hill is an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia. It is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Highway (B79), in the Barrier Range. It ...

. There Gilmore developed her socialist views and began writing poetry.

Literary career

In 1890, she moved to Sydney, where she became part of the " ''Bulletin'' school" of radical writers. Although the greatest influence on her work was

Henry Lawson Henry Archibald Hertzberg Lawson (17 June 1867 – 2 September 1922) was an Australian writer and bush poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial perio ...

it was Alfred "A. G." Stephens, literary editor of ''The Bulletin'', who published her verse and established her reputation as a fiery radical poet, champion of the workers and the oppressed. She had a relationship with Henry Lawson that probably began in 1890. She writes of an unofficial engagement and Lawson's wish to marry her, but it was broken by his frequent absences from Sydney. The story of the relationship is told in the play "All My Love", written by

Anne Brooksbank Anne Mary Brooksbank (born 1943) is an Australian writer. She has written a number of novels as well as scripts for film and TV. She teaches screenwriting at The Australian Film Television and Radio School. Personal life She was born in Melbour ...

. She followed William Lane and other socialist idealists to

in 1896, where they had established a communal settlement called New Australia two years earlier. At Lane's breakaway settlement Cosme she married William Gilmore in 1897. By 1900 the socialist experiment had clearly failed. Will left to work as a shearer in Argentina and Mary and her two-year-old son Billy soon followed, living separately in Buenos Aires for about six months, and then the family moved to Patagonia until they saved enough for a return passage, via England, in 1902 to Australia, where they took up farming near

Casterton, Victoria Casterton is a town in Victoria, Australia, located on the Glenelg Highway, 42 kilometres east of the South Australian border, in the Shire of Glenelg. The Glenelg River passes through the town. Casterton is named after the village of Caste ...

. Gilmore's first volume of poetry was published in 1910, and for the ensuing half-century she was regarded as one of Australia's most popular and widely read poets. In 1908 she became women's editor of '' The Worker'', the newspaper of then Australia's largest and most powerful trade union, the

Australian Workers' Union The Australian Workers' Union (AWU) is one of Australia's largest and oldest trade unions. It traces its origins to unions founded in the pastoral and mining industries in the 1880s and currently has approximately 80,000 members. It has exe ...

(AWU). She was the union's first woman member. ''The Worker'' gave her a platform for her journalism, in which she campaigned for the preservation of the White Australia Policy, better working conditions for working women, for children's welfare and for a better deal for the

indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

Later life

By 1931, Gilmore's views had become too radical for the AWU, but she soon found other outlets for her writing. She later wrote a regular column for the

's newspaper ''Tribune'', although she was never a party member herself. In spite of her somewhat controversial politics, Gilmore accepted appointment as a Dame Commander of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

in 1937, becoming Dame Mary Gilmore. She was the first person to be granted the award for services to literature. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, she wrote stirring patriotic verse such as '' No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest''. In her later years, Gilmore, separated from her husband, moved to Sydney, and enjoyed her growing status as a national literary icon. Before 1940, she published six volumes of verse and three editions of prose. After the war, Gilmore published volumes of memoirs and reminiscences of colonial Australia and the literary giants of 1890s Sydney, thus contributing much material to the mythologising of that period. Dame Mary Gilmore died in 1962, aged 97, and was accorded the first

for a writer since the death of

in 1922.

Recognition and legacy

Dobell's 1957 portrait of Dame Mary Gilmore was a finalist in that year's

Archibald Prize The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, the editor ...

, and can be seen in the

Art Gallery of NSW The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most importa ...

. In 1973 she was honoured on a postage stamp issued by

Australia Post Australia Post, formally the Australian Postal Corporation, is the government business enterprise that provides postal services in Australia. The head office of Australia Post is located in Bourke Street, Melbourne, which also serves as a post ...

. A park in West Pennant Hills, Sydney is named in her honour. The park hosts a large flag pole and Australian flag with the location historically being the location of a signal flag for communication between the early settlements of Parramatta and Windsor. The Canberra suburb of Gilmore, the state highway, Mary Gilmore Way, a federal electorate, the

Division of Gilmore The Division of Gilmore is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales. History The Division of Gilmore was created in 1984 when the House of Representatives was expanded, and was named after Dame Mary Gilmore, the poet ...

and Gilmore Crescent in the Canberra suburb of Garran are named in her honour. Gilmore's image appears on the third series Australian $10 note (since 2017), along with an illustration inspired by "No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest" and, as part of the copy-protection microprint, the text of the poem itself. The background of the illustration features a portrait of Gilmore by the well-known Australian artist Sir

William Dobell Sir William Dobell (24 September 189913 May 1970) was an Australian portrait and landscape artist of the 20th century. Dobell won the Archibald Prize, Australia's premier award for portrait artists on three occasions. The Dobell Prize is named ...

. She was the great-great aunt of politician and later prime minister Scott Morrison, who in 2012, on the 50th anniversary of her death, delivered a tribute to her in federal parliament. In September 2019, Gilmore's poem, " No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest" was read aloud by United States president

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

during a state dinner for Australia in the presence of prime minister Morrison.

Mary Gilmore Award

The Mary Gilmore Award was established in 1956 by the

Australian Council of Trade Unions The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), originally the Australasian Council of Trade Unions, is the largest peak body representing workers in Australia. It is a national trade union centre of 46 affiliated unions and eight trades and l ...

(ACTU) as the ACTU Dame Mary Gilmore Award, and after several incarnations with prizes awarded in several different categories, has been awarded as a poetry prize since 1985, by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature.

Bibliography

Poetry

* ''Two Songs'' (1905) * ''Marri'd and Other Verses'' (1910) * ''The Tale inks'' (1916) * ''Six Songs from the South'' (1916) * ''The Passionate Heart'' (1918) * ''The Hound of the Road'' (1922) * ''The Tilted Cart : A Book of Recitations'' (1925) * ''The Wild Swan : Poems'' (1930) * ''The Rue Tree : Poems'' (1931) * ''Under the Wilgas'' (1932) * ''

Battlefields A battlefield, battleground, or field of battle is the location of a present or historic battle involving ground warfare. It is commonly understood to be limited to the point of contact between opposing forces, though battles may involve troops ...

'' (1939) * ''Pro Patria and Other Poems'' (1944) * ''Selected Verse'' (1948) * '' Fourteen Men : Verses'' (1954) * ''Men of Eureka and Other Australian Songs'' (1954) * ''Verse for Children'' (1955) * ''Poems'' (1957) * ''Mary Gilmore'' edited by Robert D. Fitzgerald (1963) * ''Poems to Read to Young Australians'' (1968) * ''The Singing Tree : A Selection of Mary Gilmore's Poetry for Young Readers'' (1971) * ''The Collected Verse of Mary Gilmore'' edited by Jennifer Strauss (2004–07)

Individual poems

* " No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest" (1940)

Prose

* ''Old Days : Old Ways : A Book of Recollections'' (1934) * ''More Recollections'' (1935) * ''Letters of Mary Gilmore'' edited by W. H. Wilde and T. Inglis Moore (1980)

Notes

References

* * * Whitehead, Anne (2003) ''Bluestocking in Patagonia: Mary Gilmore's Quest for Love and Utopia at the World's End'', Allen & Unwin.