Finding Voice
Emily Coungeau and 'Australia's National Hymn of Progress'
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1321816600004402Keywords:
Brisbane, Emily Coungeau, 'Australia's National Hymn of Progress', urban female readers, woman writerAbstract
In late nineteenth and early twentieth century Brisbane, writing became a profession that was increasingly open to women. This phenomenon developed partly in response to a rapidly expanding urban female audience, but in turn it helped to form the tastes, reading habits and social attitudes of new generations of female readers. The prolific and popular poet Emily Coungeau exemplifies a new, self-consciously cosmopolitan type of woman writer who emerged in Brisbane in the early twentieth century.
References
Despite extensive searches, I have failed to find any official record of Emily Howard's birth.
May, Bernice, ‘E. Coungeau’, The Australian Woman's Mirror, 3 April 1928, p. 11.
Coungeau, Emily, ‘The Legend of Osyth's Wood’, 'Stella Australis': Poems, Verses and Fragments, 1st edn, Brisbane: Gordon and Gotch, 1914, pp. 87–89; Emily Coungeau, ‘A Roman Road’, Fern Leaves: Poems and Verse, Brisbane: W.R. Smith and Paterson, 1934, pp. 31–33.
May, ‘E. Coungeau’, p. 11.
May, ‘E. Coungeau’, pp. 11, 35.
The surname ‘Coungeau’ is a Gallicized version of Kongos. See Gilchrist, Hugh, Australians and Greeks, Volume 1: The Early Years. Sydney: Halstead Press, 1992, p. 233. Naoum was often Anglicised as Norman.
May, ‘Coungeau, E.’, p. 11.
Clarke, Drury, letter to Russell Hemingway dated 31 May 1982, JOL Coungeau B106.
Coungeau, Emily, letter to Mrs Bertie [the poet E.M. England], 1 Dec. 1927, Fryer Library F1291a.
Information from Mrs Elisabeth Gobolos, the great-niece of Emily Coungeau. See entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography for Amos William Howard (1848–1930), who migrated to Australia in 1876.
Poem signed Emily Howard, S.S. [Delcomyn], 14/4/87, in the papers of Mrs Elisabeth Gobolos.
See Gilchrist, Hugh, Australians and Greeks: Volume 1: The Early Years, p. 233. Gilchrist claims that Naoum Kongos arrived in Australia in 1889.
Clarke, Drury, letter to Russell Hemingway, 31 May 1982, John Oxley Library, Coungeau B106. I have been unable to establish conclusively that the earlier business was located on the same premises, but it appears very likely.
‘The Olympia [sic] Cafe’, Brisbane Courier, 29 October, 1898, p. 4. Advertisements in the same newspaper show that the correct name was the Olympian Cafe.
May, ‘E. Coungeau’, pp. 11, 35.
‘Emily Coungeau Passes On’, Sunday Mail, 2 August 1936, p. 23. Drury Clarke, letter to Russell Hemingway dated 31 Mary 1982, John Oxley Library, Coungeau B106. The Coungeaus appear to have lived on the premises.
May, ‘E. Coungeau’, p. 11.
H.Y., ‘Emily Coungeau Passes On, By a Friend’, The Sunday Mail, 2 August, 1936, p. 2. The Courier-Mail acquired two aeroplanes in December 1927, becoming the first daily newspaper in Australia to found its own air delivery service. The publicity contains no reference to a donation from the Coungeaus, but such a gift would be consistent with their enthusiasm for both culture and commercial development, and their friendship with Charles Herbert Briggs of The Courier-Mail.
Lahey, Vida, ‘Monday Morning’ (1912), oil on canvas, Queensland Art Gallery, Acc. 1:0122 (gift of Madame Emily Coungeau through the Queensland Art Society, 1912).
Lahey, Shirley, The Laheys: Pioneer Settlers and Sawmillers, Taringa, Qld: Shirley Lahey, 2003), pp. 237–38.
McInnes, W.B., ‘Jewish Quarter, Morocco’ (c. 1909–12), oil on canvas board, Queensland Art Gallery, Acc. 1:0052, gift of Madame Emily Coungeau, 1914.
Coungeau, Emily, letter to Walter and Ettie Howard, 1 July 1936, in the papers of Mrs Elisabeth Gobolos. ‘Death of Mr N. Coungeau: “Coungeau House” Will Perpetuate Name’, The Courier-Mail, 8 September 1936, p. 17.
‘Noted Authoress: Her Delightful Home’, The Brisbane Courier, 23 November 1926, p. 18.
M'Mahon, Thos. J., ‘Bribie Island: Cypress Pine Possibilities’, The Brisbane Courier, 21 June 1930, p. 13.
England, E.M., ‘Emily Coungeau and Her Verse’, The Brisbane Courier, 28 January 1928, p. 20.
Fryer Library, F1291b, letter from Emily Coungeau to Mrs Bertie (the poet E.M. England), 4 December 1928.
Coungeau, Emily, letter to Ettie Howard 29 January 1936, in the papers of Mrs Elisabeth Gobolos. See also letter from Drury Clarke to Russell Hemingway, 31 May 1982, John Oxley Library B106.
A short history of Coungeau House is available at www.toch.org.au/coungeau_house.htm (accessed 9/10/06). In a telephone conversation on 9 October 2006, Ray Geise, Chairman of Toc H Australia, informed me that the house had been raised in the 1970s, but that otherwise it remains in its original condition. Painter Ian Fairweather's hut now stands in the grounds, after being condemned and relocated from its original site on Bribie Island.
