Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

From Stephen Kent

Sgt John Collinson

On the Road with Brother Rabbit

“Who’ll come a-waltzing, Matilda, with me?”
Unless you are Australian, this refrain is likely lost on you. It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with dancing. Nevertheless, hearing the term “waltzing” would invariably invoke thoughts of “Matilda” and you never knew why. The song from which it is drawn, “Waltzing Matilda,” is a rather melancholy Australian ballad laced with colloquial phrases and 19th century convict slang. As such, it is necessarily hardy, defiant, and welcoming to kindred souls. Thus, it is fitting that Brother Rabbit, a “swagman” in his own right, recently discovered this figurative “jumbuck” in the “American Outback.”

Ever since I was a little bunny I’ve had an enduring fascination with Australia. This is certainly due to what I like to call the “Australian renaissance” of the 1980s. It seemed as if Australia was this free-for-all of good times and adventure. Matilda Bay Wine Coolers, “Jacko” Jackson, Olivia Newton-John, Crocodile Dundee-the list goes on. Ned Kelly and “Breaker” Morant are my kind of guys. “Where women glow and men plunder” sounds like my kind of place. Not surprisingly, my Australian fascination was undoubtedly exacerbated by cassette tapes of the Men at Work albums “Business as Usual” and “Cargo.” Such is the power of music and, to all Gen Xers, “Down Under” is the quintessential Australian song. As great as that song is, it is, more or less, a late-20th century rehash of the same themes first put forth in “Waltzing Matilda.” Colin Hay merely followed in the footsteps of John Collinson who was the first person to record Australia’s “unofficial national anthem” in 1926. “Waltzing Matilda” is so embedded in the Australian national consciousness that it even has a museum dedicated exclusively to it in Winton. “Down Under” has a long way to go.

First composed as a poem in 1895 by Banjo Paterson while on holiday at a sheep station in Queensland, “Waltzing Matilda” has been variously characterized as a charming bush ballad, a pointed social commentary, or a national expression. Although popular in Australia well before 1926, John Collinson’s first recording of the song in that year helped to broadcast the characteristically Australian “resolve in the face of adversity” to the world-at-large. Collinson’s meteoric rise to an albeit limited fame in his lifetime is balanced with his equally abrupt departure from the stage and near absence from the historical record after 1940. An unlikely Australian, his stardom was serendipitous and was a direct result of demonstrating the highest order of “resolve in the face of adversity” during the First World War.

Born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England’s far north in 1892, Collinson’s enumerated profession was that of a “boilermaker.” If that isn’t the archetype of British “working class” I’ll eat my hat. As war clouds gathered on the Continent, Collinson embarked for Australia. What set him in motion is unknown. Nevertheless, he enlisted in D Company, 25th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force on February 10, 1915, in the service of God, King, and Empire.
In his first operational deployment, Collinson weathered the hell that was the Gallipoli Campaign in addition to surviving a lingering bout with jaundice. Australian participation in the campaign was made popularly famous by the 1981 movie “Gallipoli” starring a youthful Mel Gibson. Collinson saw the real thing “in colour.” Australian and New Zealander casualties were so significant that the campaign has been described as an inaugural inflection point in the development of a national consciousness in both countries.

Upon the close of the Gallipoli Campaign, Collinson and the 25th Battalion, A. I. F. embarked for France. On April 16, 1916, in the Ypres sector, Collinson received a gunshot wound to the right thumb and was evacuated. In those days comparatively few wounds were “golden tickets” and he rejoined the battalion in short order. It was during the subsequent Battle of the Somme that Collinson would have a brush with both death and destiny. On November 11, 1916, he suffered compound fractures to both forearms and his right thigh from shrapnel wounds. The wound trauma must have been significant as the official records variously enumerate the cause as either shrapnel or gunshots. Apparently, it was so severe they couldn’t tell the difference.

Evacuated to England, Collinson spent nearly a year in the hospital undergoing over 20 operations to repair his damaged arms that were once a necessary instrument of his livelihood. While still under the effects of chloroform following one of these operations, he burst into a spontaneous song. The attending nursing staff were stopped cold by his uncommonly fine tenor voice. After the anesthesia wore off, they encouraged him to participate in a hospital concert. He laughed off the idea as ridiculous. However, his impromptu performance was so compelling that they persisted. During this concert, a highly-placed society matron who was in attendance was so impressed with Collinson’s performance that she recommended him to Sir Henry Wood, perhaps the most preeminent classical British conductor of the 20th century. Wood embraced him fully and set him on the path of a new profession as a singer. It would be akin to Angus Young of AC/DC taking on an unknown guitarist with talent as a protege.

Following his discharge in December of 1917, Collinson enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music (undoubtedly with the support and prestige of Wood behind him) studying in both London and Milan. He earned numerous accolades. Upon graduation, he embarked on a singing career in classical opera, voice coaching, radio performance, and recording. He toured throughout England, Europe, and it is said he even toured in the United States. When called upon to perform at official functions, enumeration of his service with the 25th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force was always made. In 1926, Collinson, backed up by Russell Callow on the piano, sang and created the first-ever recorded version of “Waltzing Matilda” at a London studio. The rationale for recording the song is unknown, but it may have been an homage to his old chums in the 25th Battalion as “Waltzing Matilda” was a popular marching tune of the First World War era.

During these early years Collinson had married and fathered two sons. His wife was supposedly one of the nursing staff at the hospital where he recovered. However, love is fickle and may have been an adversary that altered the remaining trajectory of his life. An acrimonious split between he and his wife resulted in his departure from England for Australia in 1938. He arrived in the company of another woman. After this point in time, little to no information is known about the last 30 years of his life. He eventually turned up in the old pearling town of Broome in the 1960s. Broome, Western Australia. Do you know where Broome is? It’s 2000 miles northwest west of Nowhere. What demons or desires could have brought him so far? A neighbor recalled a lonely, quiet, and pleasant man with “calipers on his hands.” A remembered feature of the cottage where he lived overlooking Roebuck Bay were the frequent strains of classical music-loud classical music. He was found in the bedroom of his home one day in 1973 after he was missed at the local Anglican Church. He was 81.

John Collinson’s material legacy is scant. A grandson living in Sweden who never met him has a few photographs. Perhaps a handful of original recordings from 1926 are extant, one most notably in the collection of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. That was about it until the day when that “swagman” known, among other monikers, as Brother Rabbit intersected with the mystery of John Collinson far from Newcastle, Broome, and the Somme on a desolate road in the American countryside. You know I do love mystery, classical romance, and intrigue. His medals, lonely and forgotten like the man, lay amid a flat of tarnished forks, Matchbox cars, key rings, and crumbling rubber bands. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Some may question Collinson’s “Australian-ness.” If earning, through blood, the medallic trio colloquially known as “Pip, Squeak, & Wilfred” while in Australian uniform isn’t enough, being the first to record Australia’s “unofficial national anthem” certainly is for it was John Collinson, the “Queensland Tenor,” who first gave voice to the rebel spirit of a continent.