About this record

This is a black-and-white photograph of Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson taken in the late 1930s. In the photograph Paterson has a pipe in his mouth and is looking downwards at a piece of paper that he is holding in both hands. He wears a high collar, dark tie, light-coloured three-piece suit and a hat. The bottom right of the photograph has been signed 'AB Paterson'.

Educational value

• This signed photograph shows Australian poet 'Banjo' Paterson (1864–1941) at a time when he had become one of the country’s most celebrated poets and public speakers. His poetry was immensely popular and had helped define an aspect of our national character in the decade before Federation. His depiction of the 'bushman' as resourceful, tough and independent with a self-deprecating humour was seen by many as the epitome of the Australian male.
• Paterson's depictions of life in the Australian bush often emphasised humour, excitement and the beauty of nature, in contrast with another prominent poet of the era, Henry Lawson, whose works emphasised the hardship and struggle of bush life. Paterson's early poems Clancy of the Overflow (1889) and The Man from Snowy River (1890) established him as a writer of fluent, entertaining verse that caught the popular imagination.
• Banjo Paterson is also famous for writing, with Christina Macpherson, Australia's most popular folk song, Waltzing Matilda, regarded by many even today as the unofficial national anthem. Written in 1895 in central Queensland and set to a traditional Celtic tune, it tells the story of a swagman who steals a sheep and is caught by troopers (police), but throws himself into a billabong (waterhole), preferring death to captivity. It was published in sheet-music form in 1903.
• Although Paterson was born in rural New South Wales and spent his early childhood surrounded by the characters and rural landscape he later wrote about, he was educated at Sydney Grammar School from the age of 10 and later practised as a solicitor in Sydney. During the 1890s he was one of a group of famous writers and intellectuals who promoted a nationalistic view of Australia in the pages of the Bulletin.
• Paterson served as a war correspondent during the Boer War. During World War I he tried unsuccessfully to serve as a war correspondent. Later, his skills in veterinary medicine saw him commissioned as an officer in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), where he was quickly promoted to the rank of Major, serving until 1919.
• Paterson was celebrated as a leading figure in Australian literature throughout his adult life, and his reputation continued to grow in the decades after his death in 1941. His life and achievements are commemorated on the Australian $10 note, on which part of The Man from Snowy River is reproduced.
• This photograph is a 1985 copy of the 1930s original.