‘St Osyth's “Cloistered Loveliness”: Rise to Fame of One of Her Daughters’, Essex Times and Gazette, 10 August 1935.
Kellow, H.A., Queensland Poets (London: George Harrap, 1930), p. 244. Kellow mistakenly refers to the poet as ‘Ethel’ Coungeau.
Coungeau, Emily, ‘The City of the Purple Hills’, Rustling Leaves: Selected Poems, Sydney: William Brooks, 1920, pp. 151–52.
Coungeau, Emily, ‘Queensland Pioneers’ in 'Stella Australis', 1st edn, p. 10.
Coungeau, 'Stella Australis', 1st ed., n.p.
Kellow, Queensland Poets, p. 243.
Coungeau, Emily, ‘Australia to the Empire Mother’ and ‘Australia's Destiny’, 'Stella Australis', 1st edn, pp. 61–63, 32–33.
Coungeau, Emily, ‘The Story of Anzac’, Rustling Leaves, pp. 121–23.
Coungeau, Emily, ‘The Price of Conquest’, Rustling Leaves, p. 97. Rustling Leaves contains a number of poems in this style, including ‘In Memoriam — Gallipoli’, pp. 101–02; ‘Cavell — Martyr— 1915', pp. 108–09; ‘Lest We Forget — Gallipoli’, p. 119; ‘The Return, 1919–20’, pp. 133–34; The Deathless Dead, 1919’, pp. 145–46.
Coungeau, ‘Austral's Heroes’, 'Stella Australis', 1st edn, p. 39.
Coungeau, Emily, ‘Byzantium’, Rustling Leaves, pp. 105–06. This poem first appeared in the Brisbane Courier, 31 March 1915, p. 9.
Coungeau, 'Stella Australis', 1st ed., pp. 1, 37, 49.
Coungeau, Emily, 'Stella Australis': Poems and Verses, 2nd edn (Brisbane: Gordon and Gotch, 1916). Bishop William Thomas Thornhill Webber (1837–1903) laid the foundation stone of Brisbane's neo-Gothic St John's Cathedral in 1901.
Coungeau, 'Stella Australis', 1st ed., pp. 13, 27.
Coungeau, Emily, ‘Centenary Prize Poem, 1924: Discovery of the Brisbane River: Commemoration’, Palm Fronds: Poems and Verse (Brisbane: Smith and Paterson, 1927), pp. 9–11.
Coungeau, ‘Opening of the Commonwealth Parliament: 9th of May, 1927: Commemoration: Invocation’, Palm Fronds, pp. 83–85.
Coungeau, Emily, Princess Mona: A Romantic Poetical Drama (Brisbane: William Brooks [1916]), pp. 18, [51], 52, 61.
‘Woman Librettist: Awakening of Australia: Island of Pearls’, Sun, 3 September 1922, p. 9.
Lahey, The Laheys, p. 237.
‘“Auster”: Hill's Idyllic Music Pleases Vast Audience’, Sydney Morning Herald, 1 September 1922, p. 10.
de N., L. [Ladislas de Noskowski], 'Auster’, The Sydney Mail, 6 September 1922, p. 33.
‘Woman's Letter’, The Bulletin, 7 September 1922, p. 42.
de N., L. [Ladislas de Noskowski], 'Auster', p. 34.
‘First Australian Opera: Libretto by Queensland Poetess’, The Courier-Mail, 28 February 1935, p. 13.
Hill, Alfred, letter to Emily Coungeau, 28 February [1935], JOL OM79.
‘Some First Nights’ in ‘Shows’, The Bulletin, 3 April 1935, p. 16.
Matthews, George, ‘Alfred Hill's Opera Has a Grand Presentation’, The Australian Women's Weekly, 6 April 1935.
Waters, Thorold ‘Auster: Premier of Alfred Hill's Opera’, The Australian Musical News, 1 April 1935, p. 4. Emily Coungeau transcribed this review into an exercise book, which also contained other reviews and some of her published and unpublished works (John Oxley Library, Emily Coungeau papers, OM79 — 17/7.)
‘Some First Nights’, The Bulletin, p. 16.
Kellow, Queensland Poets, p. 243.
ibid., p. 243.
McKay, Belinda, ‘“The One Jarring Note': Race and Gender in Queensland Women's Writing to 1939', Queensland Review 8(1) (2001), pp. 31–54.
Extract from letter from Emily Coungeau to her brother Bertie (Albert Edward Howard), 3 June 1922, in the papers of Mrs Elisabeth Gobolos. Coungeau's poem ‘Wirajuri’ was published in Emily Coungeau, Rustling Leaves, p. 116. ‘Reincarnation’ appears in Palm Fronds, pp. 19–20.
Coungeau, ‘Evolution’, Rustling Leaves, p. 28. A similar sense of geological formations as evidence of God's creation is found in ‘The Glasshouse Mountains, Q.’ (Rustling Leaves, p. 31), where these volcanic plugs are ‘Mighty Monoliths of Nature's Mould’ and the ‘watch towers of the plain’.
Duncan, George J. C. Mrs, Pre-Adamite Man: Or the Story of Our Old Planet and Its Inhabitants Told by Scripture and Science, London: Nisbet and Co., 1862.
Blavatsky, H.P., The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. II, London: Theosophical Publishing Co., note, pp. 195–96.
‘The Sentinels’, Rustling Leaves, p. 115.
Coungeau, ‘Wirajuri’, Rustling Leaves, pp. 116–17.
Coungeau, ‘What is Man?’ Rustling Leaves, pp. 42–43.
