NEWSLETTER 32 / 2014

Frank the Poet A Convict’s Tour to Hell

the Australian Dictionary Here are two excerpts from ‘The of Biography has him dying Convict’s Tour to Hell’ which appear in 1861. MacNamara’s to give a nod to Stroud and the A A year of death is confirmed Company. as 1861 in the report of his death. Interestingly, Nor can the foremost of the sons in this report it is noted of men that MacNamara was also Escape my ribald and licentious pen known as Hill. You prisoners of , Who frequent watchhouses and Frank wrote poetry and gaols songs. There is some A story to you I will tell contention around the idea ‘Tis of a convict’s tour to hell. of MacNamara ‘writing’ poetry and songs as he is believed to have been …. illiterate, but someone This edition of the Pioneer will take a brief with a good memory who Postrate I beheld a petitioner look at the life of Stroud’s first poet. could recite his own work. He is well known It was the Company’s for one particular piece written during his Commissioner As we know, Stroud was settled by the time in Stroud. MacNamara wrote ‘The Satan said he my days are ended Australian Agricultural Company (A A Convict’s Tour to Hell’, while working as For many years I’ve superintended Company) and employed a large number of a shepherd at Stroud in October 1839. The An. Company’s affairs convicts. One of our convicts was “Frank the MacNamara’s work was enjoyed by the And I punctually paid all arrears Poet”, or Francis MacNamara. McNamara’s convicts due to ‘their spirited opposition Sir should you doubt the hopping ‘Company’ name was ‘Goddard’. He was to the ‘System’’. You can find MacNamara’s Colonel work in many publications including Stroud known by other names as well. At Carrington you’ll find my journal Writer’s Idylls Along the Karuah and in Legibly penned in black and white an album of Frank’s work put to music by MacNamara arrived in on 8 To prove that my accounts were a collection of musicians, Banished Now September 1832 from Ireland after being right sentenced for seven years for stealing. He from my Native Shore: The Works of Frank And since I’ve done your will on was a repeat offender in Australia, receiving the Poet. In the late 1970s, folklorists Rex earth many lashes and being sent from place to Whalan and John Meredith pieced together place, ending up in Stroud during 1838-39. the poems and true identity of Frank I hope you’ll put me in a berth In 1849 he received his ticket of freedom the Poet from information found in oral Then I saw old Sergeant Flood from Tasmania. MacNamara was believed to histories, family albums, and libraries on In Vulcan’s hottest forge he stood have died in Sydney around 1853. However, the east coast of Australia. He gazed at me his eyes with ire

This information was obtained from the following sources: Mark Gregory, ‘Frank the Poet’, accessed at http://frankthepoet.blogspot.com.au/ on 5 June 2014. Obituaries Australia, Francis MacNamara, accessed at http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/macnamara-francis-13073 on 5 June 2014. Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed at http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/macnamara-francis-13073 on 5 June 2014. Stobie Sounds Pozible Project: Banished Now From My Native Shore, accessed at http://www.pozible.com/project/4403 on 7 June 2014.

Written by Sharon Burke (2014).

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