Carl Linger's 1859 'The Song of Australia' from a contest at Gawler becomes a candidate for the national anthem

Early sheet music for Carl Linger's "The Song of Australia", written for the Gawler Institute prize in 1859.

Carl Linger, another of the intellectual refugees from the 1848 German liberals' revolution, wrote the melody for the patriotic “The Song of Australia” in 1859.

Linger, who had studied at the Institute of Music in Berlin, came to South Australia in 1849 on the Princess Luise. He settled in Gawler, grew potatoes and went broke but had much more success in Adelaide where he won access to the wealthiest families as a music teacher.

He was the founder and conductor of the German Liedertafel in 1858 and composed church music, including the “Ninety-third Psalm” and “Vater unser”. He conducted Adelaide's first philharmonic orchestra and its first performance of Handel's Messiah in 1859. He often visited the Lutheran pastor Gotthard Fritzsche at Lobethal to attend his choir rehearsals.

Linger was active in most of the musical and choral societies. For several years, he played the harmonium at St Francis Xavier’s Catholic cathedral in Wakefield Street, Adelaide city.

Caroline Carleton’s “The Song of Australia” poem won a contest in 1859 at the Gawler Institute with a prize of 10 guineas and was published in the South Australian Register. The second phase was a contest to compose the song for the poem and lodge it in about a week. Of the 23 entries, Linger's tune (submitted under the pseudonym “One of the Quantity”) won the prize.

The song impressed premier Charles Cameron Kingston who asked teachers to have it sung in South Australian schools. A popular gramophone recording was made by Adelaide’s Peter Dawson in 1933.

“The Song of Australia” was one of four candidates for a national song put to a plebiscite in 1977 when it was clear favourite only in South Australia.