Brunton Stephens
| James Brunton Stephens | |
|---|---|
| Born |
17 June 1835 Borrowstounness, Scotland |
| Died | 29 June 1902 (aged 67) Brisbane, Queensland, Australia |
| Occupation | editor and poet |
| Language | English |
| Notable works | Convict Once and Other Poems |
| Years active | 1867-1902 |
James Brunton Stephens (17 June 1835 – 29 June 1902) was a Scottish-born Australian poet, author of Convict Once.
Stephens was born at Borrowstounness, on the Firth of Forth, Scotland; the son of John Stephens, the parish schoolmaster, and his wife Jane, née Brunton. J. B. Stephens was educated at his father's school, then at a free boarding school and at the University of Edinburgh from 1849 to 1854 without obtaining a degree. For three years he was a travelling tutor on the continent, and from 1859 became a school teacher in Scotland. While teaching at Greenock Academy, Stephens wrote some minor verse and two short novels ('Rutson Morley' and 'Virtue Le Moyne') which were published in Sharpe's London Magazine in 1861-63.
Stephens migrated to Queensland in 1866, possibly for health reasons. He was a tutor with the Barker family of squatters at Tamrookum station for some time and in 1870 entered the Queensland Education Department. He had experience as a teacher at Stanthorpe and was afterwards in charge of the school at Ashgrove, near Brisbane. Representations were then made to the premier, Sir Thomas McIlwraith, that a man of Stephens's ability was being wasted in a small school, and in 1883 a position was found for him as a correspondence clerk in the colonial secretary's department. He afterwards rose to be undersecretary to the chief secretary's department.
Before coming to Australia Stephens had done a little writing for popular magazines, and in 1871 his first volume of poems, Convict Once, was published by Macmillan and Company, which immediately proclaimed him to be an Australian poet of importance. In 1873 a long poem, The Godolphin Arabian, was published. These were followed by The Black Gin and other Poems, 1873, and Miscellaneous Poems, 1880. The first collected edition of his poems was published in 1885, others followed in 1888, 1902 and 1912. Of these the 1902 edition is the most complete. After Stephens entered the colonial secretary's department in 1883 he was unable (or did not have the financial pressure) to do much literary work though he wrote occasionally for the press. He was suffering for some time from angina pectoris before his death on 29 June 1902. His funeral was held the next day and proceeded from Wyuna, his residence at Highgate Hill, to the South Brisbane Cemetery. On the 10 November 1876 he had married Rosalie Mary Donaldson, who survived him with four daughters and one son.
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