Cirrus@Austlit

Australian Colonial Narrative Journalism:

Richard Rowe, under the pseudonym Peter Possum, wrote a semi-regular column for the Sydney Morning Herald titled “Country Comments on Passing Events”. It was literary and observational in style and very popular. Rowe sometimes used the pen name 'A Sassenach Settler' when he wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald and Freeman's Journal.

After five years in Australia, Rowe raised funds to return to England by publishing a collection of his various writings – including poetry, translations and essays – under the title Peter Possum’s Portfolio. By 1863, he had moved to Glasgow as the principal leader writer of the North British Daily Mail. The following year, Rowe was dismissed from the North British Daily Mail and lived in poverty in London writing for the Scotsman and doing freelance work. By 1868 he had established himself as a contributor to Fraser's Magazine, Argosy, Chamber's Journal, Cassell's Magazine, Good Words and other journals, as well as the Australian papers. 

When Rowe returned to England in 1858, his departure from Australia’s journalism community was lamented.

Selected Articles:

• “Country comments on passing events”, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 November, 1857 – (an essay about the Sydney suburb of Balmain and cricket),

• “A Trip up the Hunter: How I started for Muswellbrook and only got to Maitland’, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 January 1856

• “A Trip up the Hunter: Pocketed At Last”, Sydney Morning Herald, 5 February, 1856.

‘A Trip Up The Hunter’ comprises chapters 1 and 2 of Rowe’s anthology,  Peter ‘Possum’s Portfolio (1858), JR Clarke, Sydney

• “Country comments on passing events”, 9 March, 1857, Sydney Morning Herald, (an account of coach travel in Sydney)

Obituary:

“Death of Peter Possum”, Obituary,  Queenslander, 14 February 1880.