20 Facts About Charles Harpur

Charles Harpur was an Australian poet and playwright.

Charles Harpur had been sentenced to transportation for highway robbery in March 1800; at the time of Harpur's birth, he was parish clerk and master of the Windsor district school.

Charles Harpur presumably went to school in Windsor, but little information about his education is available.

Charles Harpur would continue to publish in newspapers throughout his life, eventually publishing hundreds of works in this manner.

In Sydney, Charles Harpur worked as a clerk and letter-sorter in the Post Office, while pursuing a career in the theatre.

Charles Harpur acted in three plays at the Theatre Royal in October 1833: The Mutiny at the Nore by Douglas Jerrold, The Miller and His Men by Isaac Pocock, and The Tragedy of Chrononhotonthologos, a farce.

Charles Harpur's acting career ended ignominiously, when he unsuccessfully sued Barnett Levey, the proprietor of the Theatre Royal, for unpaid wages.

Charles Harpur had left Sydney two years before and was farming with a brother on the Hunter River.

Charles Harpur held the position for eight years and had a farm at Eurobodalla.

Charles Harpur found that his duties prevented him from supervising the work on the farm and it became a bad investment.

In 1866, Charles Harpur's position was abolished at a time of retrenchment, and in March 1867 he had a great sorrow when his second son was killed by the accidental discharge of his own gun.

Charles Harpur contracted tuberculosis in the hard winter of 1867, and died on 10 June 1868.

Charles Harpur was buried on his property, "Euroma", beside the grave of his son.

Charles Harpur was survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters.

In 1988, as part of Australia's bicentennial celebrations, a plaque was laid at the site of Charles Harpur's grave, describing him as "Australia's first native born poet".

Charles Harpur continually revised, redrafted and republished his works throughout his life, creating an "editorial nightmare".

In 'gothicising' poems such as "The Creek of the Four Graves", Charles Harpur depicts the Australian landscape as dark, strange, wild and exotic.

Charles Harpur underpinned his nature poetry with a sophisticated theory of natural description.

The first principle was personal experience: in his poetry, Charles Harpur describes the Australian bush based on his own observations and interactions with Aboriginal people.

Charles Harpur accurately describes the appearance and behaviour of many bird species in his poetry, for example, and refers to animals by their Indigenous names.