“Banjo” Paterson.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 1, 2 January 1901, Page 3

“Banjo” Paterson.

Mr A. B. Paterson, the famous war correspondent, needed little introduction in any part of the new Commonwealth, and he is almost as well known in New Zealand. The son of a squatter in the Northern Murrumbidgee district of New South Wales, he began his public career as a solicitor, being still a member of a legal firm in Sydney. But in his native colony he has distinguished himself as a fearless steeplechase rider, a golfer, and a tennis player, and more recently as a lecturer. He is best known perhaps as the author of “The Man From Snowy River,” and it was because of being then a practising solicitor that he wrote over the signature of “The Banjo,” the name of a horse he owned. He has been lecturing to immense audiences throughout the colonies, and his opening lecture has been fixed for Thursday evening next in the Theatre Royal, when the man who has seen so much of what everybody has been talking and reading about for the last twelve months, will recount some of the incidents which marked the progress of the British and colonial forces in South Africa. The lecture will be illustrated by a complete series of moving pictures and limelight views from “Banjo’s” own snapshots, which being fully described by him form a most attractive feature of the entertainment. The plan of reserved seats will be opened at Miller’s this morning at 10 o’clock.