Louisa Lawson: ‘A Splendid Horse Woman’

I’m a rider as well as a life-long horse lover and owner. So I was delighted to discover, as part of my biographical research, that Louisa Lawson was a skilled equestrienne.

As a teenager she escaped from the chores and overcrowding at home to get out in the bush, helping her father, who cut and carted timber using teams of bullocks.

‘She had become a splendid horse woman’ wrote her daughter Gertrude ‘and spent hours in the saddle trailing her father’s bullocks.’

Gertrude went on: ‘There were no fences and these animals wandered miles in search for grass. There are many tales of how this slender slip of a girl could be seen miles away from home out on the ridges.’

Louisa particularly loved to climb up into the local ranges to watch the storms roll in. Next to this she liked riding in the bush alone in the teeming rain, singing and reciting some of the many songs and poems she knew.

‘I thought much in a ragged way of poetry then,’ wrote Louisa. ‘It was my theme and solace in all emergencies. I could repeat verses from memory for hours, pretty sentimental pieces [or] poems of pain.’  Louisa went on to write that she ‘loved the vivid, forked lightning more than anything else, and was always sorry when my journey was done.’

Louisa’s riding days were curtailed when she married a gold prospector and had five children. But her skills with horses remained undiminished.

Daughter Gertrude tells a story about a coach and four that pulled up on the road in front of the Lawson place. The horses were restive, and the adult Louisa climbed into the driver’s seat to hold them while the driver strapped some luggage more securely to the tail board. One of the passengers alighted with an umbrella but a sudden gust tore it from his hand and sent it whirling over the heads of the lead horses. They took fright, plunging and rearing in a dangerous way on the narrow road.

Louisa called out ‘Sit tight!’ to the remaining passengers and, guiding the span of horses to the middle of the road, let them have their heads. In a few seconds the coach was out of sight.

‘My God,’ said the remaining passenger. ‘They will be killed.’

The driver walked to the fence in a leisurely way and lit his pipe. ‘She will be back in ten minutes or so, with some of the ginger out of them.’

He knew there was little to worry about. Gertrude claimed that whenever Louisa had cause to go on coach journey, the driver (likely this same one, or one of his mates) would take the opportunity of a smoke or forty winks while Louisa held the reins. Apparently there was nothing she liked better than a lively four in hand and rough bush track to exercise her skill upon.

Sure enough, within a quarter of an hour Louisa was back with her sweating team well in hand.

‘How far did they bolt?’ asked the driver.

‘Oh I had them in hand in about half a mile’ she laughed. ‘Your passengers are shuck up a little but it might have been worse if I did not have had a clear run.’ Gertrude then notes that Louisa returned to her duties at home quite unconcerned and the coach went on its way.

Louisa was less lucky with her own horse one evening, when she was driving home from a lecture in Mudgee.

It was very late and, again according to Gertrude, the horse was young and nervous. As Louisa drove down the hollow where the road crossed the creek, about a quarter of a mile from home, the horse was startled by something. It shied, the cart hit a stump, the horse fell, and the cart was turned on its side. Luckily Louisa was thrown clear into soft mud.

She was up on her feet and sitting on the horse’s head before it had time to regain its feet – if she allowed it to try to stand, it would likely only cause further damage to itself, and to the cart. What she needed was a second person to unharness the horse, and then to help her right the cart. She was there, pinning the horse down, for fully half an hour (and was beginning to wonder if she would have to remain there all night) before another traveller came to her aid.

True to form, the next day Louisa commenced a local petition and the Eurunderee Bridge was soon installed.

Anecdotes like these, presumably told to Gertrude by Louisa herself, are biographical gold. They provide valuable insight into Louisa’s character, her interests and her way of life.  The fact that they also make for marvellous mental images is just a bonus!

Notes:

Sadly, there are no existing images of Louisa Lawson interacting with a horse! So I’ve made do with this image from a 1982 edition of A Little Bush Maid, a novel written by Mary Grant Bruce and originally published in 1910. Why yes, I did read all the Billabong books when I was a child. Why do you ask, haha? Click through to an article I wrote about revisiting the Billabong books.

Gertrude’s recollections about her mother Louisa Lawson, and the draft of Louisa’s own autobiographical fragment are held by the Mitchell Library. See the Louisa Lawson Papers and Volume 190: Angus & Robertson manuscripts by Gertrude O’Connor – Louisa Lawson, Her Life and Work, 1920.  Call No: A 1897 https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/1LjGg2g9

The Eurunderee Bridge over Pipeclay Creek was officially opened on 22 February 1881.