George Farwell was an Australian novelist, freelance journalist, broadcaster and travel writer.

Early career

George Michell Farwell was born in Bath, Somerset, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. and educated at a number of different schools, ending with Forest School, Walthamstow

Walthamstow

Walthamstow is a district of northeast London, England, located in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. It is situated north-east of Charing Cross...

, which he left at age 17. He lost both his parents at about the same time, and after struggling to make a living in Depression-era London, he left for an eighteen-month expedition to French Polynesia

French Polynesia

French Polynesia is an overseas country of the French Republic . It is made up of several groups of Polynesian islands, the most famous island being Tahiti in the Society Islands group, which is also the most populous island and the seat of the capital of the territory...

. This led on to a life of fairly constant travel. Arriving in Sydney, Australia in 1935, he worked at various jobs such as deckhand, dock labourer and gold miner, and contributed articles to the Sydney Mail at the same time.

Writing career

Although George Farwell experienced a number of lean years in Sydney, he kept on writing about the various experiences he had on the job, as well as on his travels to various parts of the world. His first book, Down Argent Street, telling the story of Broken Hill

Broken Hill, New South Wales

-Geology:Broken Hill's massive orebody, which formed about 1,800 million years ago, has proved to be among the world's largest silver-lead-zinc mineral deposits. The orebody is shaped like a boomerang plunging into the earth at its ends and outcropping in the centre. The protruding tip of the...

, New South Wales, was published in 1948. He published twenty two books in all, including an autobiography and biographies of Charles Sturt

Charles Sturt

Captain Charles Napier Sturt was an English explorer of Australia, and part of the European Exploration of Australia. He led several expeditions into the interior of the continent, starting from both Sydney and later from Adelaide. His expeditions traced several of the westward-flowing rivers,...

 and E. D. S. Ogilvie. His articles and short stories have appeared in numerous publications, including The Bulletin

The Bulletin

The Bulletin was an Australian weekly magazine that was published in Sydney from 1880 until January 2008. It was influential in Australian culture and politics from about 1890 until World War I, the period when it was identified with the "Bulletin school" of Australian literature. Its influence...

 and Walkabout

Walkabout magazine

Walkabout was an Australian illustrated magazine published from 1934 to 1974 combining cultural, geographic, and scientific content with travel literature. Initially a travel magazine, in its forty-year run it featured a popular mix of articles by travellers, officials, residents, journalists, and...

.

Last days

George Farwell died at his home in Kingswood

Kingswood, South Australia

Kingswood is a suburb of the Australian city of Adelaide in the City of Mitcham. It is bordered in the west by Belair Road, to the north by Cross Road, to the south by Princess Road and to the east by Smith Dorrien Street....

, a suburb of Adelaide, in 1976. He was survived by his second wife and two children from his first marriage. His ashes were scattered on the Birdsville Track

Birdsville Track

The Birdsville Track is a notable outback road in Australia. The 517 km track runs from Marree, a small town in northern South Australia, north across the Tirari Desert and Sturt Stony Desert, ending in Birdsville in south western Queensland....

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