Adam Lindsay GordonPrint Page

The monument at the gravesite commemorates poet Adam Lindsay Gordon. The broken bluestone Doric column monument was erected over his grave soon after his death in 1870 by his intimate friends. 

In 1919, on the re-interment of his infant daughter, an additional panel was added and on the 12th May 1935, a further marble tablet with the words from Ye Wearie Wayfarer, Gordon’s most recognisable stanza was unveiled. 

Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-1870) was born in 1833 at Fayal in the Azores where his mother's father had a plantation. He completed his education in England and was sent by his family to South Australia in 1853 where he enlisted in the mounted police. He was briefly a member of Parliament and lived in Western Australia and Ballarat before moving to Melbourne. During his time in Ballarat he suffered a severe head injury in a riding accident, was bankrupted by a fire in the livery stable and lost his infant daughter. The day after the publication of his poems in Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes he committed suicide on Brighton Beach in Melbourne. Long after he died, enthusiastic admirers made pilgrimages to his grave. 

Adam Lindsay Gordon 1870

Adam Lindsay Gordon Memorial Tablet 1935

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