Henry Lawson was born on the rural goldfields of New South Wales in 1867 and although he did not receive a very good formal education, one thing he did receive was plenty of books from his mother. At the early age of just 9 years Henry had an ear infection, which caused almost total deafness by the time he was 14. With his family almost continually living in the country, Lawson was exposed to the way of life of the bush and the tales and stories that ensued and he soon began penning short stories of the way of life and he became quite a popular writer of his time which encouraged him to devote more and more time to his obvious talent. As a very quite man by nature, Lawson soon gained confidence from his writing and found he was able to express his feelings in such a way that the general population related to, especially in a day when the reading of poetry and short stories was a most popular pastime. In the late 1880�s Henry became a regular contributor to the Bulletin and he regularly had his works, both poetry and short stories published and he soon built up a very strong following amongst readers. Even though he had a relatively unhappy life, especially in his younger years and later with a broken marriage, he was appreciative of others and often found time to help those less fortunate but never seemed to care for his own health an subsequently passed away at the age of just 55. He was so well thought of even at the time of his death that the Government of the day paid for his funeral service and burial.

Henry Lawson was a great Australian poet and author who was one of the earliest to accurately capture the Australian way of life and portray it in such a way as to be easily identified by ordinary people.