Nathaniel Walter Swan (or N. Walter Swan; 1834 – 31 July 1884) was an Irish-born Australian journalist and short-story writer.

Biography

He was born in

Monaghan Monaghan ( ; ) is the county town of County Monaghan, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It also provides the name of its Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish and Monaghan (barony), barony. The population of the town as of the 2016 census was 7 ...

, Ireland, and was said to be educated at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

. In the 1850s he travelled to

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

in Australia, to take part in the gold rush in the colony; he had some success with a claim in Sandhurst. On his way to Melbourne after abandoning gold-digging, he met the writer

Henry Kingsley Henry Kingsley (2 January 1830 – 24 May 1876) was an English novelist, brother of the better-known Charles Kingsley. He was an early exponent of muscular Christianity in an 1859 work, ''The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn''. Life Kingsley wa ...

, spending a few days with him shortly before Kingsley's return to England. He was also friends with

Marcus Clarke Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke (24 April 1846 – 2 August 1881) was an English-born Australian novelist, journalist, poet, editor, librarian, and playwright. He is best known for his 1874 novel '' For the Term of His Natural Life'', about the c ...

and Henry Kendall. Settling in Ararat, Swan became editor of the local paper, the ''

Ararat Advertiser The ''Ararat Advertiser ''is a newspaper published in Ararat, Victoria, Australia. It is one of the oldest continuously operating newspapers in Victoria, second in age only to the '' Geelong Advertiser''. The paper is now published by Fairfax Med ...

''. In 1869 he moved to Stawell where he edited the ''Pleasant Creek News''. He sometimes attended the

Yorick Club The Yorick Club was a private social club in Lowell, Massachusetts, which twenty prominent young Lowell men founded in February 1882."History of Lowell and its people, Volume 1", p. 383, By Frederick William Coburn. The club went bankrupt in 1979 ...

in Melbourne. He wrote stories, some of which appeared in serial form in publications including ''

The Sydney Mail ''The Sydney Mail'' was an Australian magazine published weekly in Sydney. It was the weekly edition of ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' newspaper and ran from 1860 to 1938. History ''The Sydney Mail'' was first published on 17 July 1860 by Joh ...

'' and the Melbourne ''Australasian''.Ken Gelder, Rachel Weaver. ''Colonial Australian Fiction: Character Types, Social Formations and the Colonial Economy''. Sydney University Press, 2017. Page 97.
/ref> He wrote three books, one of which ''Luke Miver's Harvest'' was first published in 1879 in ''

''

as the winning entry in a literary competition which won Swan a prize of £100, in addition two collections of his stories were published: ''Tales of Australian Life'' (London, 1875) and ''A Couple of Cups Ago, and other stories'' (Melbourne, 1885). Swan's father was described as a linen merchant and his early education in Monaghan was under the tutorship of the

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

minister Reverend John Bleckley who had earlier been teacher to Charles Gavan Duffy. Swan had a son, Walter Blakely Swan, and it is thought that he honoured his teacher in his son's middle name. One of his obituarist's claimed that he had studied at the University of Glasgow but that University has no records of a student called N.W. Swan between 1850 and 1854, he may have attended Belfast's Royal Academical Institution but its records for the period have been lost. His wife was Mary Ellen O'Brien who was born in 1845 in

County Tipperary County Tipperary ( ga, Contae Thiobraid Árann) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary, and was established in the early 13th century, shortly after th ...

, they married in Ararat's

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

Church.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swan, Nathaniel Walter 1834 births 1884 deaths People from Monaghan (town) 19th-century Australian journalists 19th-century Australian male writers 19th-century Australian short story writers Irish emigrants to colonial Australia Alumni of the University of Glasgow Australian male journalists