Adam Lindsay Gordon

Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833–1870) was born at Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire, England, and educated at Cheltenham College and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, before emigrating to South Australia in 1853. He worked as a mounted policeman and horse-breaker, became a celebrated amateur steeplechase rider, and sat briefly in the South Australian House of Assembly. He published Ashtaroth: A Dramatic Lyric and Sea Spray and Smoke Drift in 1867; his best-known collection, Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes, appeared in Melbourne on 23 June 1870, and he shot himself near his home at Brighton the following day, worn down by debt and injuries from years of racing falls. He is regarded as Australia's national poet and is the only Australian commemorated with a bust in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, placed there in 1934.