Guide to the Papers of Kate Baker

Biographical Note

KATE BAKER (1861-1953): Catherine (Kate) Baker was born in Cappoquin, Ireland, on 23rd April, 1861. In 1870 she came to Australia with her mother. After finishing her schooling she joined the Victorian Education Department, her first appointment being to the North Williamstown State School. She was transferred to the country school at Wanalta Creek where she boarded at the home of Isaac Furphy, brother of Joseph Furphy. The Following year she moved to Burrambool School, boarding this time with his parents.

Kate Baker finally met Joseph Furphy in 1886, just as she was leaving the district. She talked to him at some length, and, after reading some of his sketches, urged him to write a book. Such is life, the first of Joseph Furphy's books, was published in 1903. It impressed literary people but had no immediate public appeal.

After Furphy's death in 1912, Kate Baker resolved to dedicate her life to the task of proving the writer's worth. As a result of her constant efforts Furphy's name has been kept before the Australian public.

Although the critical work, Joseph Furphy: the legend of a man and his book (1944) by Miles Franklin in association with Kate Baker, was Baker's only published writing, her valuable, if indirect, contribution towards the advancement of Australian literature was recognised. In 1937 she received the decoration O.B.E. 'for services to Australian literature'.

Kate Baker died at the home of her nephew in Melbourne on 7 October, 1953.

JOSEPH FURPHY (1843-1912): Joseph Furphy, son of Samuel Furphy, an Irishman, who emigrated to Australia in 1841, was born at Yering, now Yarra Glen, Victoria, on 26th September, 1843. He received his early education from his mother, his first books being the Bible and Shakespeare.

In 1852 the family moved to Kyneton where Samuel Furphy entered business as a hay and corn merchant. In 1864 Joseph Furphy bought himself a threshing plant and travelled the surrounding districts with it. He turned to farming after he was married in 1866. The land he selected at Colbinabbin was poor and in 1873 he sold out and bought a team of bullocks with which he set up as a wool carrier. He followed this occupation for seven years and then, after an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia among his cattle, he went to Shepparton to a position in an agricultural implement foundry owned by one of his brothers.

Furphy worked for twenty years in Shepparton. During this time he turned in a serious way to writing by contributing paragraphs and articles to the Sydney Bulletin under the pen-name Tom Collins. In 1905 Joseph Furphy moved to Fremantle, W.A., where two of his sons had established a foundry. He died at Claremont on 13th September, 1912. A portrait plaque of him was erected in 1934 at Yarra Glen, Victoria, near his birthplace.

Joseph Furphy saw the publication of only one of his writings, Such is life. The others, Rigby's romance, The Buln-buln and the Brolga and The poems of Joseph Furphy were all published posthumously. It is with Such is life that Furphy's reputation rests. H.M. Green wrote some fifty years after its appearance, 'Such is life is what Stephens said it was fit to become 'an Australian classic, or semi-classic'. Along with Lawson, though in a very different manner, Furphy represents the Australia of his day, and for good and ill he stands, more than Lawson or any other writer, for 'aggressive Australianism'.' (Ref: Green, H.M., A history of Australian literature Vol. 1. 1789-1923. Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1961, p633.)