Bernard Patrick O'Dowd was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n activist, educator, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, and author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 of several law books and poetry books. O'Dowd worked as an assistant-librarian and later Chief Parliamentary Draughtsman in the Supreme Court at Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

 for 48 years;
he was also a co-publisher and writer for the radical paper Tocsin. Bernard O'Dowd lived to age 87.

Life and work

Bernard O'Dowd was born in 1866 at Beaufort, Victoria

Beaufort, Victoria

Beaufort is a town in Victoria, Australia. It is located on the Western Highway midway between Ararat and Ballarat, in the Pyrenees Shire local government area. It is 387 metres above sea level. At the 2001 census, Beaufort had a population of 987...

, as the eldest son of Irish migrants.
O'Dowd had been a child prodigy who read Milton's "Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...

" at age 8. He had been employed as a head teacher at a Catholic School in Ballarat, but he was dismissed for heresy. He then opened up his own school in Beaufort. In the year 1886, at age 20, he moved to Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, where in 1887, he gained employment as an assistant-librarian in the Supreme Court Library, working with the Victorian colonial and State government until 1935, and retiring as Chief Parliamentary Draughtsman.

In 1886, Bernard O'Dowd joined the Melbourne Lyceum, which was the educational and social branch of the Australian Secular Society (A.S.A.). In 1888, several anarchists associated with the A.S.A, who were also members of the Melbourne Anarchist

Anarchism in Australia

Anarchism arrived in Australia within a few years of anarchism developing as a distinct tendency in the wake of the 1871 Paris Commune. Although a minor school of thought and politics, composed primarily of campaigners and intellectuals, Australian anarchism has formed a significant current...

 club (Australia's first anarchist society, formed in 1886) were expelled from the A.S.A. O'Dowd then joined the progressive Lyceum, which was composed of the anarchists Monty Miller, Upham, Brookhouse and Nicholls, plus other radical members who had been expelled from the Melbourne Lyceum. Bernard O'Dowd had become the editor of the Tetor publication during 1888, just before the split.

Over the years, Bernard O'Dowd's official career had remained distinct from his poetic and political activities. As an activist, he had joined the Theosophical Society

Theosophical Society

The Theosophical Society is an organization formed in 1875 to advance the spiritual principles and search for Truth known as Theosophy. The original organization, after splits and realignments has several successors...

, plus Dr. Charles Strong

Charles Strong

Charles Strong was a Scottish-born Australian preacher and first minister of the Australian Church.-Early life:...

's Australian Church

Australian Church

The Australian Church was founded by Dr. Charles Strong at Melbourne in 1884.Strong was a Presbyterian minister who, previously, had been charged with heresy because of his liberal theology. The Australian Church had a firm commitment to social justice and had been active in the anti-conscription...

 and, later, Frederick Sinclaire's Free Religious Fellowship. Active as a lecturer with the Victorian Socialist League circa 1900, O'Dowd was a founding member of the Victorian Socialist Party (V.S.P.) in year 1905. In 1907, he then founded the Essendon Socialist Group and, in the years 1912-13, O'Dowd assisted with editing the The Socialist. One of his colleagues in the V.S.P. was John Curtin

John Curtin

John Joseph Curtin , Australian politician, served as the 14th Prime Minister of Australia. Labor under Curtin formed a minority government in 1941 after the crossbench consisting of two independent MPs crossed the floor in the House of Representatives, bringing down the Coalition minority...

. In 1912, he had denounced the White Australia policy

White Australia policy

The White Australia policy comprises various historical policies that intentionally restricted "non-white" immigration to Australia. From origins at Federation in 1901, the polices were progressively dismantled between 1949-1973....

 as being "unbrotherly, undemocratic and unscientific." In 1913, O'Dowd became president of the Victoria Rationalist Association. In his official work, he had been appointed, 'on loan', assistant librarian in the Supreme Court, Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, in 1887. From the mid-1890s, O'Dowd had written and edited (sometimes ghost-written) several law books. In 1913, he also became first assistant parliamentary draughtsman

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

.

O'Dowd was a co-publisher of the first issues of the radical paper Tocsin, from 2 October 1897. O'Dowd wrote a regular column in the Tocsin, as the writer 'Gavah the Blacksmith'.

Bernard O'Dowd's partner Marie Pitt

Marie Pitt

Marie Elizabeth Josephine Pitt was an Australian poet and socialist activist, also journalist and Unitarian. Pitt wrote very highly coloured nature poetry, once much anthologised; and also wrote poetry in support of the socialist and labour movements...

 was also a notable poet and socialist.

O'Dowd's books of poetry include: Dawnward (1903), The Silent Land (1906), Dominion of the Boundary (1907), The Seven Deadly Sins (1909), The Bush (1912), and Alma Venus (1921).

Bernard O'Dowd's lecture calling for "the poetry of purpose" was also published as Poetry Militant (1909).

The words "Mammon or millennial Eden", taken from one of O'Dowd's poems, are inscribed around the Federation Pavilion, in Centennial Park, Sydney, a structure designed in 1988, the bicentennial year of European settlement in Australia, as a permanent monument to Federation.