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Caroline Carleton

I lived from 1819-1874. I was from Australia, and am in the Oceania category.

Caroline Carleton (1820-1874), her husband and two children arrived in South Australia from England in 1839 and lived in Adelaide for some time. Her admirers later had a monument placed over her grave at Wallaroo.



The Song of Australia was the result of a competition sponsored by the Gawler Institute in 1859 to celebrate its second anniversary. There were 96 entries but it was the five verse song, written by English-born poet, Caroline J. Carleton which was awarded the first prize of ten guineas.



The song impressed Charles Cameron Kingston, the Premier of South Australia, so much that he asked public school teachers to teach it to all their students. It never became Australia's National Anthem though as the Commonwealth government preferred Advance Australia Fair, composed in Sydney in 1878.

My poetry

  • There is a land where summer skies
    Are gleaming with a thousand dyes
    45 lines, 1 comment
  • Oh say not that no perfume dwells;
    The wilding flowers among,
    38 lines
  • No priestly requiem is heard,
    Hushed is the voice of prayer,
    18 lines
  • On observing the light of two lamps in the
    Town form a Triangle with a conspicuous
    17 lines

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