Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Louisa Lawson, (mother of Henry Lawson), her son Charles William (born 25 June 1869) and her sister Phoebe Albury, (dressmaker), outside Mrs. Albury's dressmaking shop, Gulgong area?

Louisa Lawson, (mother of Henry Lawson), her son Charles William (born 25 June 1869) and her sister Phoebe Albury, (dressmaker), outside Mrs. Albury's dressmaking shop, Gulgong area?

1872
Glass photonegative

Louisa Lawson (mother of author Henry Lawson), her son Charles William and her sister Phoebe Albury (dressmaker), stand outside Mrs Albury's dressmaking shop in the Gulgong area. Henry Lawson lived at Gulgong as a young boy and his 1889 poem, ‘Roaring Days‘, is a nostalgic ode to the gold rush days. The same year Louisa launched the campaign for female suffrage and announced the formation of the Dawn Club.

From the Australian Town and Country Journal, 12 October 1889

The Australian bushwoman, as described by Mrs. Louisa Lawson, of Sydney, in the Boston (U.S.A.) WOMAN'S JOURNAL, recently, is thin, wiry, flat-chested, and sun-burned. She lives on meat; sometimes she does not even eat bread with it. She rarely sees vegetables; and no costly bouquet of orchids could surprise and delight a city dame as much as a cabbage would gratify and amaze a bushwoman. She is healthy and full of vigor; but it is a leathery, withered, sun-dried health.  You would call her a poor starveling in appearance if you contrasted her with one of the fair, fresh-looking, plump, city women, whom two hours' walking would utterly exhaust. The bushwoman's husband, if he be also Australian born, is, like herself, spare and wiry. He has a tendency to leave her to manage the business ; and he is rather indolent and neglectful. He will sit with others talking while she, a thin rag of a woman, drags two big buckets of water from the creek ; and if he stands by while she chops the wood, he sees no unfitness in the arrangement. [Australian Town and Country Journal, 12 October 1889]