PATERSON Andrew Barton
solicitor, journalist, war correspondent, soldier, author and poet 1864-1941

Banjo Paterson was the eldest of seven children of Andrew Bogle Paterson grazier who migrated in 1850 to the Orange district, and Rose Isabella. He was educated at the bush school at Binalong and at Sydney Grammar School. He then served his articles, admitted as a solicitor in 1886, practicing in a partnership.

While at Sydney Grammar he lived at Gladesville with his grandmother Emily Barton, a well-read woman who fostered his love of poetry. His father had had verses published in the Bulletin, and Paterson began writing verses as a law student, adopting the pen name 'The Banjo' after a station horse. His ballads, published in The Man From Snowy River and Other Verses in 1895, brought him celebrity status at home and in England.

On outbreak of the Second Boer War he was commissioned by the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age as their war correspondent; Paterson sent graphic accounts of the major actions which resulted in his appointment by Reuters. His next assignment was for the Sydney Morning Herald in China in 1901, and after return left his legal practice to become editor of the Sydney Evening News. He also continued writing prose and poems, including a critique of the readiness of the new Commonwealth Military Forces, until 1908 when he moved unsuccessfully into grazing and farming.

On the outbreak of World War 1 he sailed for England, unsuccessfully seeking employment as a war correspondent on the Western Front, ending up driving an ambulance at the Australian Voluntary Hospital. Returning to Australia in 1915 he made three voyages as a vet with horses to Africa, China, and then Egypt where he was commissioned as a captain in 2 Remount Unit, then commanding as a major the Australian Remount Unit in Egypt and Palestine until repatriation in 1919. His literary efforts continued during this time.

Paterson resumed journalism with the Sydney Mail, Smith's Weekly and the Sydney Sportsman. Most of his poems were assembled in Collected Verse in 1923 but, after retiring from journalism in 1930, he continued to write and to assemble and publish his previous writings, including Happy Despatches, his war correspondent works, as well as becoming a radio broadcaster with the ABC.

On 1903 he married Alice Emily, daughter of W. H. Walker of Tenterfield station. His wife, daughter Grace and son Hugh survived him.