Duncan Campbell Francis Moodie Duncan Campbell Francis Moodie i(A41850 works by) (a.k.a. D. C. F. Moodie; D. C. F. M.)
Also writes as: Austral
Born: Established: 24 Jan 1838 Cape Town,
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South Africa,
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Southern Africa, Africa, ; Died: Ceased: 11 Feb 1891 At sea,
Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: ca. 1869 Departed from Australia: ca. 1883
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BiographyHistory

Duncan Moodie came to South Australia from South Africa in the late 1860s, living in Port Adelaide. Known as a 'character', he was dismissed from his work for the customs at the port, and began writing 'The Chronicles of the Customs'. This proved successful, and he started the weekly satirical paper The Portonian, with cartoons by J. Eden Saville, in 1871. Appearing soon after the demise of Eustace Reveley Mitford's journal Pasquin (1867-1870), The Portonian was successful for a while, but did not survive past 1879.

While in South Australia Moodie published a book of poems and The History of the Battles and Adventures of the British, the Boers and the Zulus, in Southern Africa from 1495 to 1879...also A Short Sketch of South Australia (1879). He was active in encouraging enlistment from Australia to boost the British forces in South Africa during the Transvaal War. He later published another volume of poetry, Southern Songs, in South Africa in the 1880s. Moodie left Australia for South Africa some time after 1882. He died at sea en route to England in about 1891.

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • Lays from an Australian Lyre by 'Austral' has also been attributed by some to Moodie but this appears not to be the case. The British Library catalogue attributes it to Lady Anne Wilson (q.v.), Percival Serle in his A Bibliography of Australasian Poetry and Verse (p.11) states that 'this book is sometimes attributed to Lady Wilson, sometimes to D. C. F. Moodie. The internal evidence is strongly against either of these attributions and Lady Wilson has definitely stated that she did not write it'.
  • A separate publication of Blue Convolvulus, ([Adelaide] [prior to 1875]) is listed in L. H. Rye's thesis 'South Australian verse' [1934]. This appears to refer to an undated printed version of this poem, printed on Moodie's personal notepaper, and bound into the State Library of South Australia's copy of Poems by Austral.
Last amended 20 Feb 2007 09:40:23
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