POCKET GUIDE TO AUSTRALIAN BANKNOTES 4 The Reinvention of BanknotesTHE AUSTRALIAN INNOVATION OF POLYMER BANKNOTES

The Romance of the Outback

Paterson is portrayed with an image based on a poster advertising his lectures on the Boer War in South Africa, where he had worked as newspaper correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne's The Age. His popular verses portrayed Australian bushmen, drovers and horsemen, and characterised them as being independent and instinctual. The background of the $10 banknote includes imagery from his ballad, The Man from Snowy River (1890), depicting the dramatic recovery of a colt by a skilled horseman, together with his manuscript of its opening lines. Excerpts from the verse also appear on the banknote in microprint: tiny, clearly defined text that acts as a security feature. Paterson was also the author of the lyrics for Waltzing Matilda, and the song was adapted by Marie Cowan to advertise Billy Tea. The title page of her musical arrangement appears in the banknote's background.

During the Second World War, Mary Gilmore wrote some of her most celebrated verse, including No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest (1940), which supported national morale at this critical time. The banknote illustrates the poem's theme in an image of a bullock team with bales of wool, invoking the exertions that have contributed to the country's prosperity. Gilmore's manuscript of the refrain is reproduced on the side of the banknote and excerpts from the poem also feature in microprint. In her later years, Dame Mary Gilmore became a national figure and the artist William Dobell was commissioned by the Australasian Book Society to paint her portrait. A reproduction of Dobell's painting of the poet as an elderly woman combines with the youthful portrait to reflect the longevity of her creativity and influence.

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