Free Selector, The

DESCRIPTION: "Ye sons of industry, to you I belong, And to you I would dedicate a verse or a song, Rejoicing over the victory John Robertson has won, Now the Land Bill has passed...." The singer rejoices that he will be able to settle down and work rather than travel
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1954 (Wannan)
KEYWORDS: home Australia farming
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1861 - Sir John Robertson passes the New South Wales Free Selection Act, allowing the poorer members of the population freer access to land
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Ward-PenguinBookOfAustralianBallads, p. 87, "The Free Selector's Song - 1861" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Bill Wannan, _The Australians: Yarns, ballads and legends of the Australian tradition_, 1954 (page references are to the 1988 Penguin edition), p. 178, "The Free Selector" (1 text)
Bill Beatty, _A Treasury of Australian Folk Tales & Traditions_, 1960 (I use the 1969 Walkabout Paperbacks edition), p. 281, "The Free Selector" (1 text)
NOTES [45 words]: Wannan calls this "A song of 1861," which it clearly is, but gives no reference to the source except "traditional." Yet Ward-PenguinBookOfAustralianBallads's version is significantly different, so there does seem to have been some change by tradition (or something). - RBW
Last updated in version 4.5
File: Wanna178

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