Monday, September 04, 2006

Wind out audibly the whispers...



This modest lavender and rosemary filled reserve in Harnett St is dedicated to the memory of Louisa Lawson - writer, publisher & feminist (1848-1920). She lived in Renwick St Marrickville - some of the sandstone from her (now demolished) house was used to build one of the walls in this park. There's a mural by Cynthia Turner laid out on the ground in the middle of the reserve that celebrates Lawson's journal 'The Dawn'. The publication was intended to be a 'phonograph to wind out audibly the whispers, pleadings and demands of the sisterhood'.



Half of Australian women's lives are unhappy, but there are paths out of most labyrinths and we will set up finger posts ... we shall welcome contributions and correspondence from women ... it is not a new thing to say there is no power in the world like that of women.
Louisa Lawson, The Dawn, Issue 1


See my flickr account for more in this set of photos.
See Wilson's Almanac for more on Lawson and 'The Dawn'.



Please don't leave a comment telling me she was Henry Lawson's mother.

4 comments:

Cressida said...

Who is Henry Lawson?

Meredith Jones said...

Damn, and I didn't want it to be about him... Famous poet, sometime beggar, terrible drunk, Australian kids have to memorise his verses at primary school -

"There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses — he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray."

And, he was Louisa Lawson's son!

Anonymous said...

alas the lines you quote are from The man from Snowy River - by Banjo Patterson.

Lawson is "The squatter saw his pastures wide decrease as one by one/ the farmers moving from the west selected on his run."

Louisa is much more admirable though, and has a much nicer garden.

I once met her great grand daughter, which is totally irrelevant to anything at all.

Meredith Jones said...

hehehe (red face),

what a hopeless Australian scholar I am!

thank you.