James Grant Pattison

James Grant Pattison (28 January 1862 – 6 July 1946) was an Australian journalist and author, known for writing under the pseudonym of "Battler".

Early life Pattison was born in Hawthorn, Victoria on 28 January 1862 to Australian businessman and politician William Pattison and his wife Helen Margaret Pattison (née Grant).

The family relocated to Rockhampton, Queensland in early 1865. Pattison claimed his strict father's remarriage to Susan Stephenson Pattison turned down the offer of a half-interest in Megaphone which went on to have considerable success until the horse was badly injured in a fall in the 1891 Melbourne Cup.

Working life After his marriage, Pattison acquired a part-share in four local grazing properties. However, a tick plague in the late 1890s and the Federation Drought in the early 1900s forced Pattison to take any available work. Therefore, he qualified as an engine driver, learnt to bore wells, and became a bookkeeper on a cattle station near Normanton, Queensland. Pattison claimed that throughout his travels his clothes would become ripped from climbing through barbed wire fences and he would become hungry enough to actually enjoy curried bandicoot.

Pattison continued writing as a freelancer in his retirement, regularly contributing articles to The Pastoral Gazette, Brisbane Courier, The Queenslander and The Australian.

Death Pattison died in Wilston, Queensland on 6 July 1946.

Legacy In 2004, the Central Queensland Family History Association released On The Track featuring Pattison's work from the newspaper series.

In 2016, local Central Queensland publishing house Coorooman Press chose Pattison's book, Battler's Tales of Early Rockhampton as the first in a series of historical publications to be republished, which also included The Early History of Rockhampton written by J. T. S. Bird in 1904, and The Moving Mind, written by Lorna McDonald in 1985.