# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Stephens, James Brunton

​STEPHENS, JAMES BRUNTON (1835–1902), Queensland poet, born at George Place, Borrowstounness in Linlithgowshire, on the Firth of Forth, on 17 June 1835, was son of a schoolmaster there in poor circumstances. When he was still quite young, his family moved to Edinburgh, and he was educated at Edinburgh University (1852–4), paying his college fees, it is said, by teaching in the evening and in the vacations. He had a successful university career, although he took no degree, and on leaving college became a travelling tutor for three years, spending a year in Paris, six or seven months in Italy, and visiting Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, the Levant, and Sicily. Subsequently he was for six years a schoolmaster at Greenock, and did some writing in a small way. In 1866, on account of health, he emigrated to Queensland, and landed in the colony about the end of April. For a short time he lived with a cousin at Kangaroo Point on the outskirts of Brisbane. He engaged ​in tutorial work there, and afterwards at a bush station, where he wrote the first and most important of his poems, ’Convict Once.' This was publish in London in 1871. In 1873 he was appointed a teacher in the department of public instruction under the government of Queensland, and became headmaster successively of schools at Stanthorpe on the Darling Downs and at Ashgrove in the Brisbane suburbs. In 1883 he was appointed by Sir Thomas Mcllwraith correspondence clerk in the colonial secretary's office. He proved a capable and hard-working official, and was chief clerk and acting under-secretary, when he died at Brisbane on 29 June 1902. He was buried in the South Brisbane cemetery. In 1876 he married Rosalie, eldest daughter of Thomas Willet Donaldson, of Danescourt, co. Meath, Ireland, and left one son and four daughters.
Stephens, who stands in the forefront of Australian poets, long contributed both verse and prose to Australian newspapers and reviews. A blank verse poem, 'Mute Discourse,' was first published in the 'Melbourne Review,' and 'A Hundred Pounds,' a novelette, appeared in the 'Queenslander,' being republished in 1876. His first separately issued poem, 'Convict Once' (London, 1871; Melbourne, 1885, 1888), written in EngUsh hexameters, alternately rhymed, showed a rare wealth of imagination and diction called forth by the Australian bush. Other volumes which prove his whimsical humour and metrical facility, as well as serious sentiment, were 'The Godolphin Arabian,' written in 1872 (Brisbane, 1873; new edit. 1894), and 'The Black Gin and other Poems' (Melbourne, 1873); 'Mute Discourse ' (Brisbane, 1878); ’Marsupial Bill' Brisbane, 1879); 'Miscellaneous Poems' (London and Brisbane, 1880); and 'Fayette or Bush Revels' (Brisbane, 1892). A collection of his poetical works was published at Sydney in 1902. Although he did not confine himself to Australian subjects, and some of his inspiration came from books and travel, yet his work bears the impress of Australia, especially of Queensland, where he spent his Australian life. He was a central figure in the literary circle at Brisbane which developed into the Johnsonian Club, of which he was at one time president, and which gave occasion to one of his fighter pieces, 'A Johnsonian Address.'
[Queenslander, 5 July 1902; Melbourne Review, Oct. 1884. by Alexander Sutherland; Mennell's Dict. of Australas. Biog. 1892; Johns's Notable Australians and Who's Who in Australia (Notable Dead of Australasia), 1908; Bertram Stevens's An Anthology of Australian Verse, 1907; A. H. Miles, Poets and Poetry of the Nineteenth Century, x. 469 seq.]
C. P. L.