"Written in 1895 by the 'bard of the bush', Banjo Patterson, Waltzing Matilda is Australia's unofficial national anthem. Most people know it as catchy but meaningless ditty about a jolly swagman who stole a jumbuck (a sheep) and later drowned himself in a billabong rather than being arrested, but historians have suggested that Patterson actually wrote the tune as a political anthem. The 1890s was a period of social and political upheaval in Queensland. The decade was dominated by economic crisis, mass unemployment and a series of shearers' strikes in outback Queensland .... During the violent 1894 shearers' strike on Dagworth Station, rebel shearers had burned down seven woolsheds, leading the police to declare martial law and place a reward of 1000 pounds on the head of their leader, Samuel Hofmeister. Rather than face arrest, Hofmeister drowned himself in a billabong.
" [The Rough Guide]
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