Bernard O'Dowd
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Bernard Patrick O'Dowd (11 April 1866 – 1 September 1953) was an Australian poet, activist, lawyer, and journalist. He worked for the Victorian colonial and state governments for almost 50 years, first as an assistant librarian at the Supreme Court in Melbourne, and later as a
parliamentary draughtsman Parliamentary counsel are lawyers who prepare drafts of legislation to be passed into law. The terms parliamentary drafter, parliamentary draftsman, legislative drafting officer and legislative counsel are also widely used. These terms are used ...
."Bernard O'Dowd 1866–1953 by P.D. Gardner" (history), P.D. Gardner & Joe Toscano, 1 October 2002, webpage:
Takver-O'Dowd


Life and work

Bernard O'Dowd was born in 1866 at
Beaufort, Victoria Beaufort is a town in Victoria, Australia. It is located on the Western Highway midway between Ararat and Ballarat, in the Pyrenees Shire local government area. It is above sea level. At the 2021 census, Beaufort had a population of 1,712 ...
, as the eldest son of Irish migrants, Bernard O'Dowd and Ann Dowell. He was a child prodigy who read Milton's ''
Paradise Lost ''Paradise Lost'' is an Epic poetry, epic poem in blank verse by the English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The poem concerns the Bible, biblical story of the fall of man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their ex ...
'' at age 8 and was a student at Grenville College, Ballarat. His first job, aged 17, was as head teacher at a Catholic School in
Ballarat Ballarat ( ) () is a city in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 census, Ballarat had a population of 111,973, making it the third-largest urban inland city in Australia and the third-largest city in Victoria. Within mo ...
, but he was soon dismissed for heresy. He then opened up his own school in Beaufort. In 1886, at the age of 20, he moved to
Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
, and in 1887 took up a position as an assistant librarian in the Supreme Court Library. In 1888 he published ''The Australasian Secular Association Lyceum Tutor'' which he had edited and it contained several of his poems. It also involved poems by Jane Fryer whose family were leading lights of the Melbourne Progressive Lyceum and in 1889 he married her daughter, Evangeline Mina Fryer. The O'Dowds and Jane and John Fry lived in the same house for three years in North Melbourne. O'Dowd thought Jane Fryer was "a fine woman" "free of society's shackles" but the two-family household was unhappy and Jane was the prime cause. In 1913 he began a long career as a parliamentary draughtsman for the Victorian government, eventually retiring in 1935 as Chief Parliamentary Draughtsman. Over the years, O'Dowd's official career remained distinct from his poetic and political activities. Beginning in 1897 he was a co-publisher of the first issues of the radical paper the ''
Tocsin A Tocsin is an alarm or other signal sounded by a bell or bells. It may refer to: Cold War *TOCSIN, the codeword attached by the Royal Observer Corps to any reading on the Bomb Power Indicator after a nuclear strike on the United Kingdom during t ...
'', which was associated with the United Labor Party. He wrote a regular column in the ''Tocsin'' as 'Gavah the Blacksmith'. Active as a lecturer with the Victorian Socialist League from about 1900, he was a founding member of the
Victorian Socialist Party The Victorian Socialist Party (VSP), also known as the Socialist Party of Victoria, was a socialist political party in the Australian state of Victoria during the early 20th century. Most VSP members were also members of the Australian Labor ...
(V.S.P.) in 1905, and in 1912–13 assisted with editing ''The Socialist''. One of his colleagues in the V.S.P. was
John Curtin John Curtin (8 January 1885 – 5 July 1945) was an Australian politician who served as the 14th prime minister of Australia from 1941 until his death in 1945. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), having been most ...
, who later became Prime Minister of Australia. In 1912 he denounced the White Australia policy as being "unbrotherly, undemocratic and unscientific." In his private capacity, he was, at various times, a member of the
Theosophical Society The Theosophical Society is the organizational body of Theosophy, an esoteric new religious movement. It was founded in New York City, U.S.A. in 1875. Among its founders were Helena Blavatsky, a Russian mystic and the principal thinker of the ...
,
Charles Strong Charles Strong (26 September 1844 – 12 February 1942) was a Scottish-born Australian preacher and first minister of the Australian Church. Early life Strong was the third son of the Rev. David Strong and Margaret Paterson, ''née'' Roxburg ...
's Australian Church and Frederick Sinclaire's Free Religious Fellowship. O'Dowd's partner
Marie Pitt Marie Elizabeth Josephine Pitt (1869–1948) was an Australian poet and socialist activist, also journalist and Unitarian. Pitt wrote very highly coloured nature poetry, once much anthologised; and also wrote poetry in support of the socialist ...
was also a notable poet and socialist; they had a home at 155 Clark Street, Northcote. After 1929 O'Dowd and Pitt attended services at the Unitarian church on Cathedral Place. He declared a wish to be buried according to Unitarian traditions, but when he died, in St Vincent's Hospital, his family insisted on a Catholic funeral, the faith into which he was born. In the end, however, his will prevailed and the service was conducted by Rev.
Victor James Rev. Victor Montgomery Keeling James (19 March 1897 – 1984) was a Unitarianism, Unitarian minister in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Victoria from 1947 to 1969. He was the target of right-wing hostility in the 1950s and 1960s due to his activi ...
, followed by cremation at Springvale. The words "Mammon or millennial Eden", taken from one of O'Dowd's poems, are inscribed around the Federation Pavilion in Centennial Park, Sydney, a structure designed in 1988, the bicentennial year of European settlement in Australia, as a permanent monument to Federation.


Bibliography


Poetry collections

* ''Dawnward?'' (1903) * ''The Silent Land and Other Verses'' (1906) * ''Dominions of the Boundary'' (1907) * ''The Seven Deadly Sins : (A Series of Sonnets) and Other Verses'' (1909) * ''Poems'' (1910) * ''Alma Venus! and Other Verses'' (1921) * ''Selected Poems'' (1928) * ''The Poems of Bernard O'Dowd : Collected Edition'' (1941) * ''Bernard O'Dowd'' (1963)


Essays

* ''Fantasies'' (1942) * ''Conscience and Democracy'' (1902)


Edited

* ''The Australasian Secular Association Lyceum Tutor'' (1888)


Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Odowd, Bernard Patrick Australian activists 1866 births 1953 deaths Australian journalists 20th-century Australian poets Writers from Melbourne Australian people of Irish descent Politicians from Melbourne