Adam Lindsay Gordon makes the colourful leap into poetry/myth in South Australia's south east from 1855
In 1864, Adam Lindsay Gordon bought the Dingley Dell cottage, near Port MacDonnell, in South Australia's south east. That year he also performed the daring riding feat known as Gordon's Leap on the edge of Mount Gambier’s Blue Lake. An obelisk marks the spot.
Dingley Dell image by Sharon Bruhn, courtesy South Australian Heritage Council.
Poet Adam Lindsay Gordon, aged 20, arrived in Adelaide in 1853 with a letter of introduction to the South Australian governor from his military father who’d sent his son from England as a fresh start from his wild and aimless life.
Gordon joined the South Australian mounted police and was the groom to senior officer Alexander Tolmer before being stationed at Mount Gambier and Penola. He left the police in 1855 and took up horse breaking in the south-east district.
In 1857, he met Catholic priest, geologist and educationist, Julian Tenison-Woods, who, with Mary MacKillop, founded the Congregation of Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart at Penola in 1866. Woods lent books to Gordon and talked poetry.
Inheriting his parents’ estate, Gordon resumed horse racing and won or was placed in several local hurdle and steeplechases. When the ship Admella ran aground on Cape Northumberland shoals, near where Gordon was staying in 1859, many heroic feats were attempted, including an epic horse ride to Mount Gambier, to rescue passengers. Ten years later, Gordon wrote a poem “From the Wreck”. Popular imagination credited Gordon with making that ride, although newspaper articles debunked the myth.
In 1862, he married Margaret Park, aged 17, and two years later bought a cottage, Dingley Dell, near Port MacDonnell. Inspired by six engravings after Noel Paton illustrating "The Dowie Dens O' Yarrow", Gordon wrote a poem “The Feud”, with 30 copies printed at Mount Gambier. In 1864, Gordon performed the daring riding feat known as Gordon's Leap on the edge of Mount Gambier’s Blue Lake. An obelisk marks the spot.
Responding to a deputation, Gordon was elected to South Australian House of Assembly representing the district of Victoria in 1865. In politics, Gordon was a maverick. His semi-classical speeches were colourful and entertaining but largely irrelevant, and he resigned in 1866. He found a good friend in wealthy fellow MP John Riddoch of Penola, and was a frequent guest at his big home “Yallum” where he wrote "The Sick Stockrider".
Gordon contributed verse to the Australasian and Bell's Life in Victoria and bought land in Western Australia but returned from a visit there in 1867 and went to live at Mount Gambier where he wrote "Ashtaroth, a Dramatic Lyric" and "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift". In 1868, Gordon moved to Ballarat.
After financial troubles and serious falls in horse races, Gordon shot himself in 1870. His wife returned to South Australia, married Peter Low, and lived until 1919.
