Labour Australia

Ernest Ross Antony. Birth: 28 May 1894, Yea, Vic. Married Anne Marshall in 1943 (d.1981). Death: 17 July 1960, Gunnedah, NSW.

Wharfie poet. Moved with family from dairy farm at Yea to Meckering, W.A. where father was farmer and road builder. Left school aged 13 years, moving around Australia from Wyndham and Darwin where worked on construction of meat works and was shunter and guard on bull trains; canecutting in Queensland, then to NSW and Victoria in numerous itinerant jobs. Wrote poems from his experiences of working life. 1922-1930, farm labourer, also building worker, carpenter, mule team driver, camel driver, railwayman, prospector, timber worker, canecutter, market gardener, dog trainer, cattle drover. Waterside worker at Newcastle, Port Stephens, Port Kembla, Port Melbourne, Sydney. Most famous poem, ‘The Hungry Mile’. Lived on pension in retirement in Gunnedah. Poems usually published in labour newspapers, with manuscripts being deposited in Mitchell Library, Sydney in 1965.

Maritime Worker, 14 July 1965