Author: FIELD, Barron
Biography:
FIELD, Barron (1786-1846: ADB)
Barron Field is remembered as the first person to publish a book of poetry in Australia, though his poetry is widely ridiculed. He was born on 23 Oct. 1786 in London, to Henry and Esther (Barron) Field. He was called to the bar on 23 Jun. 1814 and was married on 4 Jul. 1816 to Jane Cairncross, two months before departing for Australia. In Feb. 1817 the couple arrived in Sydney, where Field became the new Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales (NSW). As the ranking judicial officer in the colony, he received 2000 acres of land in Cabramatta and was able to set his own court fees. He unfortunately alienated both the colonial elite and the emancipist majority, and in 1824 he was recalled to England on the advice of John Thomas Bigge, who had conducted a public inquiry into the government of NSW. Field later served as Chief Justice of Gibraltar (1830-41). His second volume of verse, Spanish Sketches (1841), was published there. He once again found himself in conflict with the governor, but remained in post and eventually retired due to ill health in 1841. He died in Torquay on 11 Apr. 1846, without issue. He was survived by his wife (d 1878). Field pursued literary interests throughout his life. Before migrating to Australia, he had moved in literary circles. He was a close friend of Charles Lamb (q.v.), reported on parliament and the theatre for The Times, contributed to Leigh Hunt’s (q.v) magazine The Examiner, and published An Analysis of Blackstone’s Commentaries (1811) which was reprinted several times. In Australia he published First Fruits of Australian Poetry, which appeared first in a nine-page edition (1819), and later in the expanded version included here (1823). Field later included the poems in Geographical Memoirs of New South Wales (1825), a collection of scientific papers that he edited on his return to England. He also edited several Elizabethan plays and wrote obituaries of Lamb and William Wordsworth (q.v). In a review of First Fruits for The Examiner, Lamb wrote that Field’s poem “Kangaroo” could “have been written by Andrew Marvel, supposing him to have been banished to Botany Bay.” Few subsequent readers have agreed with this assessment. (ADB 16 Feb. 2022; ODNB 3 Jan. 2008; Charles Lamb, Examinerno. 629, 16 Jan. 1820 [ProQuest], 39-40) MF