The Breaking of the Drought is a 1902 Australian play written for Bland Holt by English playwright Arthur Shirley.

In 1902, at drought-striken Wallaby Station in New South Wales, a squatter, Jo Galloway, lives with his wife and daughter Marjorie while his son Gilbert trains to be a doctor in Sydney. Gilbert falls in with bad company, in the shape of financier Varsey Lyddleton, who encourages him to forge his father's name on some cheques and ruins his family. A neighbouring squatter, Tom Wattleby, who loves Marjorie Galloway, returns from a trip to India to find the father working as a lamp cleaner and the daughter was a maid. The neighbour rescues the family and the father swears vengeance on his son. However during a bush fire that ends in a heavy rain that breaks the drought, the hero rescues Gilbert.

The play made its debut at the end of 1902 and was very popular. Audiences and critics were particularly impressed by the stage design, which included things like real horses, recreations of Paddy's Market, swimming pools and real trees.^[1]

Annette Kellerman appeared in a 1903 production.^[2]

Holt later adapted another play of Shirley's, The Path of Thorns, to an Australian setting, calling it Besieged in Port Arthur.^[3]

The play was turned into a film in 1920.