14 Facts About Louisa Lawson

Louisa Lawson was an Australian poet, writer, publisher, suffragist, and feminist.

Louisa Lawson was the mother of the poet and author Henry Lawson.

Louisa Lawson was the second of 12 children in a struggling family, and like many girls at that time left school at 13.

Louisa Lawson grieved over the loss of Tegan for many years and left the care of her other children to the oldest child, Henry.

Louisa Lawson used the money saved while running her boarding houses to purchase shares in the radical pro-federation newspaper The Republican in 1887.

Around 1904, Louisa Lawson published her own volume, Dert and Do, a simple story of 18,000 words.

Louisa Lawson likely had a strong influence on her son's literary work in its earliest days.

In 1889, Louisa Lawson founded The Dawn Club, which became the hub of the suffrage movement in Sydney.

In 1891 the Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales formed to campaign for women's suffrage, and Louisa Lawson allowed the League to use The Dawn office to print pamphlets and literature free of charge.

When women were finally given the vote, in 1902 with the passing of the New South Wales Womanhood Suffrage Bill, Louisa Lawson was introduced to the members of Parliament as "The Mother of Suffrage in New South Wales".

Louisa Lawson retired in 1905 but continued to write for Sydney magazines and published The Lonely Crossing and Other Poems, a collection of 53 poems.

Louisa Lawson died on Thursday 12 August 1920, aged 72, after a long and painful illness in Gladesville Mental Hospital.

Louisa Lawson was posthumously inducted onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2001.

Louisa Lawson Building, in the Canberra suburb of Greenway, is named in her honour.