William Gay was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

-born 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 poet.

Early life

Gay was born at Bridge of Weir

Bridge of Weir

Bridge of Weir is a village in within the Renfrewshire council area and wider historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland...

, in Renfrewshire

Renfrewshire

Renfrewshire is one of 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. Located in the west central Lowlands, it is one of three council areas contained within the boundaries of the historic county of Renfrewshire, the others being Inverclyde to the west and East Renfrewshire to the east...

, Scotland, eldest child of William Gay and his wife Jane née Tagg. Gay senior was a religious man, an engraver of patterns for wallpaper and calico, his mother came from an educated family. The family moved not long afterwards to the town of Alexandria

Alexandria, Scotland

Alexandria is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. The town is situated on the River Leven, four miles north-west of Dumbarton.As of 2001, the population of the town is 13,444...

, where Gay was educated at a boarding school. At 14 he became a monitor at the school and winning a bursary went to the University of Glasgow

University of Glasgow

The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...

. His father wanted him to be a minister, but the boy felt he could not conscientiously follow that profession and went to London hoping to make a living there.

Travel and career

Destitution and illness followed and Gay had to go back to his people. Again he went to London but his strength was not sufficient and he had to go into hospital in Glasgow. Tuberculosis threatened, and a sea voyage was tried and he arrived at Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1885. Gay obtained work as a purser's clerk on vessels of the Union Line for nearly two years, when illness again led to his living with some relatives at Hawke's Bay who nursed him back to comparative health. In 1888 he went 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...

 and obtained a mastership at Scotch College

Scotch College, Melbourne

Scotch College, Melbourne is an independent, Presbyterian, day and boarding school for boys, located in Hawthorn, an inner-eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....

 but teaching was beyond his strength. In 1891 he was in the Austin hospital, and in 1893 went to live at Bendigo

Bendigo, Victoria

Bendigo is a major regional city in the state of Victoria, Australia, located very close to the geographical centre of the state and approximately north west of the state capital Melbourne. It is the second largest inland city and fourth most populous city in the state. The estimated urban...

. His first volume Sonnets and Other Verses, published in 1894, was followed by two other volumes Sonnets and Christ on Olympus and Other Poems in 1896. A small selection appeared in 1910 and The Complete Poetical Works of William Gay in 1911. A prose essay Walt Whitman: His Relation to Science and Philosophy was issued in 1895. Gay was a supporter of Federation and edited "The Commonwealth & the Empire" with Mary Sampson.
Gay died on 22 December 1897.

Legacy

Gay was a slight man of average height and was said to have had some resemblance to Tennyson. When an invalid at Bendigo one of his little volumes yielded him a profit of £40 and another was even more successful. This could only have happened with the help of friends as the volumes are without popular appeal. Gay was fortunate that so many discerning and kindly people were able to help him and care for him until his death, because he was worthy of care. His sonnets rank with the best that have been done in Australia, and in a few poems such as "The Crazy World" he has written poetry expressing simple, forceful and unstrained emotion. His life was short and marred by ill-health borne with courage. Although the amount of Gay's work was small, it holds an honoured place in the history of Australian poetry.

External links

• The Complete Poetical Works of William Gay at the University of Sydney
  University of Sydney
  The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...