AustLit
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
Latest Issues
Notes
-
Author's note (1884 edition): Air-'Ballinamona oro.'
-
Author's note (1884 edition): Sung by me at the first ball given by the Governor, Sir James Stirling, in Perth. - G. F. M.
-
The first ball was held 3 September, 1831.
-
Moore included two explanatory notes at the end of the poem in the 1884 edition: the first note refers to the phrase 'No lions or tigers' in the first line of the final stanza and reads 'There are no ferocious beasts there. The timid kangaroo is the largest indigenous animal. Swans were so abundant on the river when first discovered as to give the name Swan River Settlement. I dare not say that I christened the colony, but certainly after the above song the name of Western Australia was adopted.' Note two refers to the phrase 'Our currency's' in the sixth line of the final stanza and reads 'There was much trouble then about a debased currency at the Cape of Good Hope and elsewhere.'
-
J. M. R. Cameron in The Millendon Memoirs (2006) notes that copies of the song were widely circulated. A copy was sent to relatives of the Tanner family, also Swan River colonists, in England and published in Joseph Cross's Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia (1833). It was known in India and seems also to have been published in an English or Irish newspaper. (37; 151; 190; 191)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 15 Sep 2017 14:22:04
Export this record