Author Heather Knight: Poets, Painters and Pioneers - Banjo Paterson's Remarkable Family

Discover more about Banjo’s remarkable family at Orange City Library when author Heather Knight provides a fascinating insight into the life of the Paterson family.

Over the years much of the story of the Paterson brothers has been lost to time. Four young Scottish brothers and their sister arrived in Australia with ambition, money, vision and energy of youth.

They were well-educated, interested in politics and their community; imbued with intelligence, good humour, a fierce intellect and kind and charitable hearts.

As Australian pioneers, they took up remote lands on the Lachlan and Edward Rivers and in outback Queensland, bringing with them centuries of family experience in breeding sheep and horses.

The harsh reality of farming in Australia took its toll both financially and physically and within fifteen years their dreams of a squatting empire had collapsed.

Rather than an enduring heritage of vast sheep stations, grand homesteads or pastoral empires, the family legacy is Australia’s legendary poet “Banjo Paterson”.