MACKELLAR, Dorothea Estate

Isobel Marion Dorothea Mackellar was born on 1 July 1885, at her family’s home in Point Piper, overlooking Rose Bay on Sydney Harbour. The first draft of what was to become Australia’s most quoted and best loved poem, “My Country” , was written in England at a time when Dorothea was feeling homesick. Never quite content with the verses, she wrote and re-wrote the poem several times after returning to Australia. In the 1968 New Year Honours list her contribution to Australian literature was formally recognised and she was made an Officer of the British Empire. Sadly, only two weeks later on the 14 January, Dorothea Mackellar died in her sleep in the Scottish Hospital, Paddington.