"BANJO" PATERSON

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 31, 6 February 1941, Page 11

"BANJO" PATERSON

SYDNEY, February 5. The death has occurred of Mr. Andrew Barton Paterson, familiarly known as "Banjo" Paterson, whose poems and ballads of Australian bush life have made his name a household word throughout the Commonwealth. He was 76 years old.

Andrew Barton ("Banjo") Patterson was born in 1864. He studied law and practised as a solicitor until 1900, being admitted to the profession by the Supreme Court of New South Wales. When the Boer War began he obtained a commission from leading Australian newspapers, including the "Sydney Morning Herald," to represent them in the field and used his experience as a bushman (he was the son of a pastoralist) to great advantage. He rode to Mloemfontein ahead of the British Army and mobiUsed 4 the leading residents to surrender the town. During the SpanishAmerican War he went to the Philippines as war correspondent and later* covered the Boxer Rebellion. In the World War he enlisted and served first as an ambulance driver and then with the Remount Service. He edited several journals and was regarded as an authority on horses. His work in collecting old Australian bush songs and his own strongly Australian output (including "The Man from Snowy River") made him a nationally-famous and nationally-admired figure. Lattesy he lived at Double Bay, Sydney.