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AB (Banjo) Paterson, painting, oil on canvas, 90.5 x 84.3 cm, by John Longstaff – Winner: Archibald Prize 1935. Photo by John Longstaff.

Top 10 Astonishing Facts about Andrew Banjo Paterson

Andrew Banjo Paterson was an Australian bush poet, journalist, and author. Andrew is renown for the myriad poems he wrote about Australian life. In his poems, he mainly focused on the rural areas of Australia. This included the district around Binalong, New South Wales, where he spent much of his childhood.

While Andrew has written many poems, his celebrated poems include “Clancy of the Overflow” (1889), “The Man from Snowy River” (1890), and “Waltzing Matilda” (1895), regarded widely as Australia’s unofficial national anthem.

Andrew Banjo Paterson was born around Orange, New South Wales. He was born on 17 February 1864. His father was Andrew Bogle Paterson, a Scottish immigrant from Lanarkshire while his mother was Rose Isabella Barton. The Paterson’s lived an isolated life in Buckinbah Stationnear Yeoval NSW. Here are the Top 10 Astonishing Facts about Andrew Banjo Paterson.

1. He missed a scholarship to the University of Sydney

A plaque in the Sydney Writers Walk series at Circular Quay. Photo by
Snapandrattle33.

Andrew joined the Sydney Grammar School in 1874. He enrolled as a student and a sportsman. While here, Andrew sat for a test that was to determine his scholarship at the University of Sydney. He failed which led to him leaving the school at the age of 16.

2. He was once a solicitor

Andrew became a law clerk with a Sydney-based firm headed by Herbert Salwey. After working for a while, he became a solicitor in the same firm on 28th August 1886.

He was in a partnership with John William Street for close to 10 years. It is during these years that he also started writing. He began submitting and having his poetry published. They were published in The Bulletin, a literary journal with a nationalist focus.

3. His love for poetry was inspired by his grandmother

During his school days in Sydney Paterson lived at Gladesville with his widowed grandmother Emily May Barton. Emily May Barton was the sister of Sir John Davall. She was a well-read woman who fostered his love for poetry.

His first poem, ‘El Mahdi to the Australian Troops’, was published in the Bulletin in February 1885. The journal provided an important platform for Andrew’s work. The work appeared under the pseudonym ‘The Banjo’.

4. Andrew’s collection of poems was published in 1895

Andrew Barton “Banjo” Paterson, 1927, Agnes Noyes Goodsir, portrait in oils, State Library of New South Wales, ML 269. Photo by Agnes Noyes Goodsir.

By 1895, poems like ‘Clancy of the Overflow’, ‘The Geebung Polo Club’, ‘The Man from Ironbark’, ‘How the Favourite Beat Us’, and ‘Saltbush Bill’ was so popular with readers. Angus & Robertson decided to publish the collection, The Man From Snowy River, and Other Verses, in October.

The book had a remarkable reception: the first edition sold out in the week of publication and 7000 copies in a few months. The book received praises even in England. The Times compared Paterson with Rudyard Kipling who himself wrote to congratulate the publishers.

5. His piece ‘Waltzing Matilda came to be 5. Australia’s best-known folk song

Andrew wrote this piece in 1895 while on holiday in Queensland. During the time, he stayed with friends at Dagworth station, near Winton. The title was Australian slang for traveling on foot.

The song narrates the story of an itinerant worker, or “swagman”, making a drink of billy tea at a bush camp and capturing a stray jumbuck (sheep) to eat. The folk is so common that a museum has been dedicated to it, the Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton, in the Queensland outback.

6. Andrew was a war correspondent

In October 1899, Andrew Banjo Paterson became a war correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age during the Second Boer War. He worked with fellow war correspondents Winston Churchill and Rudyard Kipling as well as British army leaders Kitchener, Roberts, and Haig. He also was a correspondent during the Boxer Rebellion.

These are time stamps of his time of service as a journalist. He worked as an editor for the Sydney Evening News and the Town and Country Journal.

7. He was involved in a love triangle

Entrance to Banjo Paterson Park at Yass, New South Wales. Photo by Mattinbgn.

In January 1895, Banjo visited Dagworth Station in western Queensland. He’d come to pay his respects to his 铿乤nc茅e, Sarah Riley, who was visiting her friends the Macphersons. At this time, he had been engaged to Sarah for 8 years. Christina was Sarah’s best friend from schooldays. She was an attractive, bespectacled young lady with a musical bent.

She ended up writing musical notes for Andrew’s Waltzing Matilda. Andrew began to fall for her. After a while, Andrew left the home of the Macphersons in a hurry. His engagement to Sarah was also called off.

8. He married Alice Emily Walker

On 8 April 1903, he married Alice Emily Walker, of Tenterfield Station, in St Stephen’s Presbyterian Church. The Patersons had two children, Grace (born in 1904) and Hugh (born in 1906). They lived in Queenstreet, Woollahra.

9. Andrew died of a heart attack

Paterson died of a heart attack in Sydney on 5 February 1941 aged 76. He died after a short illness. On the night of his death, Vance Palmer broadcasted a tribute: ‘He laid hold both of our affections and imaginations; he made himself a vital part of the country we all know and love, and it would not only have been a poorer country but one far less united in bonds of intimate feeling, if he had never lived and written’. Paterson’s grave, along with that of his wife, is in the Northern Suburbs Memorial Gardens and Crematorium, Sydney.

10. His original name was Andrew Barton Paterson

Former home of Banjo Paterson, Punt Road, Gladesville, Sydney. Photo by Sardaka.

He was known as “Banjo” Paterson from his pen name. Andrew Barton Paterson got the name Banjo and attended a simple local bush school. He was a keen horse rider and took the nickname Banjo from his favorite horse of the same name.