Edwin Greenslade Murphy

Cover of Jarrahland Jingles

Edwin Greenslade Murphy, (also known as Dryblower Murphy or simply Dryblower), (12 December 1866 – 9 March 1939) was an Australian journalist and poet.

Murphy was born in Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia, the tenth child and eldest son of Irish-born Edwin Murphy (plasterer and clay modeller), and his English wife Ellen, née Greenslade. He was educated at a state school at South Melbourne and began employment with his father at an early age. Murphy developed a good tenor voice, and joined the J. C. Williamson Opera Company, sang in the chorus and toured with it for two or three years. Following the gold rush of 1892 Murphy went to Western Australia, arriving in Coolgardie in 1894 after walking from Perth, Western Australia. There he did some dry blowing at Fly Flat and participated in sing-songs around pianos in local public bars.

The Coolgardie Miner was launched by Billy Clare with help from Murphy, who contributed a weekly gossip column using the pen-name "Dryblower", a name which Murphy used for the rest of his life. Murphy travelled nort-east of Coolgardie to I.O.U (Bulong) and with two fellow prospectors, found a rich source of gold. With one of the other prospectors, Murphy travelled to London to float the 'Esmerelda' goldmine, but it slumped and he returned home. Soon afterwards he returned to England, writing for financial and social papers; he also helped to expose the hoaxer Louis de Rougemont before conducting him on a lecture tour. Murphy also enjoyed the London Gilbert and Sullivan operas, in which he sometimes sang. Murphy married Emma Eleanor Lowndes on 25 September 1895 at Hackney Register Office.

While on the goldfields Murphy had begun writing verse for the press ^[1] and about 1900 joined the staff of the Perth Sunday Times, to which he contributed a column entitled "Verse and Worse" for almost 40 years. In 1904 Murphy published a novel, Sweet Boronia: A Story of Coolgardie^{[citation needed] [2]}, which was followed in 1908 by a selection of his verses, Jarrahland Jingles ^[3]. In 1910 he settled in Perth, Western Australia and continued to write for the Sunday Times ^{[4] [5]} and also did public readings of his poetry ^[6] A further selection of poetry, Dryblowers Verses, was published in 1924 ^[7]. Murphy died at Perth, Western Australia after an illness of some months on 9 March 1939 . He was survived by his wife and three sons. ^[8]

Murphy wrote a large amount of verse which he probably made little attempt to revise. It was inevitable that many of his poems should be little more than jingles, as is suggested in the title of his first volume. At his best, Murphy was a good popular poet, and the verses he wrote when his son enlisted during World War I, "My Son" ^[9], succeed in expressing the mingled pride and anguish of the occasion, where a finer poet might have failed. Privately, Murphy was a born joker and a great teller of stories. In his newspaper column he fought for many a popular cause, and his humour and kindly satire made him the best-known and best-loved journalist of his time in Western Australia.

Notes

1. ^ Verse from the Goldfields / by Goldfields authors ; collected in 1971 and printed with permission in June 1973 by Margaret Bull. Kalgoorlie, W.A (From Battye Library catalogue: Margaret Bull started to collect local poems in 1970 and collected a large volume which she culled when she could not get it printed and printed the remaining collection herself. The poets included are: E.G. "Dryblower" Murphy, Alan Frank, Nancy Hobson, Evelyn Cull, Wm. McCudden, Kevin O'Brien and Diasy Breen.
2. ^ Not found in Australian library catalogues
3. ^ Dryblower (1908) Jarrahland jingles : a volume of Westralian verse Sunday Times, Perth - see illustration on this page of the unique cloth cover of the volume
4. ^ http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9033220?q=dryblower%27s+verses&c=collection
5. ^ See http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/24883/20090515-0134/john.curtin.edu.au/journalist/workern.html for a caricature sketch of 1912
6. ^ http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/32093618?searchTerm=dryblower%27s%20verses&searchLimits= - reported in The West Australian Saturday 25 February 1928
7. ^ Dryblower (1926). Dryblower's verses,1894-1926 E.G. Murphy, Perth, W.A
8. ^ "DEATH OF PARODIST, "DRYBLOWER.".". The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842-1954) (NSW: National Library of Australia): p. 6. 10 March 1939. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17578136. Retrieved 21 January 2011. 
9. ^ http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/38735/20060627-0000/wawriting.library.uwa.edu.au/cgi-bin/nph-dweb/dynaweb/wawriting/murphy001/_Generic__BookTextView/94;cs=default;ts=default.html#X

References

• Bennett, Arthur L. (1986) 'Murphy, Edwin Greenslade (1866 - 1939)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 10, MUP, 1986, pp 634–635. Retrieved 2009-10-26
• Bennett, Arthur L. (1982) Dryblower Murphy : his life and times Fremantle : Fremantle Arts Centre Press. ISBN 0909144621
• Bennett, A. (1988) Dryblower Murphy, ie Edwin Greenslade Murphy - reminisces about Murphy and his wit. Scoop (Perth, W.A), Vol. 2, no. 2 (June 1988), p. 21,
• Dryblower - in Quarterly review (Geraldton Historical Society), No. 56, May 1984, p. 9 - 11
• Serle, Percival (1949). "Murphy, Edwin Greenslade". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. http://gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog/0-dict-biogMu-My.html#murphy1. 

Persondata
Name	Murphy, Edwin Greenslade
Alternative names	Dryblower, Dryblower Murphy
Short description
Date of birth	12 December 1866
Place of birth
Date of death	9 March 1939
Place of death