Surprisingly there appear to have been at least two, perhaps three, authors with the name Jesse Collings writing in the first half of the 20th century: (1) the British MP (1831-1920) who published autobiographical and political works; (2) a journalist who wrote the novel "Please Meet Alphonse" (Lond: Jenkins, 1930); (3) the above author of books of poetry published in Australia. In one of the books he is described as an Englishman living in Australia, so it is possible that he is also the author of "Please Meet Alphonse". Another unresolved matter is how many authors used the pseudonym "Southern Cross". M&M and other sources (following M&M?) identify two: (1) Mrs E E Hill, who, according to M&M, published a short sketch "The Anarchist Foiled" (189-) and, almost forty years later, two plays "The Lure of Australia" (1931) and "A Pre-Wedding Tea Outback" (all by "Southern Cross" and all published in Sydney) and (2) Jesse Collings. NBD also lists Jesse Collings as the author of "Tales of Malaya" by Southern Cross (Penang, 1908) which, if correct, would have been written well before he came to Australia. In the 1931 edition of this work the author says he wrote the tales when he was 19, which means that he was born probably in the late 1880s and so is not the Southern Cross who wrote "The Anarchist Foiled" in the 1890s. However, the author of that work (Mrs E E Hill according to M&M) may well be the same Southern Cross who published two short stories and a poem in the "Australian Town and Country Journal" in the late 1880s.
