E. J. Brady | |
---|---|
Born | Edwin James Brady 7 August 1869 Carcoar, New South Wales, Australia |
Died | 22 July 1952 Pambula, New South Wales, Australia | (aged 82)
Other names | Nedi Woolli |
Occupation(s) | Poet, journalist |
Edwin James Brady (7 August 1869 – 22 July 1952) was an Australian journalist and poet.[1]
From Irish parents, Brady was born at Carcoar, New South Wales, and was educated both in the United States[2] and Sydney, Australia.[1] Among his school friends were Christopher Brennan and Roderic Quinn.[3]
He worked as a wharf clerk, a farmer, and journalist, and edited both rural and city newspapers.
His political leanings were as a confirmed socialist, and secretary of the first Socialist League of Australia, in Sydney, 1890.[4][5][6] It was suggested that Brady and fellow poet Henry Lawson contemplated with becoming 'New Australians' at the 1893 New Australia settlement in Paraguay, away from the influences of capitalism.[7]
Brady was a friend with poets Will H. Ogilvie (1869–1963), Roderic Quinn (1867–1949)), Banjo Paterson (1864–1941) and Henry Lawson (1867–1922).[8] Several of those individuals were also members of the Bohemian group, the Dawn and Dusk Club,[9][5] with Brady being the last.[10] In 1910, Brady took Lawson on a poets' retreat, restoring Lawson's health.[11][12]
He was the editor of the Australian Workman, Sydney's first trade union newspaper, in 1891-92. The Bulletin and the Sunday Times were the repositories for many of his poems and prose.[13] In 1899, equipped with a notebook, gun, and camera, Brady drove a wagon from Sydney to Townsville (although intending to reach the Gulf of Carpentaria) and back, recording the lives of the settlers.[14]
Working at Grafton's Daily Examiner in New South Wales, Brady wrote under the pen-name Nedi Woolli.[15] The first name was an extension of Quinn's name for Brady, and the last name being an indigenous name relating to the Yamba area; with Quinn normally calling him Ned.[15] He later took over The Grip newspaper, but 'it went 'straight on the rocks' '.[15]
Brady later established a writers' and artists' colony at Mallacoota, Victoria in 1909,[16] and he continued to live there until his death.
He chronicled an eventful journey down the Murray River in a small motor boat from Albury to the coast in 1911 in River Rovers.[17]
A passionate nationalist, he achieved his greatest fame with his book Australia Unlimited, a bestseller from its appearance in 1918, which urged dramatic increases in the national population. In 1926, a book entitled Industrial Australia was being written about the history and growth of industry within the country.[18] His last work Two Frontiers was published in 1945.[8] He also sought to write the biography of The Bulletin co-founder J. F. 'Archie' Archibald.[19] Publishers refused to print the biography.[6]
Lines from his poem Far and Wide have been used in the Melbourne tourism advertisement running on ESPN2 and Tennis Channel during the 2016, 2017, and 2018 Australian Open.[20]
Brady, given as tall and debonair,[22] in 1890 married Marion Cecilia Walsh; and in June 1895,[23] married Annie Creo Dooley née Stanley, in June 1895. Aged 72,[22] he married Florence Jane Bourke in 1942 in Victoria, and had a daughter.
After retiring, he continued living in a tent home in Mallacoota.[6]
Aged 82, Brady died in 1952 at the Pambula Public Hospital of a heart condition.[8] He was survived by his third wife, and six children from his first marriage.[4]