Isobel Marion Dorothea Mackellar (better known as Dorothea Mackellar), OBE born 1 July 1885 was an Australian poet and fiction writer. Her poem My Country is perhaps the best known Australian poem, especially its second stanza, which begins: "I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains." ...
The only daughter of noted physician and parliamentarian Sir Charles Mackellar, she was born in
Sydney in 1885. Although she was raised in a professional urban family, Mackellar's poetry is usually regarded as quintessential bush poetry, inspired by her experience on her brothers' farms near Gunnedah, in the north-west of New South Wales.
Dorothea Mackellar
Dorothea Mackellar dressed as one of the Graces for Mrs T.H. Kelly's Italian Red Cross Day tableaux at the Palace Theatre, 20 June 1918
The poem "My Country" was written at age 19 while homesick in England, and first published in the London Spectator in 1908 under the title Core of My Heart: the second stanza of this poem is among the best known in Australia. Four volumes of her collected verse were published: The Closed Door (published in 1911, contained the first appearance of My Country) The Witch Maid, and Other Verses (1914) Dreamharbour (1923) and Fancy Dress (1926).
In addition to writing poems, Mackellar also wrote novels, one by herself, Outlaw's Luck (1913), and at least two in collaboration with Ruth Bedford. These are The Little Blue Devil (1912) and Two's Company (1914). According to Dale Spender, little has been written or is yet known about the circumstances behind this collaboration.
Outlaws Luck
The little blue devil
A federal electorate covering half of
Sydney's Northern Beaches is named in her honour as
well as a street in the
Canberra suburb of
Cook. (The
Canberra suburb of McKellar was not named after her, but is often assumed to have been.)
Sculpture commemorates the Australian poet .
Dorothea Mackellar Inscription
On Australia Day, 26 January 1983, a memorial to Dorothea Mackellar was unveiled and dedicated in ANZAC Park, Gunnedah. The centrepiece of the memorial, a statue of Mackellar on horseback by Dennis Adams, was a temporary fibreglass version. The finished bronze version was installed in September 1983.
In conjunction with the January unveiling, there was an exhibition of a series of 34 water colour paintings by Jean Isherwood illustrating the writer's most famous poem, My Country. The watercolours were eventually put on permanent display in the Gunnedah Bicentennial Regional Gallery. Isherwood set about painting a series of oils based on the watercolours which were exhibited at the Artarmon Galleries in
Sydney in 1986.
Mackellar's notebook with first two verses
The Mackellar family owned several properties in the Gunnedah area, including "Kurrumbede" and "The Rampadells" on the Blue Vale Road near Gunnedah. Dorothea Mackellar, author of the poem My Country, found the inspiration for that poem on her brother`s property `Kurrembede` where she witnessed the breaking of a severe drought. The first draft of what was to become Australia`s most quoted and best loved poem, My Country , was written in England at a time when Dorothea was feeling homesick. Never quite content with the verses, she wrote and re-wrote the poem several times after returning to Australia.
In the New Year's Day Honours of 1968, Dorothea Mackellar was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to Australian literature.She died two weeks later. She is buried with her father and family in Waverley
Cemetery overlooking the open ocean. Also her poem Colour, her own favourite, was read at the service.
Dorothea Mackellar's 'My country' as a song
And here is a video clip of the same verse by Christine Roberts with a selection of my photo's, I think many of you will know some of these locations.
.