I lived from 1833-1927. I was from Australia, and am in the Oceania category.
George Gordon McCrae was born near Leith in Scotland, on 29 May 1833. His father, Andrew Murison McCrae, was a writer in Edinburgh, his mother was the artist Georgiana Huntly McCrae, His father sailed for Australia in 1838, and George Gordon McCrae arrived in Melbourne with his mother on 1 March 1841. They lived for a time at Abbotsford, about two miles out of Melbourne, and then at Arthur's Seat, where his father had taken up land. Here George was educated by a private tutor, John McClure, M.A., who remained with the family for nine years. At 17 years of age, McCrae joined a surveying party as a probationer, and narrowly escaped being caught in the flames of "Black Thursday"*[Note: Black Thursday was the name given to 6th February 1851 when a series of bushfires burning throughout Victoria reached their climax. The temperature in Melbourne reached 47 deg C.]. After being in one or two offices to obtain business experience, he was appointed to a position in the government service on 1 January 1854. He remained in the service for 39 years becoming eventually deputy registrar-general, and retired with a pension in 1893, having reached the age limit.
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My poetry
- See where the allied armies camped,
Where plumed and painted dancers tramped--42 lines - Night waned and wasted, and the fading stars
Died out like lamps that long survived a feast,46 lines - There’s that in our lone Bush, I know not what,
Which ’genders silence; I’ve all that to learn.25 lines - ‘Life’s a cigar’: the wasting body glows;
The head turns white as Kosciusko’s snows;3 lines
