Andrew Barton Paterson was born on the 17th February 1864 in the township of Narambla, New South Wales. His Father, Andrew a scottish farmer from Lanarkshire. Young Andrew spent his formative years living at a station called “Buckenbah’ in the western districts of New South Wales. The land was unfenced; Dingo infested and was leased by his Father and Uncle from the Crown for a few pennies an acre.
The Boer War removed the decision making from Banjo as he was appointed War correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Melbourne based Argus.
Capetown was his next port of call, travelling there with the volunteer New South Wales Lancers in October 1899 aboard the troopship ‘Kent’.
His career as a journalist is well documented.His despatches from the Boer War and later the Boxer Rebellion in China were to provide invaluable details of the hardships of the men he travelled with. He travelled to London at the invitation of Rudyard Kipling and returned to Sydney in 1902. Later that year he travelled to Tenterfield NSW where he was to meet Alice Walker whom he was later to marry.
Andrew Barton Patterson (Barty to his parents), now known and loved as ‘Banjo’ or ‘A.B’ died in a Sydney private hospital on 5th February 1941.
He was 77.
"And the bush has friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes, and the rivers on its bars
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars"
from:
A.B. (Banjo) Patterson ‘ Clancy of the Overflow’
A B Banjo Paterson is still revered in Australia in modern times his poetry is often taught in schools around the country.
Acknowledgment to ‘The Banjo of the Bush’ by Clement Semmler (Lansdowne Press 1966)
