Heritage1206_Noteworthy Mary Gilmore.pdf - Australian Heritage ...

Noteworthy People
were to have the greatest influence on
her life – William Lane, the founder of
New Australia, the socialist
community in Paraguay; Louisa
Lawson, who was friendly with her
mother; and through Louisa, her son,
Henry Lawson. A strong attachment
grew between Mary and Henry and,
according to Mary, “he said he fell in
love with me at first sight”.
The two spent much time in each
other’s company, and Henry
introduced Mary to the poorer
working class areas of Sydney
including the Rocks area.
He used to take me out to see the
wrong things, the things repressive of
the rights of Australia; the things like
a blot upon her and which prevented
her being herself – the low wage
workers, the Chinamen working at
treadle-saws in underground cellars lit
only by a grating in the street, the
huddled houses by the old Argyle Cut,
and the Rocks where women hung
their washing out on the roof and
from the windows, and where pale
seamstresses sewed at a foot or a hand
machine from daylight till dark for a
few pence and, last but not least, the
mixture of blood and the neglected
children of the Quay and elsewhere.
Mary later wrote that Henry
proposed to her but she refused.
1890 was a tumultuous year for
Australia, with the growth of the
trade union movement and the
formation of employers’ groups
leading to the maritime strike which
spread across the nation in August of
that year. Foremost among the union
leaders was William Lane, an
Englishman who had emigrated in
1885 to Brisbane, where he worked as
a freelance journalist for mainstream
and workers’ publications, and
launched his own socialist newspaper,
The Boomerang.
He played a leading role in growing
the Queensland union movement and
edited the union newspaper, The
Worker. Following the collapse of the
Shearers’ Strike in 1891, and
disillusioned with the entrenched
social and economic divide in
Australia, Lane and a handful of other
socialists founded The ‘New Australia
Cooperative Settlement Association’
with the aim of creating a utopian
communist society.
The group decided it would be
necessary to leave Australia and
Paraguay was settled upon when a
parcel of land was offered by the
Paraguayan government on condition
that a minimum number of people
settled there. The Association set
about attracting recruits to the new
colony and acquiring a ship, the Royal
Tar, to transport them.
It was in 1892 that Mary Cameron
met and was evidently deeply
impressed by William Lane.
Earnest, strong in conviction,
generous-hearted and tender-hearted.
A man to whom Truth is more than
all else – not only truth in word and
deed but in the fulfillment of creation.
….A man with whom utter kindliness
abides. It is good to have touched his
hand.
When the headquarters of the New
Australia Co-operative Settlement
Association moved to Sydney in 1893,
Mary started writing for its journal,
New Australia. Meanwhile, somewhat
chaotic preparations were under way
for the first group of 220 emigrants to
be shipped to Paraguay, and they
finally set sail under Lane’s leadership
on 16 July 1893. Mary was unable to
join them as single women were
excluded from this first trip.
Over the following months, Mary
became a key protagonist for the new
settlement, but all was not well within
the emigrant community. Even during
the voyage, signs of discord emerged as
some of the settlers expressed
resentment at Lane’s strict moral code
and somewhat authoritarian attitude.
Things got worse after their arrival in
September and, by mid-December,
Lane had expelled three men for
breaking the temperance rule. By the
end of the year, more than a third of
the settlers had seceded. A second
group of 199 emigrants set out from
Adelaide on New Year’s Eve, arriving
in late February 1894, but their arrival
A group of people, including Mary Gilmore, at the New Australia Colony, Cosme, Paraguay, 1890s. Photograph; 10.1 x 15.5 cm. National Library of
Australia, nla.pic-an24636968.
26 Australian Heritage