Henry Archibald Hertzberg Lawson was an Australian author and bush poet. Lawson, along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, is one of the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period, and he is frequently referred to as Australia's "greatest short story writer". Lawson, a passionate nationalist and republican, frequently contributed to The Bulletin, and many of his works helped popularize the Australian vernacular in literature. He wrote prolifically until the 1890s, when his output dropped due to battles with drinking and mental illness. He was once poor and spent time in Darlinghurst Gaol and psychiatric hospitals. Lawson, who died in 1922 from a brain haemorrhage, was the first Australian writer to receive a state funeral. He was the son of Louisa Lawson, a poet, publisher, and feminist. Henry Lawson was born on June 17, 1867, at a settlement on the Grenfell goldfields of New South Wales. His father was a miner from Norway named Niels Hertzberg Larsen. Niels Larsen traveled to sea at the age of 21 and arrived in Melbourne in 1855 to join the gold rush with partner William Henry John Slee. Lawson's parents met in the Pipeclay goldfields (now Eurunderee, Mudgee). Niels and Louisa Albury (1848 1920) married on July 7, 1866, when he was 32 and she was 18. At Henry's birth, the family surname was Anglicised, and Niels became Peter Lawson.
