Introduction by Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver

Miles Franklin’s 1942 homage to Henry Lawson was the twentieth annual commemorative speech to this revered Australian author. Each year after his death admirers, family members and friends of Lawson would get together in Melbourne and Sydney to give speeches and celebrate his legacy. But the question of where to commentate him needed to be resolved. In 1927 the renowned local artist George W. Lambert submitted a model for a bronze statue of the author to the Henry Lawson Memorial Committee. Money was raised and the statue was commissioned: it shows a lithe Lawson in baggy trousers and rolled-up sleeves, possibly reciting to an audience, with a swagman sitting on one side and a sheep dog on the other.