Synopsis

John Shaw Neilson was born in Penola, South Australia, in 1872, the eldest son of Scottish farmers. In 1881, the Neilson family moved to the Wimmera district of Victoria to take up a selection, but they struggled in the poor country and Neilsons father was forced to find work on others stations. Neilsons formal schooling was limited and he soon ed his father, who was also a poet, as an itinerant bush labourer. For most of his life, Neilson lived in marginal circumstances