Henry Kendall (poet)

Kendall was born in a settler's hut by Yackungarrah Creek in Yatte Yattah near Ulladulla, New South Wales, twin son (with Basil Edward Kendall) of Basil Kendall and his wife Matilda Kendall, née McNally, and baptised in the Presbyterian church. Kendall has also been known as Henry Clarence Kendall, for reasons unknown (however at the age of 5, his parents moved to the Clarence River area of northern New South Wales). Journalist and fellow poet A. G. Stephens sought to correct the confusion in 1928, publishing a pamphlet which included proof that the poet was baptised Thomas Henry Kendall, but stated the name of Henry Clarence Kendall at his wedding. As a youth, he received a private education. == Literary career ==

Starting from the age of 18, for ten years Kendall contributed articles to the Herald, ''Freeman's Journal, Sydney Punch, Empire, and the Australian Town and Country Journal with poetry and prose, before completing his first work, Poems and Songs'' for which he later thought little of it. In 1862 the English Athenaeum gave very high praise for some of the verses of Kendall, given "to be indicative of strong poetic faculty and power". From 1863 to 1869 he was employed by the New South Wales Lands Department and then the Colonial Secretary's office. he then contributed to the Australasian, Melbourne Argus, Telegraph, Punch, Colonial Monthly, and satirical papers Humbug and Touchstone; also winning a Sydney Morning Herald 1879 prize of 100 guineas Named for Araluen Creek in New South Wales, his much-loved, first child, and daughter (L)izzie Araluen died on 2 February 1870 aged 13 months, and was buried in "No Man's Land", the north-east corner of the Melbourne General Cemetery at Lygon and Macpherson Streets. At this time Kendall was noted to be poverty-stricken. Temporary or partial insanity was raised in defence and with witnesses called, this and related matters were covered by the judge; the jury finding after fifteen minutes that Kendall was not guilty on grounds of insanity, whereon the prisoner was remanded in custody "until the pleasure of the Executive was made known". He was discharged from the Darlinghurst prison on 25 January 1871. In 1874 Kendall returned to Brisbane Water north of Sydney, and a native knowledge of the landscape, The family moved to the Narrara Creek area outside Gosford. This led to locations such as Kendall Rock and Kendall's Glen. His work was influenced by English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909), as evidenced in the poem Campaspe, US poet Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) in The last of his tribe, and English poet Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) in the sonnet A reward. He lacked the rich humour of fellow-colonial poet Brunton Stephens (1835–1902), but was recognised for his love of nature with "accurate and vivid descriptions of Australian scenery". == Final years ==

The Kendalls had four sons (Frederick Clarence, Louis Frank, Athelstan, and Orara (1881–1882)), Arrangements were made for a monetary collection for Kendall's 32-year-old widow and children, with a monument also to be erected over the grave of "the New South Wales poet", to look out towards the sea. Yet by late 1884 it was noted there was no memorial stone and the grave looked neglected. Kendall's grave was moved in late 1886, unveiled by the NSW governor Lord Carrington, and oration by former-NSW attorney-general W. B. Dalley. Kendall's wife Charlotte died suddenly in October 1924, at Witing Street, Gore Hill, Sydney, aged 75, and buried alongside her husband. She was survived by their three sons and two daughters. ==Legacy==

In 1886 a memorial edition of his poems was published at Melbourne. A translation into German of selected poems by Henry Kendall taken from the book of his son Frederick C. Kendall appeared in 2021. In late 1920 a memorial statue was proposed for the Sydney Domain, to great interest. In 1926 a posthumous portrait of Kendall was painted by Tom Roberts (1856–1931), commissioned by the Australian Government, now at the National Library of Australia, Canberra. In May 1940 a carved Bondi sandstone seat, long, was erected in one corner of the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney to the cost of £500 funded from a bequest of Mrs A. M. Hamilton-Grey. Having written about Kendall, she felt he was "Australia's sweetest singer, and perhaps our great poet". The back of the seat has carved his words, "All my days have been the days of laborious life. and ever on my struggling soul has burnt the fierce light of this hurried sphere". When a member of the NSW public service, Kendall used to muse and write many of his poems in the park vicinity, enjoying the Moreton Bay fig trees and frequenting Mrs Macquarie's Chair. Poet Kendall—His romantic history (1927), and ''Kendall—Our 'God-made chief''' (1929), and upon her death left an estate of £2490, part of which was to make her books widely known. This matter was taken to court in 1938 with Kendall's sole-surviving son, Frederick Clarence Kendall asserting Hamilton-Grey's depiction of his parents' relationship was one of many inaccuracies. In the same year Frederick published Henry Kendall, His Later Years, self-described as "A Refutation of Mrs Hamilton-Grey's book Kendall Our God-made Chief". Comboyne Street in Kendall has a granitic sculpture to the poet (GPS ). His name is given to several locations: • The small village of Kendall on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales is named after him and not, as some suspect, after the similarly-spelled ancient town of Kendal in the County of Cumbria in England. run by Central Coast Poets Inc., has been won by poets Louise Oxley, Judy Johnson, and Joan Kerr. Unveiled on 18 April 1931, on the hillside above West Gosford, near "Lookout – West Gosford" is a stone monument located on a tight bend of the Central Coast Highway, erected by the Erina Shire Council and the Royal Australian Historical Society. The moment included Frederick Kendall, and Joseph Fagan, in whose home the Kendalls lived for eleven years. The marble plaque is inscribed: TO KENDALL'S ROCK There was a rock-pool in a glen Beyond Narrara's sands; The mountains shut it in from men In flowerful fairy lands. But once we found its dwelling place— The lovely and the lone— And, in a dream, I stopped to trace Our names upon a stone. ::Henry Kendall :R.A.H.S. ==Bibliography==