James Gordon

James William "Jim" Gordon (23 October 1874 – 12 August 1949 ), better known by the pen name of Jim Grahame, was an Australian poet who has been called the last of the Australian bush balladists. the son of John and Jane (née Morgan) Gordon's father was Scottish and his mother of Welsh descent. where Gordon attended school, leaving at 13.

Career Gordon spent the next twenty years working at a variety of jobs (including jackeroo, In 1903, his first verse, titled "Boundary-Riding", appeared in The Bulletin magazine It was also reprinted in 1905. All of these appeared under the pen-name "Balm Oral".

Gordon also began to have other written contributions accepted by The Bulletin around this time, under the pen-names "Balm Oral" and "Poor Hawk".

In 1940, Melbourne's Bread and Cheese Club put out a collection of Gordon's poems in a book titled Call of the Bush.

Friendship with Henry Lawson Gordon had a life-long friendship with the poet Henry Lawson. The pair first met in Bourke, New South Wales in September 1892 when Lawson had been sent there by his publisher to write and to dry out while Gordon moved there on his doctor's recommendation to escape the cold, damp Victorian countryside (where he suffered repeated chest infections).

The pair's first trek together was to Fort Bourke station, where they worked as roustabouts, in late October 1892. On 27 December 1892, they trekked from Bourke to Hungerford and back, a round trip of over 400km, arriving back in Bourke about 6 February 1893. After this trek, the pair lost contact for over 20 years; but they renewed their friendship in 1916, when they met again in Leeton.

In 1917, Lawson persuaded Gordon to adopt a different writing name to 'Poor Hawk', which resulted in him adopting the pen name Jim Grahame. Lawson also advised Gordon on ways to get his work published and also how to play one paper against another in order to get better rates for the poems that did make it to print.

In 1947, an honour night was held for Gordon Gordon's contributions to Australian literature were recognised at the national level in 1947, when he was awarded a Commonwealth Literary pension, and childhood hometown of Hamilton, Victoria.

In 1912, the couple and their two older children moved to the Yanco Irrigation Area in New South Wales near Leeton where the couple's other children were born. in 1949. In 1953, Gralee School opened in a section of the park made available by the local council.