Journalism and Regional Identity: The Colonial Writings of George E. Loyau

Abstract

This discussion of George Loyau's prolific literary output will examine journalism in the wider context of literary production and raise questions about the role of journalists as entertainers as well as social and political commentators. Journalism remained Loyau's working profession for four decades (1860–1898). Yet it is easily overlooked because of his significant contribution to early Australian poetry and history. Loyau's verse and fiction were widely disseminated in the colonial press of the 1860s and 1870s, a time when he wrote for metropolitan and regional papers in all the mainland colonies except Western Australia. Regional Queensland, however, was the starting point and final location for a remarkable career which combined periods of public prominence with harrowing personal adversity. Indeed, the distinctive irony of Loyau's career is that adversity was never more acute than in those periods when his reputation as a poet and historian was being made. By contrast, regional journalism provided Loyau with the material means and social support he lacked in the large colonial centres. A recurring theme for the larger study of colonial journalists is the question of mobility. While metropolitan and political reporting were mostly highly prized by ambitious young journalists, Loyau's career confirms the role of regional networks in journalism and the existence of a class of readers who continued to crave popular fiction and entertainment as weekly staples. Although such journalism remained at odds with the political culture of the Fourth Estate, Loyau's literary persona proved both durable and complex, combining a deepseated sense of cultural inferiority with the celebration of the ephemeral through the practices of popular journalism.