Dame Mary Gilmore, one of the two contributors to this sheet music , was a proud and fierce Australian whose adventurous life included strong involvement in labour organisations , time in the New Australia settlement in Paraguay in the 1890s where she married a Victorian shearer , writing poetry for The Bulletin and editing for more than two decades the Women's Page of the Sydney Worker campaigning for the welfare of the young, old , sick and helpless during which she frequently expressed disgust at privilege and corruption in high places .
After the fall of Singapore to the Japanese , Dame Mary, who now appears with "Banjo" Paterson on the $10 note , wrote a defiant poem No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest ,which appeared in the Australian Women's Weekly.
In 1952, nearly 90, she wrote to a Darwin newspaper recalling how she and a baby brother had accompanied her father and mother on an epic trip in a two horse spring cart from Sydney to Brisbane , into the Northern Territory , Arnhem Land and back via Ayers Rock, Lake Eyre , Mount Gambier and Melbourne to Sydney .
She added that she admired the work of Bill Harney for Aborigines and recalled that when she was a teacher at a school in Neutral Bay, Sydney, she had taught Jessie Litchfield, Darwin journalist , editor and author , who financially backed historian Glenville Pike to launch the North Australian Monthly,for which she also wrote .
After the fall of Singapore to the Japanese , Dame Mary, who now appears with "Banjo" Paterson on the $10 note , wrote a defiant poem No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest ,which appeared in the Australian Women's Weekly.
In 1952, nearly 90, she wrote to a Darwin newspaper recalling how she and a baby brother had accompanied her father and mother on an epic trip in a two horse spring cart from Sydney to Brisbane , into the Northern Territory , Arnhem Land and back via Ayers Rock, Lake Eyre , Mount Gambier and Melbourne to Sydney .
She added that she admired the work of Bill Harney for Aborigines and recalled that when she was a teacher at a school in Neutral Bay, Sydney, she had taught Jessie Litchfield, Darwin journalist , editor and author , who financially backed historian Glenville Pike to launch the North Australian Monthly,for which she also wrote .
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Dame Mary, in black , is seated with Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira .To his right is ALP identity Dr H. V. Evatt and author Frank Clune's wife, Thelma . National Library of Australia photograph.
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Joan Mackaness , a soprano ,who wrote the lyrics for the other song, was the daughter of George Mackaness, a leading literary identity and massive Australian book collector who mixed with Dame Mary Gilmore . Marjorie Hesse,a prominent pianist, lectured at the NSW Conservatorium of Music .
The sheet music , in the Little Darwin Collection ,once belonged to prominent Adelaide baritone Ansbert Campbel l , said to possess a beautiful operatic voice , active in the l930s , who took part in WW11 fund raising concerts , Christmas Carols and judged amateur shows .
