Biography Barcroft Henry Boake

Poet Biography

Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake was born in Sydney in 1866, the eldest son of Barcroft Capel Boake and Florence Eva Clarke. His father (Barcroft was an Irish family name) ran a photography business from his studio at George Street, Sydney.
Young Barcroft’s childhood was spent in Sydney, and for two years in Noumea, where he spent time with a friend of the family. When living in North Sydney, which was then mainly bush, he had to ride his pony to Milson’s Point before going to school across the harbour. Later he was to be described "a good horseman, and a first class bushman" and it was said "he looked infinitely better on a horse than off."

Barcroft had four younger sisters, Adelaide, Violet, Clare and Evie.
When he was thirteen Barcroft’s mother died in childbirth and his grandmother took over her role in the household. One of Adelaide’s children, Doris Kerr, later became a published author, writing under the pseudonym of Capel Boake.

Barcroft trained as a surveyor in Sydney before taking up a surveyor’s assistant position in 1886, based at Rocklands Farm, near Adaminaby in the Monaro district of New South Wales. He spent two happy years in this district, becoming friends with the McKeahnie family, and in particular their two daughters, Jean and May. Their brother Charlie, who features in some of Barcroft’s poems, was an excellent horseman and was said to be one of the men on whom Banjo Paterson based the Man from Snowy River . Barcroft’s experiences at this time, which were later to feature in his poems, included chasing brumbies in the Snowy Mountains and skiing at Kiandra.

At the end of his term at Rocklands, Barcroft headed north to seek adventure and work as a stockman and a drover. He initially worked on a sheep station at Trangie (near Narromine) then headed north again, droving cattle on the main Queensland-Victoria stock route from the Diamantina and then working at Burrembilla Station, near Cunnamulla, in Western New South Wales.

On returning to Bathurst in 1890 he lost all his savings when his droving boss splurged his cheque in a drunken spree. He had little choice but to return to surveying in the Riverina where he began to write poetry based on his bush experiences. His work first appeared in the "Sydney Mail" in 1890, and in 1891 his first verses were published in the "Bulletin".

In December 1891, at the end of his term of engagement in the Riverina, he returned to Sydney where he was caught by the effects of the 1891-1893 financial depression. His grandmother was dying and his father’s photography business had failed. After four months of being unable to find any work, and not long after apparently receiving news that “his best girl” was going to be married, he took his own life. Ten days after disappearing from his home he was found hanging by the lash of his stockwhip on the shore of Sydney Harbour at Folly Point, not far from where he used to live as a child.

The story of Barcroft’s brief but interesting life is told in the form of a novel in Hugh Capel’s book, “Where the Dead Men Lie , The Story of Barcroft Boake, Bush Poet of the Monaro .” While the story cannot be entirely “true” historically, it is told in a way that seeks to be true to the spirit of what happened. The nature of Barcroft’s relationships with the McKeahnie girls is a key feature in this story.

In 1896 Barcroft’s father wrote a detailed Memoir about his son.