David Burn

David Burn (c.1799 – 14 June 1875) was a Scottish-born Tasmanian pioneer and dramatist, author of the first Australian drama to be performed on stage, The Bushrangers. He has been called Australia's first playwright.

Early life Burn was born in Scotland, the son of David Burn and his wife, Jacobina, née Hunter (1763–1851). David Burn senior died c.1820 and Jacobina emigrated to Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and became the first woman there to have land granted to her. David junior had a brief career in the navy, joining his mother in Van Diemen's Land in 1826. He failed to qualify for a land grant and returned to Edinburgh in 1829, divorcing his wife there.

Burn accompanied Sir John and Lady Jane Franklin on their expedition to the west coast of Tasmania in 1842 which was described in his Narrative of the Overland Journey … From Hobart Town to Macquarie Harbour, 1842 (published in Sydney 1955 with notes by G. Mackaness).

Death and legacy He had two children and was married twice. L'Independencia : A Tale of Brazil, 1843

Poetry Albert, or, The Exile: A Poem in Three Cantos, 1843

Drama The Bushrangers, 1929 Plays, and Fugitive Pieces, in Verse, 1842 Sydney Delivered; or, The Princely Buccaneer, 1845 The Queen's Love, 1845

Non-fiction Vindication of Van Diemen's Land : in a cursory glance at her colonists as they are, not as they have been represented to be, 1840 A Picture of Van Diemen's Land, 1841 An Excursion to Port Arthur in 1842, 1842 Narrative of the Overland Journey of Sir John and Lady Franklin and Party from Hobart Town to Macquarie Harbour, 1843