C. J. Dennis

Biography

Dennis was born in Auburn, South Australia, the first of three sons to Irish-born parents James Dennis (born 1828) and his second wife Katherine "Kate" Frances (née Tobin) (1851–1890), both had emigrated to Australia in the 1860s, his father leased hotels in, successively, Auburn, Watervale, Gladstone and Laura. His mother suffered ill health, so Clarrie (as he was known) was raised initially by his great-aunts, then went away to school, Christian Brothers College, Adelaide, as a teenager.

Dennis left school at 17 and worked as a junior clerk for an Adelaide stock and station and wool-buying firm; by the age of 19 he was employed as a solicitor's clerk. It was while he was working in this job that, like banker's clerk Banjo Paterson before him, his first poem was published under the pseudonym "The Best of the Six". He went on to publish in The Worker, under his own name, and as "Den", and in The Bulletin. His collected poetry was published by Angus & Robertson.

He joined the literary staff of The Critic in 1897, and after a spell doing odd jobs around Broken Hill, returned to The Critic, serving for a time c. 1904 as editor, to be succeeded by Conrad Eitel. In 1906 he co-founded and edited The Gadfly as a literary magazine; it ceased publication in 1909.

Dennis left The Gadfly and Adelaide for Melbourne in November 1907. In 1908, he camped with the artist Hal Waugh at Toolangi, north-east of Melbourne, near Healesville. Toolangi was his home for most of the rest of his life. Dennis married Margaret Herron in July 1917. She published two novels and a biography of Dennis called Down the Years.

From 1922 he served as staff poet on the Melbourne Herald.

In the 1930s he wrote some screenplays including His Royal Highness (1932) with George Wallace.

Dennis died in 1938 from cardio-respiratory failure and is buried in Box Hill Cemetery, Melbourne. The Box Hill Historical Society has attached a commemorative plaque to the gravestone. Dennis is also commemorated with a plaque on Circular Quay in Sydney which forms part of the NSW Ministry for the Arts – Writers Walk series, and by a bust outside the town hall of the town of Laura. At Auburn, the South Australian place of his birth, a drinking fountain and birdbath were unveiled in 1953 in his honour.

In 1976, ABC produced and broadcast The Life and Times of C. J. Dennis, timed to coincide with the 100th year of Dennis' birth. The docu-drama starred John Derum as Dennis and is set around the time when Dennis produced The Gadfly.

Criticism

Dennis had his detractors: "The Insect" (perhaps Herbert Low) of The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People called him "a doleful person", calling his prose "dreary imitations of Mr. Dooley" and his topical verse "very poor". Lumping Dennis with his successor C. C. Eitel, he opined that The Critic was "unfortunate" in its choice of editors.

Bibliography

;Books

• Backblock Ballads and Other Verses (1913)
• The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915)
• The Moods of Ginger Mick (1916)
• The Glugs of Gosh (1917)
• Doreen (1917)
• Digger Smith (1918)
• Backblock Ballads and Later Verses (1918)
• Jim of the Hills (1919)
• A Book for Kids (1921) (reissued as Roundabout, 1935)
• Rose of Spadgers (1924)
• The Singing Garden (1935)
• The Ant Explorer (posthumously, 1988)

;Selected individual poems

• "The Austra-laise" (1908)
• "An Old Master" (1910)

References

References

1. (23 June 1938). "Australian poet.". [[The Argus (Melbourne).
2. McLaren, Ian F.. (1981). "Clarence Michael James Dennis (1876–1938)".
3. (22 June 1932). "Memories of Laura". [[The Advertiser (Adelaide).
4. (22 May 1913). "The Hurling of a Stone". [[The Worker (Wagga).
5. (18 November 1905). "The Insect". [[The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People]].
6. (8 July 1917). ""The Sentimental Bloke"". [[The Sun (Sydney)]].
7. (2 January 1954). "Widow Sums Up". [[The Sydney Morning Herald]].
8. W. H. Wilde ''et al'', eds, ''The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature'', Oxford University Press, Melbourne 1994 {{ISBN. 0 19 553381 X
9. Vagg, Stephen. (10 November 2025). "Forgotten Australian Films: His Royal Highness".
10. "Australian Literary Monuments #18 - C. J. Dennis - Matilda".
11. "Australian Literary Monuments #3 - C. J. Dennis - Matilda".
12. "C. J. Dennis".
13. (28 February 1976). "C. J. Dennis, Laureate of the Larrikin". Australian Broadcasting Commission / Australian Consolidated Press.
14. (18 November 1905). "The Insect". [[The Newsletter: An Australian Paper for Australian People]].